40s, no mortgage, interested in FIRE, any feedback welcome

Thanks that's really helpful. From reading up on savings accounts, it seems like all of the options available in Ireland right now have very low interest rates (and we would have to pay tax on the tiny interest). I really wish the ISA type products from the UK were available here. With high inflation, everyone is also saying that cash savings means your money is basically losing money over time. So I thought we would need to try to invest it in some way so that there would be some potential growth. Does that sound right?
 
Hi Steven, that's really useful advice. I agree about prize bonds and about the bank account fees and will get onto that. In terms of investing the additional money each month that we had been using to overpay the mortgage, where would we even start with this? This is what we are really unsure about.
 
Thanks for posting and for your encouraging comments about early retirement! We have looked closely at our budget in the past and reined things in in many areas to put more towards the mortgage and house renovations. We have probably drifted a bit recently and need to go through it again, cutting where we can. Unfortunately basic bills have gone up so our general running costs have drifted upwards too. I agree about putting an amount away each month with a view to having that to draw on later in early retirement but as I posted above, everything I'm reading says having cash sitting in an account earning virtually no interest with high inflation is not a good strategy.
 
People here have linked to better rates on: https://www.raisin.ie/
Many of those claim to have deposit guarantee's from the relevant governments, worth looking into if you are putting serious money in there.
Maybe put a bit of money across multiple banks.

Its going to be very hard to invest now to beat inflation without taking on risk and risk means you could lose a big chunk of your pot over a ten year period. So you are a bit constrained given your plan to retire in ten years or so. You'd imagine inflation will come down one way or another within a couple of years.

Another option is to buy a cheaper place in e.g. France, Italy or Spain, on a Ryanair route so you can come home cheaply when you want. You could get a small place for 150k and free up 300k when you sell your main home.

You could start buying that now, rent it out part of the time and start spending some time over there to get used to it and work on your language tapes!
 
Sorry for going slightly off-topic, but would you be able to elaborate on this (or link to any info as I can't find any)? I'm not sure I understand the implications of retiring early from a PS job. As a hypothetical example, say I work 15 years in a PS job and then "retire" at 45 years old (i.e. quit that job and maybe do some self-employed or part-time work). I understand that of course, they won't just start paying out a full pension at 45, and neither will they pay the full pension from 68 since I won't have contributed as many years as a typical PS worker. But surely I would get something in exchange for 15 years of contribution, such as a pro-rated PS pension from state pension age?
 
A PRSA relating to the self employment can be accessed from age 60.
 
The point being made is that a public service pension can't fund an early retirement as it can't be taken early
 
Fortune said:
The point being made is that a public service pension can't fund an early retirement as it can't be taken early
Click to expand...
I’m far from an expert on public sector pensions.

But, as I understand it, cost neutral early retirement is a possibility for all public sector employees from age 50.

And certain “uniformed” public servants (gardai, prison officers, etc) qualify for a full pension with just 30 years’ service.
 
Life insurance: We still have our mortgage protection policy and based on the original mortgage it would pay out about 150k today if the worst happened. We have no other life insurance policies other than some survivor benefits linked to our pensions.

Life insurance and mortgage protection are two dtfferent things. How mubh are you paying fir mortgage protection ?
 
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