Personal details
Age: 30
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 29
Number and age of children: 0, but plan to have 2 in the next 5 years
Income and expenditure
Annual gross income from employment or profession: 100,000
Annual gross income of spouse: 40,000
Monthly take-home pay 4,410, spouse ~2400
Type of employment: I'm private sector, spouse is a nurse employed by the HSE
In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving?
Definitely saving.
Summary of Assets and Liabilities
Home worth €350k with a €180k mortgage (we purchased at 90% LTV but the market is crazy right now.)
Cash of €3k (recently put most of savings towards the mortgage to improve the LTV and get a better rate)
Investment of 20k
Defined Contribution pension fund: €40k
Company shares : €40k (company is not publicly traded, so these are as good as lottery tickets unless it gets bought or IPO's. Neither likely in the next few years I think)
Family home mortgage information
Interest rate: 1.95%, fixed for 3 years
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
0 borrowings except mortgage
Other savings and investments:
Listed above, I have 40k in a pension (now contributing 15% with no employer benefit) and 20k in a Zurich investment fund. Partner is enrolled in the employer scheme and is considering AVC's
Other information which might be relevant
Life insurance: we have life insurance to cover the mortgage. It's quite basic as we have no dependents.
Cars: we have a car each and they're getting a bit old, but I think we'll get a few more years out of them.
What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
I'm struggling to plan for the next five years. During this time we will want a bigger house closer to the country (either self build or renovate an existing one) and we will also be getting married. I'm easygoing on whether we keep or sell the current house as part of the move to a new house. Looking at current values, I'd say the total price for the next house will be in the region of 600k.
I understand we are in an enviable position, but I'm not used to earning this amount of money and I certainly don't want to squander it. I see a few options, and I'm not sure of how to strike the right balance.
A gaping hole above is the absence of a meaningful emergency fund, but with a 6k limit on the credit card, and the investments I feel pretty safe financially to survive for 6 months. Open to feedback on all of this, of course.
Age: 30
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 29
Number and age of children: 0, but plan to have 2 in the next 5 years
Income and expenditure
Annual gross income from employment or profession: 100,000
Annual gross income of spouse: 40,000
Monthly take-home pay 4,410, spouse ~2400
Type of employment: I'm private sector, spouse is a nurse employed by the HSE
In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving?
Definitely saving.
Summary of Assets and Liabilities
Home worth €350k with a €180k mortgage (we purchased at 90% LTV but the market is crazy right now.)
Cash of €3k (recently put most of savings towards the mortgage to improve the LTV and get a better rate)
Investment of 20k
Defined Contribution pension fund: €40k
Company shares : €40k (company is not publicly traded, so these are as good as lottery tickets unless it gets bought or IPO's. Neither likely in the next few years I think)
Family home mortgage information
Interest rate: 1.95%, fixed for 3 years
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
0 borrowings except mortgage
Other savings and investments:
Listed above, I have 40k in a pension (now contributing 15% with no employer benefit) and 20k in a Zurich investment fund. Partner is enrolled in the employer scheme and is considering AVC's
Other information which might be relevant
Life insurance: we have life insurance to cover the mortgage. It's quite basic as we have no dependents.
Cars: we have a car each and they're getting a bit old, but I think we'll get a few more years out of them.
What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
I'm struggling to plan for the next five years. During this time we will want a bigger house closer to the country (either self build or renovate an existing one) and we will also be getting married. I'm easygoing on whether we keep or sell the current house as part of the move to a new house. Looking at current values, I'd say the total price for the next house will be in the region of 600k.
I understand we are in an enviable position, but I'm not used to earning this amount of money and I certainly don't want to squander it. I see a few options, and I'm not sure of how to strike the right balance.
- Overpay the mortgage
- It's such a low rate I'm not sure if it's the wisest thing to do, even though it feels right as I hate having any debt.
- Pay anything up to 20% to my pension (no employer contribution).
- This feels like a lot of money and makes a big dent in my take home pay. However, I'm not really used to having a lot of take home pay so this won't hit too hard in real terms I think
- I should note that I will probably stay at this company for the next 4/5 years as it's the nature of the industry I'm in and I'm likely to have employer contributions in my next role. Furthermore, the company that I'm with are likely to add it as a benefit in the next year or two (depending on how much you believe HR!)
- Invest more money each month for three years.
- Is this too short of a timeline for the risk?
- Save as much as possible
- This seems like the safest option, but the inflation levels recently has spooked me a bit.
A gaping hole above is the absence of a meaningful emergency fund, but with a 6k limit on the credit card, and the investments I feel pretty safe financially to survive for 6 months. Open to feedback on all of this, of course.
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