Personal details
Age: 41
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 41
Number and age of children: Three ages 15, 12 & 9
Income and expenditure
Annual gross income from employment or profession: € 60,000
Annual gross income of spouse: € 30,000
Monthly take-home pay: € 5,500 approx. including child benefit
Type of employment: e.g. Civil Servant, self-employed
Me: Public Servant
Spouse: Private Sector
In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving?
Just about breaking even most months after all costs including loan repayments, we save some months but have to continually dip in to it for emergencies
Summary of Assets and Liabilities
Family home worth €260k with a €110k mortgage
Cash of €0 effectively
No other assets worth talking about except two ageing cars
Family home mortgage information
Lender: AIB
Interest rate: 2.5%
If fixed, what is the term remaining of the fixed rate? 5 years
(No need to tell us the monthly repayments or what term is left)
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
Personal loan with € 5k remaining on one car
€ 4k for dental treatment
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? Yes
If not, what is the balance on your credit card? 0
Other savings and investments:
Do you have a pension scheme? Yes, Public Service Single Pension Scheme joined 2017 so will retire with 30 years service approx.
Spouse: Private pension with employer contribution only joined recently as they re-trained and changed careers during Covid.
Do you own any investment or other property? No
Other information which might be relevant
Life insurance: Yes, cover of € 300k
What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
It is with some trepidation that I write this as I have read through a lot of the other threads and it scares me to death how far behind some people we are in terms of savings, planning for the future and retirement etc.
We had kids early as seen above and have worked hard to save for a deposit and get our own home while paying punitive childcare rates and rents etc. Luckily our housing situation is stable and our repayment is manageable relatively speaking.
The cost of living increases have hit us hard and two of the kids have needed expensive dental treatment recently that has wiped out our modest savings again. We seem to be continually running to stand still and juggling bills and I am conscious that our costs will skyrocket when the kids start hitting college age. We also have one car that needs replacing in the next 12-18 months and another that will need to be changed a couple of years afterwards.
I know we are underprepared for upcoming education fees and retirement. We are currently prioritising clearing the short term debt and will probably then funnel everything we can in to savings. We live modestly and don't splash out on luxuries often, but kids are expensive at the ages we have them at and we find that every month there is an unplanned cost in relation to one of the cars or something to be done on the house etc etc. We had a horrendous run late 2022 and had to put several thousand in to the two cars to keep them going, also had the oil boiler pack in and need replacing. We haven't done much to the house since we bought it except painting and light decorating and there are several jobs that we have been putting off for financial reasons.
On the plus side we are both in the ascendency career wise. My partner retrained during Covid and is thriving in the new career, promoted twice in the space of 12 months and is starting a related degree paid for by her employer soon. I am also in line for a decent promotion soon. It is very possible that we will have an extra € € 20k - 30k (or more) gross between us by the time the 15 year old hits college in 3-4 years time.
There isn't much headroom at the moment but towards the end of the year after debts are cleared and further pay rises are secured we may have up to € 800 - € 1,000 per month that can be put in to savings or investments or used to do a few much needed jobs around the house. Is the move just simply to put everything we can in to savings for now to try to build up an education fund or is there something better we could be doing in the short term?
Also in terms of retirement & pensions, should we simply keep paying in to the existing pensions and forget about this until our education costs are dealt with or is there something we should be doing sooner?
I realise we are years behind where we should be and most people wouldn't like to start from where we are, but any advice would be appreciated
Thanks for taking the time to read:
Age: 41
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 41
Number and age of children: Three ages 15, 12 & 9
Income and expenditure
Annual gross income from employment or profession: € 60,000
Annual gross income of spouse: € 30,000
Monthly take-home pay: € 5,500 approx. including child benefit
Type of employment: e.g. Civil Servant, self-employed
Me: Public Servant
Spouse: Private Sector
In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving?
Just about breaking even most months after all costs including loan repayments, we save some months but have to continually dip in to it for emergencies
Summary of Assets and Liabilities
Family home worth €260k with a €110k mortgage
Cash of €0 effectively
No other assets worth talking about except two ageing cars
Family home mortgage information
Lender: AIB
Interest rate: 2.5%
If fixed, what is the term remaining of the fixed rate? 5 years
(No need to tell us the monthly repayments or what term is left)
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
Personal loan with € 5k remaining on one car
€ 4k for dental treatment
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? Yes
If not, what is the balance on your credit card? 0
Other savings and investments:
Do you have a pension scheme? Yes, Public Service Single Pension Scheme joined 2017 so will retire with 30 years service approx.
Spouse: Private pension with employer contribution only joined recently as they re-trained and changed careers during Covid.
Do you own any investment or other property? No
Other information which might be relevant
Life insurance: Yes, cover of € 300k
What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
It is with some trepidation that I write this as I have read through a lot of the other threads and it scares me to death how far behind some people we are in terms of savings, planning for the future and retirement etc.
We had kids early as seen above and have worked hard to save for a deposit and get our own home while paying punitive childcare rates and rents etc. Luckily our housing situation is stable and our repayment is manageable relatively speaking.
The cost of living increases have hit us hard and two of the kids have needed expensive dental treatment recently that has wiped out our modest savings again. We seem to be continually running to stand still and juggling bills and I am conscious that our costs will skyrocket when the kids start hitting college age. We also have one car that needs replacing in the next 12-18 months and another that will need to be changed a couple of years afterwards.
I know we are underprepared for upcoming education fees and retirement. We are currently prioritising clearing the short term debt and will probably then funnel everything we can in to savings. We live modestly and don't splash out on luxuries often, but kids are expensive at the ages we have them at and we find that every month there is an unplanned cost in relation to one of the cars or something to be done on the house etc etc. We had a horrendous run late 2022 and had to put several thousand in to the two cars to keep them going, also had the oil boiler pack in and need replacing. We haven't done much to the house since we bought it except painting and light decorating and there are several jobs that we have been putting off for financial reasons.
On the plus side we are both in the ascendency career wise. My partner retrained during Covid and is thriving in the new career, promoted twice in the space of 12 months and is starting a related degree paid for by her employer soon. I am also in line for a decent promotion soon. It is very possible that we will have an extra € € 20k - 30k (or more) gross between us by the time the 15 year old hits college in 3-4 years time.
There isn't much headroom at the moment but towards the end of the year after debts are cleared and further pay rises are secured we may have up to € 800 - € 1,000 per month that can be put in to savings or investments or used to do a few much needed jobs around the house. Is the move just simply to put everything we can in to savings for now to try to build up an education fund or is there something better we could be doing in the short term?
Also in terms of retirement & pensions, should we simply keep paying in to the existing pensions and forget about this until our education costs are dealt with or is there something we should be doing sooner?
I realise we are years behind where we should be and most people wouldn't like to start from where we are, but any advice would be appreciated
Thanks for taking the time to read:
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