Age: 39
Spouse age: 39
Annual gross income from employment or profession: €52,000
Annual gross income of spouse: €77,000
Monthly take-home pay: c.€6,750. Children’s allowance of €280 per mth not included.
Type of employment: Both Private sector.
In general are you?: Saving
We started saving €3,333 per mth from Jul’20 to try to save €40,000 p.a towards a house extension being built at the end of the summer of 2021. Already have a chunky mortgage and don’t want another huge debt so trying to save as much as possible towards the extension. Aim was to save €50,000 and borrow €100,000 but due to Covid, can't see the extension being built until Q3-Q4 maybe even 2022; flip side is we will save more/borrow less.
Rough estimate of value of home: €380,000
Amount outstanding on your mortgage: €360,000 with 27years left. Bought in 2008. In negative equity for majority of the mortgage life so far. The joys
What interest rate are you paying? 1.5% tracker which is about €1,400 per mth
Other borrowings - car loans/personal loans etc: No other debts.
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? Yes, balance is nil.
Savings and investments: €23,333 in bank savings account towards the house extension and €38,000 in Credit Union account which was accrued mostly from children’s allowance. Want to keep about €25,000 of Credit Union savings as an Emergency Fund to cover 6-9 mths expenses. Know that 3-6 mths is sufficient but I have been made redundant before and although we weren’t on the breadline it was still tough and I don’t want to experience that again if I can avoid it. Didn’t have a buffer back then.
Do you have a pension scheme? Yes, me a DC scheme, currently paying 10% of my salary each year, company pays 15% (I was a late starter and trying to catch up) pot is worth €105,000. Wife also has a DC scheme but originally was in a DB scheme. Not sure of the value of her DB scheme but her DC pension is worth about €75,000. She pays 6% and her company pays 10%
Do you own any investment or other property? No
Ages of children: 9 and 7. Childcare costs €0 since Covid/Mar ‘20 and likely to stay like that as I can’t see myself going back to the office again
Life insurance: We both have company cover of 4 times our salaries. We also took out separate life cover of c.€600,000 (not exactly sure but think it's this amount) about 4yrs ago. That costs €103pm. One of my parents passed away before 50 (I was a teenager at the time) and having extra cover gives us peace of mind I suppose
What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern?
It’s taken a long time to get to where we are now and I feel like we have an opportunity to make big differences to our futures with some proper planning/guidance.
We do not want to have a mortgage when we’re in our 60’s. If I could I’d love to be debt free by my mid 50’s or even early 50’s. We’d both love to retire early- aiming for about 55/56 but with a decent pension....what’s a decent pension?! Not living on beans and rice more like steaks and wine please! €35,000 - €40,000 a year (incl. state pension if it’s still around)
We want to save €40,000 - €60,000 and borrow €90,000 - €110,000 for the extension. We have been able to save €3,333 per mth so I’d like to have loan repayments of the new extension loan being similar so it’s cleared asap. Once that’s cleared in full we can max out our pension contributions and overpay our mortgage
Is my approach the best way for us to achieve our goals?
Maxing out the pensions now and benefitting from compound interest for longer makes sense but we’d rather clear our existing and proposed debts first but I’d welcome any suggestions at all.
We didn’t have much income between us when we started out but slowly over the years it’s grown. Redundancy led me to upskilling and we both studied for extra qualifications to boost career prospects along the way but everyday life- having a wedding, 2 kids with associated childcare costs and commuting costs also hit us in the pocket- we both endured the magic of M50 journeys for years and we definitely don’t miss it!!! Plus we took out a 40yr mortgage..... we’re happy where we live and don't plan on moving so can’t complain too much. As case of needs must at the time.
We’ve set goals and achieved them as we went along...small goals like... getting health insurance, increasing pension contributions, getting life cover, writing a will, building up an emergency fund etc...(probably seems trivial to most people but it took ages for us to accomplish same). We’ve also had good holidays over the years and both have cars- all were paid for from savings so optimistic we’ll hit this target but can we be more efficient?
Sorry for the long winded saga. Appreciate your time and advice. Thanks
AAM is a fantastic forum/source- only wish I discovered it about 15-20 years ago!!!
Spouse age: 39
Annual gross income from employment or profession: €52,000
Annual gross income of spouse: €77,000
Monthly take-home pay: c.€6,750. Children’s allowance of €280 per mth not included.
Type of employment: Both Private sector.
In general are you?: Saving
We started saving €3,333 per mth from Jul’20 to try to save €40,000 p.a towards a house extension being built at the end of the summer of 2021. Already have a chunky mortgage and don’t want another huge debt so trying to save as much as possible towards the extension. Aim was to save €50,000 and borrow €100,000 but due to Covid, can't see the extension being built until Q3-Q4 maybe even 2022; flip side is we will save more/borrow less.
Rough estimate of value of home: €380,000
Amount outstanding on your mortgage: €360,000 with 27years left. Bought in 2008. In negative equity for majority of the mortgage life so far. The joys
What interest rate are you paying? 1.5% tracker which is about €1,400 per mth
Other borrowings - car loans/personal loans etc: No other debts.
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? Yes, balance is nil.
Savings and investments: €23,333 in bank savings account towards the house extension and €38,000 in Credit Union account which was accrued mostly from children’s allowance. Want to keep about €25,000 of Credit Union savings as an Emergency Fund to cover 6-9 mths expenses. Know that 3-6 mths is sufficient but I have been made redundant before and although we weren’t on the breadline it was still tough and I don’t want to experience that again if I can avoid it. Didn’t have a buffer back then.
Do you have a pension scheme? Yes, me a DC scheme, currently paying 10% of my salary each year, company pays 15% (I was a late starter and trying to catch up) pot is worth €105,000. Wife also has a DC scheme but originally was in a DB scheme. Not sure of the value of her DB scheme but her DC pension is worth about €75,000. She pays 6% and her company pays 10%
Do you own any investment or other property? No
Ages of children: 9 and 7. Childcare costs €0 since Covid/Mar ‘20 and likely to stay like that as I can’t see myself going back to the office again
Life insurance: We both have company cover of 4 times our salaries. We also took out separate life cover of c.€600,000 (not exactly sure but think it's this amount) about 4yrs ago. That costs €103pm. One of my parents passed away before 50 (I was a teenager at the time) and having extra cover gives us peace of mind I suppose
What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern?
It’s taken a long time to get to where we are now and I feel like we have an opportunity to make big differences to our futures with some proper planning/guidance.
We do not want to have a mortgage when we’re in our 60’s. If I could I’d love to be debt free by my mid 50’s or even early 50’s. We’d both love to retire early- aiming for about 55/56 but with a decent pension....what’s a decent pension?! Not living on beans and rice more like steaks and wine please! €35,000 - €40,000 a year (incl. state pension if it’s still around)
We want to save €40,000 - €60,000 and borrow €90,000 - €110,000 for the extension. We have been able to save €3,333 per mth so I’d like to have loan repayments of the new extension loan being similar so it’s cleared asap. Once that’s cleared in full we can max out our pension contributions and overpay our mortgage
Is my approach the best way for us to achieve our goals?
Maxing out the pensions now and benefitting from compound interest for longer makes sense but we’d rather clear our existing and proposed debts first but I’d welcome any suggestions at all.
We didn’t have much income between us when we started out but slowly over the years it’s grown. Redundancy led me to upskilling and we both studied for extra qualifications to boost career prospects along the way but everyday life- having a wedding, 2 kids with associated childcare costs and commuting costs also hit us in the pocket- we both endured the magic of M50 journeys for years and we definitely don’t miss it!!! Plus we took out a 40yr mortgage..... we’re happy where we live and don't plan on moving so can’t complain too much. As case of needs must at the time.
We’ve set goals and achieved them as we went along...small goals like... getting health insurance, increasing pension contributions, getting life cover, writing a will, building up an emergency fund etc...(probably seems trivial to most people but it took ages for us to accomplish same). We’ve also had good holidays over the years and both have cars- all were paid for from savings so optimistic we’ll hit this target but can we be more efficient?
Sorry for the long winded saga. Appreciate your time and advice. Thanks
AAM is a fantastic forum/source- only wish I discovered it about 15-20 years ago!!!