If you can increase payments to your pension through AVCs you should consider this route. You can get more advice in the Public Sector Pensions thread. I’d suggest you pay off your mortgage early, particularly if you can do this without penalty. Do you have enough to put the teen through college? If so, sink this away in a long term high-interest deposit account. Check the Bet Buys thread. If you need this money in the next few years it’s not worth taking a risk with it. (But you could consider plonking a few grand of the college fund into Prize Bonds. The capital is guaranteed, you’ll lose by the rate of inflation, but you stand to win a few prizes). Put about 40% of what’s left into a euro-denominated index tracker such as QL’s Eurostoxx50 tracker, or if you feel happy dealing with stockbrokers, an ETF that tracks a broad euro-denominated equity index. Put about 30% into non-euro equities such as the S&P or the FTSE (or both). You can do this via index trackers or ETFs. Put 20% into a commercial property fund (buy through a discount broker to get at least 100% allocation). Put 5% into something you can have fun with like China, emerging markets or the Nasdaq. Keep 5% in cash for an emergency. As public servants you don’t need to build up an emergency fund as it’s unlikely you will be made redundant but it would be prudent to have about €5,000 handy in case of emergencies. From now on save 10% of your pre-tax income and either cost average this into the euro-equity fund(s) or invest it every quarter into your funds to maintain the asset allocation. Ever so often re-balance you funds to maintain their asset allocation. Sit back and retire rich (or comfortably well off).