Need advice for future family financial planning

M

marvin

Registered User
Messages
28
Hi - First of all thanks in advance. This is a fantastic facility and the time taken to offer advice is much appreciated. Myself and my wife have just had our second child and are a couple of years in our new house. We are starting to think seriously about planning for our financial future - to include financing our kids' education etc. We would like to have a fund for house improvements, holidays etc as well as a long-term savings fund for the kids. The other thing that we have not addressed is life assurance. We are pretty much 'lay people' when it comes to this type of stuff and don't really know where to start - so any advice offered in relation to the information above and below is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Age: 34
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 28

Annual gross income from employment or profession: €72,000
Annual gross income spouse: €25,000

Type of employment: e.g. Civil Servant, self-employed: Public Service and Private Sector respectively

Expenditure pattern: In general are you spending more than you earn or are you saving? No, not in general

Rough estimate of value of home: €450,000
Mortgage on home: €288,000
Mortgage provider: IIB
Type of mortgage: Tracker, interest only, fixed rate: Tracker
Interest rate: 5.1%

Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc: Car Loans of €15,000

Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? No
If not, what is the balance on your credit card? €2,000

Savings and investments: Credit Union - €8,000

Do you have a pension scheme? Yes me - public sector - wife no

Do you own any investment or other property? No

Ages of children: 1, 4

Life insurance: None
 
Hi Marvin

I suggest you look at clearing your credit card and setting it up so that it is paid off in full every month. Then it is worth considering paying off the car loan with your savings in the Credit Union. Your priority would then be to pay off the balance of the car loan asap & to set up a 'slush fund' deposit account to give you some savings.

Life cover is a must to cover you both while the children are so young. It shouldn't be that expensive and there are certain online brokers that pay most of the first years premium so your initial outlay will be small. Once you have cleared loans and credit cards, have some savings in place, you can then look at accelerating the repayments on your mortage and setting up some investments to cover school fees etc.

Hope that helps!
 
Much appreciated Snowey - do you have any advice for which types of savings product to opt for? Obviously the slush fund one would need flexible access - in terms of the kids savings one - I will be taking a long-term approach but can't take too much risk.

Thanks again!
 
Simple thing you should also do, if you haven't done so already, is make a will
 
I was in a similar position to what you are now two years ago. I now have short term savings in Rabodirect, and have started an investment policy with Quinn Life (Euro Freeway fund) for kid's education.

What I found useful to keep finances in order was/is basic budgeting with a MS Excel file tracking daily expenses, and keep us on track.
 
RaboDirect no longer offer the best rate for demand deposits. See the Financial Best Buys forum lists and the many threads on maximising deposit interest returns.
 
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