What to do with €50k

Just really asking for opinions as to whether it's best to put €50k in savings?

Personal details
Age: 56 female
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 49 male
Number and age of children: 2 - 26yr & 15yr

Income and expenditure
Annual gross income from employment or profession: €45k
Annual gross income of spouse: €27k
Monthly take-home pay – Self €2,775 approx
Type of employment: e.g. Public sector

In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn – no but not saving either

Summary of Assets and Liabilities
Family home worth €400k no mortgage
Cash of €70k inheritance, not savings
Shares : €100k current value approx. €3,500 dividends per annum

Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
No loans currently and pay off cards every month

Other savings and investments:
Do you have a pension scheme? Single Public Service Scheme but only joined 5 years ago, €8,500 contributions to date.

Do you own any other property? No

Other information which might be relevant
Life insurance: Both of us have life insurance around €130k each

What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?

Suggestions as to what I should do with €50k? I don’t think it’s worth putting it into my pension so is it best to just put it in the Post office as we’ll just end up spending it otherwise…. Possibly considering downsizing to an apartment later in life so might be looking to buy in 5 or 10 years.

Libra53 said:

Single Public Service Scheme but only joined 5 years ago, €8,500 contributions to date.

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I would have thought that exploring whether you could purchase notional service was the obvious first avenue to explore.

Any likely education costs for the 15 yr old to consider in a few years time? Does the 26 year old need "a leg up" for a property deposit so you can gift some of it over?

@Sarenco Yes, considering looking into this but I'm just a bit wary in case something else comes up....

@Peanuts20 That is in the back of my mind also which is why I think maybe Post office is best....

Install PV solar in your home. And do it soon - before the grants are ended.

Whos saying they ending?

Libra53 said:

Other savings and investments:
Do you have a pension scheme? Single Public Service Scheme but only joined 5 years ago, €8,500 contributions to date.

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I would have thought the obvious thing at your age is to boost retirement income as you will only have 15-ish years of a PS pension and it looks like you have no private pension built up. I don't know the details well of how they work but purchasing notional service or AVCs is an obvious starting point.

Libra53 said:

Shares : €100k current value approx. €3,500 dividends per annum

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Are these all in the one company? At your age you should be looking to diversify. Someone in your situation should probably not hold shares directly at all given the risk.

Look ahead said:

Whos saying they ending?

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The PV solar panel installers! (And it's already on the record that the maximum MSS grant will be reduced by €300 annually, starting in 2023.)

Do you have any other pension entitlement from previous roles?
Is it just you that’s in the public sector or is your spouse also. Is your spouse in a pension scheme?

In any event, your own entitlements, even staying in your role until 70, even if possible, would be modest.

I’m not very familiar with the Single Public Service Scheme but it would be worth researching how purchase of service/AVCs work for that scheme.

You have monthly net pay of 2,775 and spouse has gross annual of 27k. So that would be in excess of 4k per month net for the household. At the moment you haven't been saving anything of that.
It might be also worth reviewing spending, including to see if you could divert some of your salary to further boost your pension entitlements up until your retirement.

I don't think you can currently buy back years (notional service) in single scheme.
As already stated you, you might need some money for college fees for your 15 year old. Or to help with house deposit for 26 year old (say as a loan)
That's worth thinking about .
Given ye aren't saving, access to cash seems more important than tying it up in some product you can't access until ye are retired.
Live now.

@NoRegretsCoyote Yes, I think I'll look at my pension. The shares were inherited and are a reasonably secure company so I think I'll hold on to them unless I need cash at some stage.

@Tuscany, no other pension and my partner is on short contract paying into a private pension.

Libra53 said:

The shares were inherited

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This is irrelevant. You hold shares worth €100k and should decide if it's the best use of your wealth.

Libra53 said:

and are a reasonably secure company so I think I'll hold on to them unless I need cash at some stage.

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People once said that about Enron and Anglo-Irish Bank which are now worth zero. Lots of shares underperform.

I don't think you have enough wealth to have such a large exposure to a single company. You would almost certainly be better off long run liquidating shares year by year and feeding them into a private pension to take advantage of tax relief.

Thanks @NoRegretsCoyote . Liquidating and feeding a pension is not something I would ever have thought of, I'll definitely look into this.