Beyond the Livret A — how a Toulouse wealth advisor builds real investment portfolios

Matteo Dubourg explains, in plain French, how to move savings from a savings account to a diversified portfolio without becoming a full-time trader.

Most French savers park their money in a Livret A and hope for the best. It's safe. It's easy. It also earns about half the rate of inflation, which means every year of 'safety' quietly costs you purchasing power.

Matteo Dubourg spends a big chunk of his time at MD Patrimoine helping clients move from *saving* to *investing* — without turning them into full-time traders. Here's the framework he uses.

1. Split your money into three buckets

Before touching a single fund, Matteo builds a simple diagnostic with his clients:

**Short-term (0-2 years)** — money you might need. Stays in Livret A, LDDS, or a term account. Zero risk.
**Medium-term (3-7 years)** — money for the next big project. Assurance-vie in a balanced allocation.
**Long-term (8+ years)** — retirement, wealth building, freedom fund. PEA, PER, or the long-term pocket of your assurance-vie, invested mostly in equities.

The bucket comes first. The product comes second. Most bad investment decisions happen because the money in an 8-year bucket was invested like it was needed next month.

2. Choose the right wrappers

France gives you three great tax-friendly containers for long-term money:

**PEA** — 5 years to unlock the tax break, then only 17.2 % on gains. Great for European stocks and ETFs.
**Assurance-vie** — 8 years to unlock the best tax break, with a 4 600 € annual gains allowance after that. Also passes to your beneficiaries outside your estate.
**PER** — retirement savings. You get an immediate income-tax deduction on the way in, and pay income tax on the way out (usually at a lower rate).

Matteo mixes and matches these depending on the client. A young professional with a decade of career left often leans PEA-heavy. A high-earning executive uses the PER for the immediate tax break. A family with young children loves the succession properties of an assurance-vie.

3. Keep the allocation boring

This is where a good advisor earns his fee: keeping you *out* of exotic products.

A typical long-term Matteo allocation looks like: 60 % global equities via low-cost ETFs, 20 % bonds and money market, 10 % private equity (via an FCPR inside your PER or assurance-vie), and 10 % gold or 'satellite' assets.

It's not sexy. It's not designed to make you rich in six months. It's designed to grow steadily over 10-20 years with a level of volatility your stomach can actually handle. That's the difference between an investor who stays invested and an investor who panics.

4. Automate the boring bits

Once the plan is set, Matteo automates it: standing orders into the PEA / PER / assurance-vie every month, so money moves out of your current account before you feel it, and gets invested on a regular cadence. Dollar-cost averaging isn't a magic strategy, but it does two things brilliantly: it removes emotion and it forces consistency.

5. Review — but not too often

Matteo reviews client portfolios once a year, in a full 60-90 minute conversation. That's it. Anything more frequent tends to tempt clients into overtrading. Anything less frequent lets small drifts turn into big drifts.

Not sure where to start?

The 45-minute audit is designed exactly for this. Bring your Livret A balance, your assurance-vie contract (if you have one), a rough sense of your goals, and Matteo will map out the buckets for you in one sitting.