Mid forties couple, with Family looking for guidance

D

Dermob

Registered User
Messages
17
Hi Folks, First time posting, I'm hoping to get some good advice.

Age:
43
Spouse’s/Partner's age:
43

Annual gross income from employment or profession:
E95,000
Annual gross income spouse:
E60,000

Monthly take home approx 8000

Type of employment:
Me Private
Spouse public

Expenditure pattern:
neutral, we have never overspent or over saved!

Household expenses of approx 1700per month excl mortgage,
Tansport expenses of 600 per month,
leisure expenses of 1300 per month (eating out/holidays/other, children & creche of approx 1300 per month.
generally dont finance a car, so every couple of years a car is saved for and purchased outright

Rough estimate of value of home
E515,000
Mortgage on home
E279,000
Mortgage provider:
BOI
Type of mortgage: Tracker, interest only, fixed rate
Fixed from 2022 for 5 years, approx 21 years left on Mortgage, monthly payments of 1380€,
3%

Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
None

Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month?
Yes, rarely use credit cards

Savings and investments:
combined savings of €40,000.00
Saving 1200€ per month combined



Do you have a pension scheme?
Yes, I pay E395pm into personal pension, only started 2 years ago
Her company pay E250pm into a pension

Do you own any investment or other property?
No.

Ages of children:
4 & 7

Life insurance:
Yes.

What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?

We have some cash to spare every month, but not really using it to do anything with.

We have 2 kids and would like to begin saving for their futures, we have some money circa 4.5k put away for them.

We dont mind living life but just cant seem to get a solid approach together for the future, we are not very good at savings and investments and looking for some guidance.
 
Last edited:
You seem to have a fairly good grasp of your income/expenditure so that's a good start. One of the best pieces of advice I got on here almost 20 years ago now was to create a spreadsheet to track all of this and set some goals. If your intention is to put your children through college then you have 11-12 years to save for the older child and you can set a target sum to aim for and work back from there to see what that means in terms of monthly saving. We did this and it meant we were always comfortable in what we were trying to do and could easily track if we were on target (usually reviewed it at the start of each year).
The most important thing with the spreadsheet is to keep reviewing it against your monthly accounts to make sure you are capturing all expenditure and income. Over time we have changed to using our credit card a lot more for payments as it provides a much easier way of tracking your spending.
There are plenty of posts on here with advice on where to put savings (lump sum or regular).
 
Dermob said:
Do you have a pension scheme?
Yes, I pay E395pm into personal pension, only started 2 years ago
Her company pay E250pm into a pension
Click to expand...
In my opinion, those contribution levels are way too low.

At your age, you could (and, in my opinion, should) be getting tax-relief at your marginal tax-rate on contributions of up to 25% of your gross salary.

Increasing your pension contributions should be your priority and you should maintain a high (perhaps even 100%) allocation to global equities for the time being.

If you have anything left over having maximised your tax-relieved pension contributions, then start paying down your mortgage ahead of schedule.

Building up a large cash balance is just bad planning at your age and stage in life.
 
The education expenditures will greatly vary according to where you live.
Your expenditure level is relatively high considering that at your children ages, a lot his covered once creche fees are paid. Are you current savings for a car? On the figures you gave, €1700 is not allocated. That's 20k a year, hardly spare cash I would think. Is it saved or actually spend somewhere you didn't factor in or on the cars... I don't know what your pension fund is like and what your employer contribution is like but your personal contributions are very low for your income and age.
 
Hi All,

Updating this Thread:

Age:
43
Spouse’s/Partner's age:
43

Annual gross income from employment or profession:
E140,000
Annual gross income spouse:
E70,000

Monthly take home approx 88650

Type of employment:
Me Private
Spouse public

Expenditure pattern:
neutral, we have never overspent or over saved!

Household expenses of approx 2100per month excl mortgage,
Tansport expenses of 650 per month,
leisure expenses of 1400 per month (eating out/holidays/other, children & creche of approx 1200 per month.
generally dont finance a car, so every couple of years a car is saved for and purchased outright

Rough estimate of value of home
E515,000
Mortgage on home
E261,000
Mortgage provider:
BOI
Type of mortgage: Tracker, interest only, fixed rate
Fixed from 2022 for 5 years, approx 21 years left on Mortgage, monthly payments of 1380€,
3%

Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
None

Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month?
Yes, rarely use credit cards

Savings and investments:
combined savings of €50,000.00
Saving 2000€ per month combined



Do you have a pension scheme?
Yes, I pay E1900pm into personal pension, only started 2 years ago
Her company pay E250pm into a pension

Do you own any investment or other property?
No.

Ages of children:
5 & 8

Life insurance:
Yes.

What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?

We are running out a Space in our house, and Potentially looking:

Trading up - Stay in Dublin, sell existing house and Buy Larger house - Budget circa 600-700K

Leaving Dublin, Keeping existing house as an Investment and buying house outside of Dublin for 300-400K.
 
Have you actually calculated your income and taxes if you were renting your current property? I would be reluctant to manage a rental far away from my PPR. Closer is easier. I know some would say you can be disturbed at 3 am, that never happened to us in the past 10 years. Some would say they had no calls in 10 years. Us, we had 4 renters and last year were called and had to move 5/6 times. Nothing major but still needed to be done or checked.
 
Dermob said:
Trading up - Stay in Dublin, sell existing house and Buy Larger house - Budget circa 600-700K

Leaving Dublin, Keeping existing house as an Investment and buying house outside of Dublin for 300-400K.
Click to expand...

The key question for you to decide is whether you want to continue living in Dublin or not.

You can comfortably afford both options, so this is primarily a lifestyle question and not a financial question.

Dermob said:
Rough estimate of value of home
E515,000
Mortgage on home
E279,000
Click to expand...
Dermob said:
Trading up - Stay in Dublin, sell existing house and Buy Larger house - Budget circa 600-700K
Click to expand...
Dermob said:
combined savings of €50,000.00
Saving 2000€ per month combined
Click to expand...

If you buy a house for €700k
You will have equity of about €220k
And savings of €50k
So you would need a mortgage of about €330k

With earnings of €210k and aged early 40s, this is a very comfortable mortgage.

So, you have to decide if you want to live in Dublin or live in the country.

I would have thought that the location of your work would determine that. If you live in a very nice house 100 miles from Dublin and have to commute to work 3 days a week, then I would prefer a more basic house in Dublin. But that is my preference. Yours might be different.
 
If you decide to move outside Dublin, then, and only then, do you need to address the question of "Do I keep my old house as an investment or sell it?"

But focus on the main issue first.
 
Age:
46
Spouse’s/Partner's age:
46

Annual gross income from employment or profession:
E150,000
Annual gross income spouse:
E70,000

Monthly take home approx 9950

Type of employment:
Me Private
Spouse public

Expenditure pattern:
neutral, we have never overspent or over saved!

Household expenses of approx 2100per month excl mortgage,
Tansport expenses of 650 per month,
leisure expenses of 1400 per month (eating out/holidays/other, children & creche of approx 860 per month.
generally dont finance a car, so every couple of years a car is saved for and purchased outright

Rough estimate of value of home
E650,000
Mortgage on home
E245,000
Mortgage provider:
BOI
Type of mortgage: Tracker, interest only, fixed rate
Fixed from 2022 for 5 years, approx 21 years left on Mortgage, monthly payments of 1510€,
3%

Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
None

Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month?
Yes, rarely use credit cards

Savings and investments:
combined savings of €90,000
Saving 2300€ per month combined



Do you have a pension scheme?
Yes, I pay E2400pm into personal pension, only started 2 years ago
Her company pay E250pm into a pension

Do you own any investment or other property?
No.

Ages of children:
6 & 9

Life insurance:
Yes.

What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?

We are sale agreed on a property outside of Dublin at 500k, we are wondering whether or not to Keep our existing property as a rental/Future investment.
 
Dermob said:
We are sale agreed on a property outside of Dublin at 500k, we are wondering whether or not to Keep our existing property as a rental/Future investment.
Click to expand...
There is a huge amount at this stage of threads, see

The new rules from 1 March 2026​

and

Property investment and tenants' rights​


All threads are quite clear that investing in the PRS is a very bad idea at this point especially if it is not something you've had previous exposure too. The house is worth €650k, renting it out could seriously devalue it/make it unsaleable and/or you can get yourself into all sorts of problems with tenants and/or you can end up in all sorts of trouble due to misfiling or filling in tricky forms (including getting yourself a criminal record).

Residential investment is really only for Funds and mega large landlords these days.

Anyway, have a look at the threads, you'll see the enormity of the risks for the small landlord.
 
Dermob said:
We are sale agreed on a property outside of Dublin at 500k
Click to expand...
- Tell us about the commuting and schools plan.
- how much rent will the current house achieve
- how much will the new house cost
- is your pension amount monthly correct
- what is the level of life cover
 
Commuting - pers 1 - 3 days a week (70 mins motorway ew), Pers 2 1 day week Train 1.5hrs ew
schools - relocate children to local school
2700-3000per month
New house is 500K needing work
yes 2395 pension
life cover is 300K/400k


thanks
 
It is very unlikely that it would make sense to retain your current home as a rental but we would need to know the achievable rent and the mortgage rate on your new home to be sure.
 
Dermob said:
Commuting - pers 1 - 3 days a week (70 mins motorway ew), Pers 2 1 day week Train 1.5hrs ew
schools - relocate children to local school
2700-3000per month
New house is 500K needing work
yes 2395 pension
life cover is 300K/400k
Click to expand...
umm, as a person who moved back to a city to avoid the stress of commuting I hope you both have really thought about this.

As a person who has been on the M50 car park many times, ummm.

The world now allows home working, before covid that was not always the case. Just some thoughts on that.

Local school for kids is good.

How much 'work' is it? in figures and a bit of detail please. Is livable with no work initially.

which is it, 300 or 400 life cover? Is that separate to the compulsory mortgage life cover.

One job is permanent, that's good. The rental I've not thought about yet.
 
Thanks

I currently commute out of Dublin so i get the better side of the M50, but my 13k journey takes me 40 Mins on a good day. i work in the leixlip area, so not hitting the M50/n4 eastbound daily. I meet the daily commuters eastbound, and that doesnt appeal to me.

Yes its liveable, and as much works as you want to be honest. its a large property in a location we like, im fully aware of the work involved to TBH.

my wife is 300k, im 400k, not separate to existing mortgage

thanks
 
yes, the current house is in D14 and close to luas, potential college one of the reasons we are considering holding on to it
 
Going on your figures, sell the house to release €405k equity and be virtually mortgage free. Money saved on repayments can go towards required work/improvements on new house in country. After that, increase pension contributions (to max allowed for age) savings/investment and lifestyle.
 
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