Age: 28
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 30
Annual gross income from employment or profession: 48,000 + ~20% bonus per annum
Annual gross income of spouse: 50,000 per annum
Take home pay after tax and pensions ~5300 pm between us
Type of employment: e.g. Civil Servant, self-employed
Semi-state (him) and private (me) sector, permanent.
In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving?
Saving ~ 1,600 a month between us + my bonus + 150 a month on company share scheme
Expenses
Rent 1350pm
General day to day living (food, car, bills etc) 1,100pm
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
None
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? yes
If not, what is the balance on your credit card?
Savings and investments:
~30,000 + 5,000 in company shares + 50,000 gift from parents for deposit for buying a home
Do you have a pension scheme?
Both of us do through work
Do you own any investment or other property?
No
Ages of children:
None
Life insurance:
Yes, through work
Question: We are looking at a few big expenses in the coming years. We are considering buying a house next year and we also plan to try for our first child. A 20% deposit on a house would eat up allot of our savings. Our mortgage probably would only be a couple of hundred euro more expensive then our current rent, but I'm guessing interests may go up next year. If we do have a child (probably 2011) I would like to be in a position to take 1 year off work (6 months of this will be on full pay luckily). However, between this and crèche fees (900 to 1200 euro a month apparently!) a child is looking more expensive then a buying house! When I look at these to expenses, I see that we will probably wipe out most of our savings and our ability to save. Not having some savings to fall back on, scares me! Both our jobs look secure but husband may have a pay cut when the budget comes out.
We're careful enough about how we spend our money on a day to day bases (shop in Lidl, don’t go out more then once a week, or buy expensive clothes). However we have had a number of holidays abroad in the last couple of years and we recently paid for our wedding so that ate into our savings.
Could you advice us on how best to prepare ourselves for these big expenditures? Any advice about how to maximise our savings? Also my company provides a share scheme which I have the option to put more money towards, but it means I cant access it for another 2 years. Would I be better off increasing my saving.
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 30
Annual gross income from employment or profession: 48,000 + ~20% bonus per annum
Annual gross income of spouse: 50,000 per annum
Take home pay after tax and pensions ~5300 pm between us
Type of employment: e.g. Civil Servant, self-employed
Semi-state (him) and private (me) sector, permanent.
In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving?
Saving ~ 1,600 a month between us + my bonus + 150 a month on company share scheme
Expenses
Rent 1350pm
General day to day living (food, car, bills etc) 1,100pm
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
None
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? yes
If not, what is the balance on your credit card?
Savings and investments:
~30,000 + 5,000 in company shares + 50,000 gift from parents for deposit for buying a home
Do you have a pension scheme?
Both of us do through work
Do you own any investment or other property?
No
Ages of children:
None
Life insurance:
Yes, through work
Question: We are looking at a few big expenses in the coming years. We are considering buying a house next year and we also plan to try for our first child. A 20% deposit on a house would eat up allot of our savings. Our mortgage probably would only be a couple of hundred euro more expensive then our current rent, but I'm guessing interests may go up next year. If we do have a child (probably 2011) I would like to be in a position to take 1 year off work (6 months of this will be on full pay luckily). However, between this and crèche fees (900 to 1200 euro a month apparently!) a child is looking more expensive then a buying house! When I look at these to expenses, I see that we will probably wipe out most of our savings and our ability to save. Not having some savings to fall back on, scares me! Both our jobs look secure but husband may have a pay cut when the budget comes out.
We're careful enough about how we spend our money on a day to day bases (shop in Lidl, don’t go out more then once a week, or buy expensive clothes). However we have had a number of holidays abroad in the last couple of years and we recently paid for our wedding so that ate into our savings.
Could you advice us on how best to prepare ourselves for these big expenditures? Any advice about how to maximise our savings? Also my company provides a share scheme which I have the option to put more money towards, but it means I cant access it for another 2 years. Would I be better off increasing my saving.
Last edited: