Age:
Early 30s
Spouse’s/Partner's age:
Early 30s
Annual gross income from employment or profession:
€220,000 + €15,000 bonus
Annual gross income spouse:
€68,000
Monthly take home pay:
€13,300 after tax and pension contribution. Add €7,400 or so each year if the bonus comes in.
Type of employment:
Full Time Employees, Private Sector (both)
Expenditure pattern:
Savers - though our savings are being rebuilt at the moment, we've come through a few years where we got married, bought a house at a decent LTV, poured money into it and obviously still managed to have a contingency, while still enjoying life!
Now 67% of our net income goes on day-to-day costs, from mortgage through groceries to insurances etc (we could trim costs here, of course, some of it is discretionary - so bare bones we're probably spending €5.5k that we have to, and €3.4k is going out automatically but could be trimmed). The balance goes to savings, setting aside money to put into our home or set aside for the costs of children, or a vacation fund.
Rough estimate of value of home
€1.1m
Mortgage on home
€705k with 34 years left
Mortgage provider:
Ulster
Type of mortgage: Tracker, interest only, fixed rate
Fixed rate
Interest rate
4 years left on 2.2%
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
€6.5k left on car loan with ~17 months left to run
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month?
Yes
Savings and investments:
€30k in savings held as cash, building up rapidly to €40k so we have 6-7 months expenses cash for life events, emergencies, etc. Setting aside money for children, also. Have other cash we tend to put into pots for the house, holidays, etc, that isn't spent all at once, so in a pinch (unless we go on a fancy holiday and buy a new suite of furniture the same week!) we have plenty of cover for life's little events.
Residual interest in a company that could net a very low six figure sum after tax in the next year or three, will probably knock ~€70k / 10% off the mortgage (as we can do within the terms of the fixed interest) and pour the rest into home and hearth. Interest rates are low for now, but the idea of getting the same fixed rate in 4 years that we have now seems a bit too speculative for me - rather lower the amount outstanding so we can keep/lower repayments in future years when we maybe have kids running around or similar.
Do you have a pension scheme?
Yes x1, a PRSA into which my employer contributes 10% (€22k) and I contribute the balance of €1k to maximize the tax relief available to me (20% of €115k ceiling).
Current fund value €63k, pension is with Irish life, with fees of 1% & 1% on contribution and fund value annually. Have the fund aimed 100% at equities, 50% north American and 50% world indexed funds. I'm aware there's potentially a web of other things affecting total return here, such as quite where is indexed and fund performance vs others available in the market at large.
Big question mark if this is the right vehicle or not, or perhaps it's ok for our age as a good way to put away money without thinking about it... Or maybe it's a great way to get ridden by fees for what could be a large fund in years ahead. Don't really care about the value day to day, just the cumulative effects of fees or having access to the most efficient vehicle. Only got into the pension in recent years but do intend to stick with it as a tax efficient way to invest and save for the future.
My wife isn't in a pension and her employer offers no contributions, but considering getting her into one soon so we can make use of the tax relief available to her, albeit she'll likely be interrupted significantly in the years ahead if we go ahead and have children.
Do you own any investment or other property?
No
Ages of children:
None, yet. Planning to have our first late '22 or early '23 (all going well....) and aiming at 3 over the following 5 ish years. Planning to put aside €19k next year to a "baby fund", for the costs related to having a child plus some offset for foregone income.
Life insurance:
Income protection insurance x2 that would cover our outgoings if we lost 1x income, mortgage life assurance inc specified illness cover. Health insurance x2.
What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
Thanks in part to a long time of reading these forums, feel we're in decent shape but now coming up on new life stage after getting married, buying the house, etc, and wouldn't mind a point of view on the next life stage, which will be having children while continuing to put money aside for retirement and for the ups and downs that are likely ahead as we go through child rearing years.
Very likely my wife will have strongly interrupted earnings in the 5-10 years ahead. Her employer doesn't have any sort of maternity pay arrangement (to be honest, "get a job somewhere they do have maternity pay" might be the most solid advice we could get, although she likes her work and sector and one would be reluctant to ask her to change it for purely financial reasons), so we can count on her going to 1/3 of her current net, or knock about 17% off our net income. We can absorb that, though I wonder if your contingency shouldn't increase as I'd query what would happen if my earnings took a major knock (short of dying or getting ill enough for the income protection to kick in, or the mortgage getting written off at that stage - think more, income downsized involuntarily).
Also querying if it's worth her investing in a pension in these good times for our income and if so, what vehicle to use for her; and if I should be looking at a more advanced strategy (including asking my employer to do more around the type of fund offered?) myself.
Kids... Assuming we're lucky enough that this works out, what would you set aside now and into the future for the child? And are there efficient ways to properly save for things like third level, that don't get eroded to heck by inflation?
Any other comments welcome. I take a lot of stock of the general advice around here to roll with the punches and not spend your entire day worrying about the future, but also to not ignore it entirely! Want to make sure we do our best with the significant resources we've been lucky enough to be able to muster together to ensure we can be as secure and comfortable as possible.
Early 30s
Spouse’s/Partner's age:
Early 30s
Annual gross income from employment or profession:
€220,000 + €15,000 bonus
Annual gross income spouse:
€68,000
Monthly take home pay:
€13,300 after tax and pension contribution. Add €7,400 or so each year if the bonus comes in.
Type of employment:
Full Time Employees, Private Sector (both)
Expenditure pattern:
Savers - though our savings are being rebuilt at the moment, we've come through a few years where we got married, bought a house at a decent LTV, poured money into it and obviously still managed to have a contingency, while still enjoying life!
Now 67% of our net income goes on day-to-day costs, from mortgage through groceries to insurances etc (we could trim costs here, of course, some of it is discretionary - so bare bones we're probably spending €5.5k that we have to, and €3.4k is going out automatically but could be trimmed). The balance goes to savings, setting aside money to put into our home or set aside for the costs of children, or a vacation fund.
Rough estimate of value of home
€1.1m
Mortgage on home
€705k with 34 years left
Mortgage provider:
Ulster
Type of mortgage: Tracker, interest only, fixed rate
Fixed rate
Interest rate
4 years left on 2.2%
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
€6.5k left on car loan with ~17 months left to run
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month?
Yes
Savings and investments:
€30k in savings held as cash, building up rapidly to €40k so we have 6-7 months expenses cash for life events, emergencies, etc. Setting aside money for children, also. Have other cash we tend to put into pots for the house, holidays, etc, that isn't spent all at once, so in a pinch (unless we go on a fancy holiday and buy a new suite of furniture the same week!) we have plenty of cover for life's little events.
Residual interest in a company that could net a very low six figure sum after tax in the next year or three, will probably knock ~€70k / 10% off the mortgage (as we can do within the terms of the fixed interest) and pour the rest into home and hearth. Interest rates are low for now, but the idea of getting the same fixed rate in 4 years that we have now seems a bit too speculative for me - rather lower the amount outstanding so we can keep/lower repayments in future years when we maybe have kids running around or similar.
Do you have a pension scheme?
Yes x1, a PRSA into which my employer contributes 10% (€22k) and I contribute the balance of €1k to maximize the tax relief available to me (20% of €115k ceiling).
Current fund value €63k, pension is with Irish life, with fees of 1% & 1% on contribution and fund value annually. Have the fund aimed 100% at equities, 50% north American and 50% world indexed funds. I'm aware there's potentially a web of other things affecting total return here, such as quite where is indexed and fund performance vs others available in the market at large.
Big question mark if this is the right vehicle or not, or perhaps it's ok for our age as a good way to put away money without thinking about it... Or maybe it's a great way to get ridden by fees for what could be a large fund in years ahead. Don't really care about the value day to day, just the cumulative effects of fees or having access to the most efficient vehicle. Only got into the pension in recent years but do intend to stick with it as a tax efficient way to invest and save for the future.
My wife isn't in a pension and her employer offers no contributions, but considering getting her into one soon so we can make use of the tax relief available to her, albeit she'll likely be interrupted significantly in the years ahead if we go ahead and have children.
Do you own any investment or other property?
No
Ages of children:
None, yet. Planning to have our first late '22 or early '23 (all going well....) and aiming at 3 over the following 5 ish years. Planning to put aside €19k next year to a "baby fund", for the costs related to having a child plus some offset for foregone income.
Life insurance:
Income protection insurance x2 that would cover our outgoings if we lost 1x income, mortgage life assurance inc specified illness cover. Health insurance x2.
What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
Thanks in part to a long time of reading these forums, feel we're in decent shape but now coming up on new life stage after getting married, buying the house, etc, and wouldn't mind a point of view on the next life stage, which will be having children while continuing to put money aside for retirement and for the ups and downs that are likely ahead as we go through child rearing years.
Very likely my wife will have strongly interrupted earnings in the 5-10 years ahead. Her employer doesn't have any sort of maternity pay arrangement (to be honest, "get a job somewhere they do have maternity pay" might be the most solid advice we could get, although she likes her work and sector and one would be reluctant to ask her to change it for purely financial reasons), so we can count on her going to 1/3 of her current net, or knock about 17% off our net income. We can absorb that, though I wonder if your contingency shouldn't increase as I'd query what would happen if my earnings took a major knock (short of dying or getting ill enough for the income protection to kick in, or the mortgage getting written off at that stage - think more, income downsized involuntarily).
Also querying if it's worth her investing in a pension in these good times for our income and if so, what vehicle to use for her; and if I should be looking at a more advanced strategy (including asking my employer to do more around the type of fund offered?) myself.
Kids... Assuming we're lucky enough that this works out, what would you set aside now and into the future for the child? And are there efficient ways to properly save for things like third level, that don't get eroded to heck by inflation?
Any other comments welcome. I take a lot of stock of the general advice around here to roll with the punches and not spend your entire day worrying about the future, but also to not ignore it entirely! Want to make sure we do our best with the significant resources we've been lucky enough to be able to muster together to ensure we can be as secure and comfortable as possible.