From a tax perspective, don't just look at credits etc, make sure you are claiming for everything you can, especially on the health front. With 4 kids, I'd expect you've racked up some bills that are not covered by your health insurance and those can be deducatable. I'll stand corrected on this but I think you can go back 5 years. Some other poster may confirm that
Heading into our 40's Zero Savings
- Thread starter Jollyman
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From a tax perspective, don't just look at credits etc, make sure you are claiming for everything you can, especially on the health front. With 4 kids, I'd expect you've racked up some bills that are not covered by your health insurance and those can be deducatable. I'll stand corrected on this but I think you can go back 5 years. Some other poster may confirm that
Yes think we cover ourselves ok on this one, and yes we have had a few issues that were not covered. 5 years is correct.
4 years back for claiming tax credits. https://www.revenue.ie/en/personal-tax-credits-reliefs-and-exemptions/four-year-rule/index.aspx
It is an exercise but it is worth doing, check all of them, health expenses will probably be the biggest element in your case but don't forget about working from home credits (there will be different calculations for each year as they have changed what counts and what refund you can claim due to the pandemic). Also worth mentioning the stay and spend scheme though it may not apply or you may no longer have the receipts as it was between 01/10/2020 and 30/04/2021. Revenue are prompt on the refund too. Just make sure you have all your receipts/evidence to upload. They require them uploaded now since last year, before that, aside from the stay and spend scheme, you didn't have to give them the receipts at the point of claiming you just had to keep them.
I think you are doing great, just suffering a temporary cash flow issue. This is what the €35K is for, no point having that in the bank and only €20 in your pocket.
Pay off the car and credit card with you savings.
Track your income and outgoings for a couple of months to see where your money is going, really consider each outgoing, what works best for your family, what your savings and spending goals are for the year.
What is 2023 going to be like
Is the wife going back to work full time
How much will childcare increase/decrease
What months will be expensive - like Aug/Sept back to school.
How much do you want to spend on each birthday/baptism/anniversary/Christmas etc., and then plan for it. You might decide to spend €500 for each event or €20, but usually if it is planned the kids will love it, whether it is sandwiches on the beach or a day out to Fota.
What are you deducting from your salary before take home and can you afford that and running a family of 6.
I would stick with the €900K house, it probably suits your family size and you sound like it is in a wonderful spot.
It is very hard at your stage of life to save because you have a lot of outgoings and responsibilities.
What would look good is
1) Rainy day fund
2) Planned spendings and savings
3) A full understanding of your income and outgoings. This gives you control.
4) Then you can plan for mortgage reduction/pension/ additional income streams etc.
If you and your wife decide that holidays are important then plan and save for them, including spending money
If you prefer to spend on sport and kids activities then go for that.
You just need to decide what works for your family and then don’t spend money in areas that you don’t prioritise.
Pay off the car and credit card with you savings.
Track your income and outgoings for a couple of months to see where your money is going, really consider each outgoing, what works best for your family, what your savings and spending goals are for the year.
What is 2023 going to be like
Is the wife going back to work full time
How much will childcare increase/decrease
What months will be expensive - like Aug/Sept back to school.
How much do you want to spend on each birthday/baptism/anniversary/Christmas etc., and then plan for it. You might decide to spend €500 for each event or €20, but usually if it is planned the kids will love it, whether it is sandwiches on the beach or a day out to Fota.
What are you deducting from your salary before take home and can you afford that and running a family of 6.
I would stick with the €900K house, it probably suits your family size and you sound like it is in a wonderful spot.
It is very hard at your stage of life to save because you have a lot of outgoings and responsibilities.
What would look good is
1) Rainy day fund
2) Planned spendings and savings
3) A full understanding of your income and outgoings. This gives you control.
4) Then you can plan for mortgage reduction/pension/ additional income streams etc.
If you and your wife decide that holidays are important then plan and save for them, including spending money
If you prefer to spend on sport and kids activities then go for that.
You just need to decide what works for your family and then don’t spend money in areas that you don’t prioritise.
Thanks so much for your reply feedback is greatly appreciated. Starting this thread alone has given me great focus to put more emphasis on our finances and getting things setup for now and into the future.
We have decided to pay the car loan and credit card with the €35k but setup an account to maintain the car payments for there duration to put back into the kids savings which will be relocated to a long term savings account. My wife is returning to work in March four days a week. Childcare will stay the same two days a week with grand parent covering the other two days.
I have started up a tracker of current spend and setting up a budget for future at the moment.
Rainy day fund will be priority I have next years centre parcs deposit paid, wife would like to go on at least one foreign holiday a year with a Disney land Florida (estimate €6-10k)and a Lapland (priced €8k for three nights) talked about in the next two years, personally I’d be fine never leaving Munster!
Look ahead
Registered User
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- 89
Its great to plan for nice vacations/experiences when kids are young.
If you live in scenic area I would def consider converting the garage for tourist purposes.
Thank you, yes i know its great to get the kids out see the world and travel! Travelling with 4 kids under 6 is far from what the bloggers or instagrammers would portray it though, our kids are great but you would personally come home from a holiday feeling like you need a holiday
Can someone comment on below it seems very high deductions per fortnight what should we look at here?
We also got an AVC Statement this week with €18k in it, she no longer pays into same, what should be done with this?
We also got an AVC Statement this week with €18k in it, she no longer pays into same, what should be done with this?
| Gross Salary | €63,426.00 | |
| Fortnightly | ||
| Gross Pay | € 1,902.00 | |
| Deduct | Tax | € 392.30 |
| Deduct | ASC | € 108.00 |
| Deduct | LPT | € 13.31 |
| Deduct | USC | € 58.19 |
| Deduct | PRSI | € 76.09 |
| Deduct | Pension 160 | € 84.65 |
| Deduct | Pension 320 | € 36.03 |
| Deduct | Cornmarket Income Protection | € 43.00 |
| Deduct | Cornmarket Diability Protection | € 10.81 |
| Deduct | INMO | € 11.50 |
| Total Deductions | € 833.88 | |
| Nett Pay | € 1,068.12 |
You should log into your Revenue myAccount and make sure that you're claiming all relevant tax credits for this year and 2019-2022 and, if necessary, request a balancing statement for those years.
Pinkpanter
Registered User
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Gross pay 1902 *26 pay periods per year equals
€49,452
€49,452
Which loan?
What sort of loan is it? Fixed or variable?
Sorry car loan, €20k with bank of Ireland
No, that's not correct if it's a straight forward personal loan. All BOI personal loans are variable.
Are you sure it's not car finance, like Hire Purchase?
Yes just looked it’s hire purchase arranged through the garage
Different story. Sorry, its so long since I worked with HP I can't remember the T&Cs of all the lenders, but they're probably correct that there's no discount for early repayment.
Sweet! I knew you were due a refund, but that's a nice amount!
Best option might be to pay a chunk off the mortgage. But I think you need to take some of the other advice on board; come up with a budget, track your spending, etc. Do you have large expenditure coming up that you need to put money aside for so you're not dipping into the credit card again?
Have a tracker in place and a budget completed until end of the summer. The tracker certainly opened our eyes. See below loosely catogorised, my spend and my income only for December.
No large spend planned outside of the holidays which the tax rebate will pay towards.
