Was chatting to a friend at the weekend and he was asking for some advice on saving and investments - my opinion was that he should be putting more into his pension but thought I would fillup one of these with the information I have and get some other opinions
Age: 38
Spouse’s/Partner's age:31
Married.
Number and age of children: 1 due in July. would probably like 2-3
Income and expenditure
Annual gross income from employment or profession: base pay €150k, plus stock options.
Annual gross income of spouse: 60k,
Type of employment: Him private- tech company .Her public service - HSE
In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving?
.
I’d say usually saving but recently lots of spending with a new house and baby on the way
Summary of Assets and Liabilities
Home Owner home value €700k
Mortgage None - home owned outright,
Maybe 100k cash savings
Defined contribution pension fund: He contributes 10% which is matched by employer.
Curent fund value about 120k.
Also has 15 years of contributions to a public sector scheme
Partner is on the Single Public Service Pension Scheme .About 8 years of contributions.
Company shares : Has about 80k of shares in the company which he works forr (with more to vest in the future)plans to sell these and wants advice on what to do with the money
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
None, one car owned outright .
What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
His main query was what to do with the money in company shares - I advised that in my completely amateur opinion having 80k worth of shares in the company in he works for isn’t a great idea.
I suggested maybe ETFs, Berkshire Hathaway shares or Uk investment trusts as an alternative, but that maximising out pension contributions makes the most sense . He wasn’t that keen on this as I think he didn’t want to lock away the money for so long. I also mentioned that if he thought he might need access to the money in the short term then something like prize bonds would make sense.
Was my advice reasonable? Should I advise him to see a professional advisor?