# Comments or advice please



## fistophobia (16 May 2018)

Age: 48
Spouse’s/Partner's age: N/A

Annual gross income from employment or profession: 55K
Annual gross income of spouse: N/A

Monthly take-home pay : 3200 plus investment income

Type of employment: PAYE employee

In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn. Annual spending 9K
(b) saving? Yes

Rough estimate of value of home : 500K
Amount outstanding on your mortgage: Nil
*What interest rate are you paying? *

Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc : Nil

Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? 
If not, what is the balance on your credit card? No cc.

Savings and investments: 900K, 90% invested

Do you have a pension scheme? Yes, roughly 70K in it

Do you own any investment or other property? No

Ages of children: N/A

Life insurance: Yes


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## Sarenco (16 May 2018)

You are obviously in great financial shape for your age but is there anything in particular that you like us to comment on?


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## Bronte (17 May 2018)

Who do you need the life insurance for?


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## mtk (17 May 2018)

Looking good  but
1)why no cc - thats unusual - any reason or i guess you use visa


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## Bronte (17 May 2018)

MTK he's spending 9K annually


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## so-crates (17 May 2018)

Is €9k annual spend accurate? Inclusive of all outgoings? That is about €750pm or €175pw, granted you have no mortgage but it does seem quite low even so. 

Why €900k in savings and investments and only €70k in pension? You say you are taking an income from your investment but as your annual spend is considerably less than your take home pay, it doesn't seem like you have any need of that income at this point. 

The only questions seem to be the ones everyone else is asking  did you have a particular question yourself? Mine would be, do you have a particular plan? Do you have something you want to do or achieve? Not just financially but also in general.


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## LDFerguson (17 May 2018)

Depending on the nature of your investments and the tax treatment of the investment income, there would seem to be a case for increasing your pension fund substantially.


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## fistophobia (17 May 2018)

I dont use credit cards - debit card is enough.

Life insurance - it comes with the job,otherwise, I self-insure.

I'm not a fan of pension structures, for various reasons. 

I posted my profile to show, theres other ways to reach the goal. Every expense is optimised.
I did it the hard way, extreme attention to living expenses. Even now, I find it hard to spend money, beyond what I need.
I am part of the Mustachian group in Ireland.

Investments - I have a variation of the HBPP, Harry Browne permanent portfolio. I also have high yield funds, equity and bond.
I do a re-shuffle mechanically once per year, to minimise tax and trading costs.


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## Sarenco (18 May 2018)

fistophobia said:


> I posted my profile to show, theres other ways to reach the goal


What goal?  Are you living such a spartan lifestyle for some particular reason?  

Perhaps you are hoping to leave a significant legacy to your favourite charity.  Is that it?

In any event, your investment choices looks chaotic to me, both in terms of asset location and strategy.  However, without knowing what you are trying to achieve it's hard to offer any meaningful advice.

Incidentally, I don't see how you could have possibly salted away €900k in after-tax accounts and funded a €70k pension pot and bought a €500k house outright from a pretty average salary by the age of 48.  That doesn't look remotely plausible to me, even allowing for such a spartan lifestyle.

Perhaps you earned a much higher income in the past?  Or perhaps you benefitted from an inheritance?


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## PaddyBloggit (18 May 2018)

Sarenco said:


> What goal? Are you living such a spartan lifestyle for some particular reason?


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## Steven Barrett (18 May 2018)

Sarenco said:


> What goal?  Are you living such a spartan lifestyle for some particular reason?
> 
> Perhaps you are hoping to leave a significant legacy to your favourite charity.  Is that it?
> 
> ...




First thing I thought of. 

Not sure what the whole point of the thread is to be honest. To show us he has lots of money? But at what cost? 

When I work with clients, I like to focus on the things they enjoy doing, the experiences they want to enjoy. If we focus on being able to spend money on those things, even if they are a few years away, they will spend less on stuff. I don't see the point in living a Spartan lifestyle if there's no end game. What is it for? 


Steven
www.bluewaterfp.ie


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## 24601 (18 May 2018)

I had to look up Mustachian and found the following definition: "This word describes a person who wishes to reach financial freedom in order to pursue his own aspirations without having to depend on active work to *live*." No offence intended but there's not much living to be done with 9k a year in outgoings, but I guess you probably know that better than anyone. As my Grandfather always said, you can't take it with you!


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## DeeKie (18 May 2018)

24601 said:


> I had to look up Mustachian and found the following definition: "This word describes a person who wishes to reach financial freedom in order to pursue his own aspirations without having to depend on active work to *live*." No offence intended but there's not much living to be done with 9k a year in outgoings, but I guess you probably know that better than anyone. As my Grandfather always said, you can't take it with you!


Interesting. 

OP when will you be able to stop working?


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## mtk (18 May 2018)

Based on the numbers he has900/9=100 years living expenses saved ....although 9k seems very low .....

Hope he has good genes!


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## japester (18 May 2018)

€9k a year outgoings? That would have been unreal back in 1998 nevermind 2018  But as Sarenco says, it's not possible to have come up with 900k savings + a fully-paid 500k house + 70k pension based on the relatively modest salary stated - like all of us, the OP must have started off working from a lower salary base. The point about not being able to take it with you is very well made - none of us knows what is around the corner and we should all grab life with both hands while we can - I'm not saying that spending frivolously equates to being happy but what kind of enjoyment can be gleaned by spending 9k and saving 30k odd per year? I completely understand people who don't want to buy "stuff" for the sake of it, but it almost sounds to me as though you've spent the last 30 years amassing a huge amount of savings while forgetting to enjoy life, trips here and there etc. I mean I have a similar take home pay to the OP and I could easily spend up to 2k per year alone just on gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, 21sts, weddings, exams passed, Christmas etc. I genuinely enjoy gifting but I can't see how the OP would be able to spare any cash for such things when saving seems the absolute priority. My advice to the OP would be to have a serious think about loosening the purse-strings even just a little and have more experiences while he/she is young enough to enjoy them, we'll all be pushing up daisies long enough and on the current path it seems like only your younger relations will be the ones to benefit from your efforts 

Having said all that I wouldn't consider myself a spendaholic either and I do save where I can and always look for a decent bargain when available, but I still manage to spend 16k per year exclusive of mortgage. I just can't imagine being able to pare that back to 9k!!!


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## odyssey06 (18 May 2018)

You need to cultivate an expensive hobby. The wines of Burgundy. Single malt whisk(e)y. First editions. 
Create a list of 10 places to see... escorted tours are great if traveling alone.
You might need a credit card for them though!


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## LDFerguson (18 May 2018)

fistophobia said:


> I'm not a fan of pension structures, for various reasons.



Just curious - can you share some of your reasons?


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## Easeler (18 May 2018)

Your in good position OP I like a bit of an ould struggle myself nothing like the feeling of scrappig together the price of a few pints and a bag of chips on a Friday evening, great satisfaction in that.


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