two mortgages, creche and negative equity. married couple.

As the others have pointed out I would definately review with your employers how your income is being taxed. Even after pension contributions I would have thought your incomes should be at least 2.5 and 3K per month, if you earn 50K and 60K.

Saving on the small things such as Sky (basic should be only 22 euros), ESB/gas will help free up some money for once off bigger expenses. But will not resolve your issue with your second house coming off interest only.

Mpsox, has a point. It would be really worth sitting down to do that maths (including getting a better grasp on how you are taxed). Could you wife take a years leave from her job until your elder child is at preschool/school?
 
His wife is a public servant so would not advise her to give up that job lightly. She may find it hard to get a comparable job in the future and the creche fee will reduce once kids are in school so short term pain.
 
Also, in most of civil service/public service you are not in any way guaranteed a job to go back to after a career break. I believe they actually hold teacher's jobs and get a temp but for the rest it's bye-bye, if we have a vacancy when you want to come back we'll see you then. Who knows how long it'll be before the recruitment ban is lifted. Quite a risk to take.
Sybil
 
1234 said:
That's not quite true. You are guaranteed a job. Just not the exact one you left. She would get the same pay and conditions in a similar post to the one she left.

She could also look at Job Sharing or the Shorter Working Week Scheme. I would advise that she talk to HR to discuss what options are open to her.
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yes but what i think was meant is that you're not guaranteed to get a job (at the same level) when you want it, they'll fix you up eventually but there have been stories of people having to wait up to a year to get a job.
 
dereko1969 said:
yes but what i think was meant is that you're not guaranteed to get a job (at the same level) when you want it, they'll fix you up eventually but there have been stories of people having to wait up to a year to get a job.
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Yes, what I meant is that you have to wait until there is a vacancy being filled. At the moment that could be way longer than a year since vacancies are not being filled at all due to the recruitment ban.
Sybil
 
Asker, can you clarify why your net income seems lower than it should considering your high gross incomes?
 
As others have pointed out sky basic package is 22 + 2 for the childrens channels.
Gas / ESB / Bins are extremely high so you need to look into these.
Also agree with others when they say your gross and take home don't match up - I understand that 14k is a bonus.
I would start a spending diary to see where the money is going on the misc expenditure.
Would there be a possibility of considering an au pair for a year of two until you can clear the short term debts and your first is in school.
I would also consider using the 8k you get as a bonus to pay towards clearing the negative equity on the properties.
Are you claiming all tax reliefs that you are entitled to.
 
Plugging the salaries less 10% for pensions into a tax calculator (so 54K for OP, 45K for wife) gives net salaries of 3,169 and 2,801 rather than 2,575 and 2,035 - so total family income with rent and child benefit should be just over 7K.
 
asker said:
Yes i pay around 10% of my salary into a pension as does my wife, healthcare is provided by my employer.

petrol is for my wife she commutes 1 hour journey each day, 300 is for car loan. Our electicity and gas are both with bord gais i think.
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reduce your pension contributions for a number of years, especially as once you have your finances sorted out, you may have the option of making lump sum payments from your annual bonus
 
thanks for all the replies, my wife is a teacher so a career break is definetely an option.

I will have a talk with the payroll department and see if there is an error with my wages, and also have a look over reducing pension contributions, for my wife as she is a teacher afaik pension contributions are mandatory.

i have started using mmex after a good search through the forums today, as far as Tax liabilities are concerned I am hopeless at this stuff and have trouble deciphering the information on the revenue and citizensinformation websites. Can anyone suggest examples of tax reliefs i may be due ?
 
2 obvious tax reliefs would be

Trade union subscriptions (assuming your wife is in one)
Medical expenses, either in total or the difference between what you paid and what you're health insurer reimbursed you. This applies to all your family
 
sorry i can see how you mis-interpreted what i wrote, i certainly didn't mean they'd fit you in at a lower level.

with all the restructuring in place at the moment and more to come due to the Croke Park agreement, there is absolutely no certainty that people will be able to come back into the service at the time they want to. there may not be a vacancy at the grade. anyway this is really OT.
 
asker said:
I will have a talk with the payroll department and see if there is an error with my wages, and also have a look over reducing pension contributions, for my wife as she is a teacher afaik pension contributions are mandatory.
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Talk to payoll? Come on, you cant honestly say that you are not aware that your gross and net pay don't add up based on the figures you posted. Whats going on?
 
Is your rental income of 750 after tax?

We found that after paying tax, an investment property is hardly worth it.
 
Mpsox said:
2 obvious tax reliefs would be

Trade union subscriptions (assuming your wife is in one)
Medical expenses, either in total or the difference between what you paid and what you're health insurer reimbursed you. This applies to all your family
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Also for the bins. You get tax credits here, too.

It's not much but small things accumulated also make a difference.
 
>>There is a tax break on creches where if the employer agrees to pay the creche directly you can have it deducted from you salary and therefore receive tax relief at marginal rate. This could significantly reduce your fees.<<

My company used to do things this way but I was told it was axed in the October 2008 budget. If anyone knows different I'd appreciate hearing from them!

Asker >>I will have a talk with the payroll department and see if there is an error with my wages, and also have a look over reducing pension contributions, for my wife as she is a teacher afaik pension contributions are mandatory.<<

Why don't you just look at your payslips? It should have all the information you need about gross and net.
 
asker said:
Monthly expendature.

Creche 1400
house2 1005
house1 1500
life assurance 70
home insurance 50
phone 32
sky 45
car 300
petrol 280
medical 120 My son is on medication.
loans 270
gas/esb/bins 300

Total: 5372

incoming.
Wife Salary 2035
Me Salary 2575
childs allowance 300
rent 750

Total: 5660

Which leaves 288 euro PM to live on, food for a 4 person family for a month, this also excludes car tax and insurance, upkeep for both houses and other misc items i probably forget, also keep in mind that both houses are interest only and this is where we are at.

Of my salary 14000 of it is paid as a bonus yearly, in april net is around 8000.

Ideally i am wondering if i can sell one house at a loss and put the loss on to the mortgage of our primary residence. Is this a good idea and would any bank go for this ?
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Your salaries look wrong for 50k and 75k gross? They are way off.
 
aristotle said:
Thats been mentioned a good few times but the OP is refusing to clarify.
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I clarified this in the post, 75K includes investments and a lump sum payment, i also pay for train ticket( deducted at source ) and pension contributions of 7% what else do you want to know ? How am i refusing to clarify ? If you dont have something constructive to add then why not just keep out of the conversation...
 
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