# DINKs with too much cash



## noelÓm (16 Aug 2022)

*Personal details*
Age: Early 30s
Spouse’s/Partner's age: Late 20s
Number and age of children: 0 (and agreed plan is to have none)

*Income and expenditure*
Annual gross income from employment or profession: €68,500
Annual gross income of spouse: €47,500
Monthly take-home pay: €6,500
Type of employment: Civil Servant x2
In general, we are saving.

*Summary of Assets and Liabilities*
Family home worth €440k with a €300k mortgage
Cash €22k

*Family home mortgage information*
Ulster Bank (soon to transfer to PTSB)
2.2% (BER is a D1 or D2)
Fixed until 2027
We are able to overpay by 10% of Jan 1st balance in each calendar year without penalty, though any more may attract a break fee. It is unclear how PTSB will deal with the issue of overpayment.

*Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc*
A single credit card in my name with €0 drawn and a €5,000 limit in case of emergencies.

*Buy to let properties*
None.

*Other savings and investments*
We both have defined benefit pensions under the Single Public Sector Pension Scheme, but we have no AVC PRSAs.

*Other information which might be relevant*
Mortgage protection insurance.
Spousal death benefit under the Single Public Sector Pension Scheme x2.
My spouse has life assurance and income protection, arranged through work. No idea on the details.
We have no private medical insurance.

*What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?*
We are generating too much excess cash and have to do something with it.
We are looking for feedback on the following plan, which is set out in order of our current preference and sense of time priority. We're particularly interested in if you think we are missing anything or if you disagree with our rank ordering.

1. Take out income protection for myself, re-evaluate the terms of my spouse's income protection, and re-evaluate our life contracts. Our main asset is our ability to generate strong income for the next 30+ years, so illness or the death of one partner is a major downside risk.
2. Set up self-directed AVC PRSAs for each of us and make full use of Income Tax relief. We would track a cheap global equity index for around ten years, then re-weight by adding bonds and assess values relative to Revenue Commissioner occupational pension benefit limits as they relate to the Single Public Sector Pension Scheme. Re-weight further into bonds routinely as we age.
3. Overpay our mortgage fairly aggressively, though with an eye also on financing some home renovation in the next 2-5 years (possibly going as far as a grant-aided deep retrofit). If house prices fall 20%, we would like to still have a respectable (70-80%) LTV as we we will likely have to switch away from PTSB at some point.
4. Take out medical insurance, certainly before we each hit 35.
5. Spend more money on nice things.
6. Consider moving to a more expensive home if it would improve our lifestyle and, less importantly, to allow us to potentially release more equity later in life should we ever need it and to give us more exposure to CGT-free potential price growth. If high value Irish properties fall in price, then lower value Irish properties might do so also providing a partial hedge. We would sell our existing home if there is no tax efficient means of taking in rental income and/or the rent control environment is unchanged.
7. Consider investing further in international stocks and bonds, outside of a pension structure.
8. Consider getting Income Tax relief on through the Employment Incentive and Investment Scheme, accepting the relatively high risk exposure to small Irish companies.


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## Steven Barrett (17 Aug 2022)

You are both civil servants so you have secure jobs. Rainy day fund doesn't need to be big as you won't lose you job. Build it up to the price of what you would spend on a car. 

Overpay your mortgage by 10% of capital, which is all that is allowed. 

Invest the remainder, through both maxing out your AVCs and investing privately. 

Not planning on having kids will save you a fortune and you should be alright financially. As long as lifestyle creep doesn't become an issue where you start spending all the surplus cash and not saving it. 


Steven
www.bluewaterfp.ie


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## Brendan Burgess (17 Aug 2022)

noelÓm said:


> We are able to overpay by 10% of Jan 1st balance in each calendar year (though it is unclear how PTSB will deal with this)



Hi Noel

A lot of people misunderstand this.

You are allowed to overpay by 10% without a penalty.

But you will probably find that if you want to overpay more, the penalty will be very low and probably zero.

You have a high mortgage in relation to your salary and the value of your home.  The fact that you are civil servants means that this is less of a problem. But given that you may wish to trade up, I think that the priority should be to get the mortgage down as quickly as possible so your trading options will be there if you want to trade up.

You are young and you have a good public service pension so don't really need to make other contributions urgently.

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess (17 Aug 2022)

noelÓm said:


> 1. Take out income protection for myself, re-evaluate the terms of my spouse's income protection, and re-evaluate our life contracts. Our main asset is our ability to generate strong income for the next 30+ years, so illness or the death of one partner is a major downside risk.



No need for further life cover. 
Your mortgage will be cleared if one of you dies.
The other has a good salary.
You don't have children. 

I don't think you need income protection either. 
The premium is way too high for healthy young people. 
The Civil Service will look after you. 
And if you do get some serious illness, you will probably find that it's excluded from cover. 
Use the premium "saved" to pay down your mortgage. 

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess (17 Aug 2022)

noelÓm said:


> financing some home renovation in the next 2-5 years





noelÓm said:


> Consider moving to a more expensive home



You need to sit down and clarify your thinking on this.  And, make sure to write down your thoughts, so that you can review them afterwards. 

It makes no sense to renovate in 2 years only to trade up in 5 years.  You will not recover the costs of renovation in the sale price. 

My guess is that you will decide to trade up. 
With that in mind, you have €140k equity with €20k cash or €160k 

With €110k of salary, you should be able to borrow about €400k

So that is a house of €560k which is not a big enough jump on what you have at present. 

So you really do need to maximise cash at the moment. So don't contribute to an AVC and don't spend anything on renovations.

Brendan


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## Steven Barrett (17 Aug 2022)

...


Brendan Burgess said:


> I don't think you need income protection either.
> The premium is way too high for healthy young people.
> The Civil Service will look after you.
> And if you do get some serious illness, you will probably find that it's excluded from cover.
> ...


The premium is much higher on unhealthy older people too. 

Like all insurance, it is catastrophe planning and probably won't happen. But what if it does? The average claim is 5 years. Can the OP survive for 5 years with one salary? Disability can take many forms so you cannot second guess what anyone would be out of work for and if they will require additional care and how much that will cost. 

The Civil Service will not look after you. You get full pay for 3 months, half pay for the following 3 months and that is it. If you are deemed not able to return to work, you will be retired early. Nothing about if you are off due to stress, cancer etc and will be able to return to work eventually.

Income protection and serious illness cover are two different things. Income protection will pay out if you are unable to work due to any accident, illness or injury. It pays a percentage of salary until you return to work or reach the selected retirement age. Serious illness has a specific list of illnesses that are cover and pays out a once off lump sum. You do not have to be out of work to claim. Below are the 2021 claim stats from Aviva. To say they probably find an exclusion is clearly not true. They paid out 92% of all income protection claims last year.


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## Brendan Burgess (17 Aug 2022)

Hi Steven

Interesting figures.  
Is Aviva the only company offering it? 
I certainly get the impression that they often avoid paying out. But then I probably don't hear from the people who do pay out.

I would love to see an independent assessment of the claims record. 

Have you any idea what the claims to premium ratio is? 

I still reckon it's terrible value for healthy , honest people. 

Brendan


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## noelÓm (17 Aug 2022)

Steven Barrett said:


> Overpay your mortgage by 10% of capital, which is all that is allowed.
> 
> Invest the remainder, through both maxing out your AVCs and investing privately.


I think I may have added some confusion here. We are allowed to overpay our mortgage by more than 10% per annum, but the overpayment would potentially be subject to a break fee.

We are very happy to get long-term exposure to equity markets and the Income Tax relief on AVCs seems to make this a good option for us. However, we struggle to justify making private after-tax investments when we could be earning a certain return (interest avoided) by overpaying our mortgage. Also, a fall in house prices would quickly wipe out our home equity and interfere with our ability to switch mortgage or move house. It seems a stretch to make private investment a competitive option here. Perhaps we don't understand the options for sheltering private investment gains or dividend income from tax?


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## Brendan Burgess (17 Aug 2022)

Hi Noel

You are right. You have no business making direct investments in equity. 
Paying down your mortgage beats this every time. 

The only issue is whether you should max your pension contributions now or pay down your mortgage. 

I think you should pay down your mortgage for the following reasons 
1) You are young so have plenty of time to catch up
2) You already have a Rolls Royce pension scheme 
3) You may need the cash to trade up 

Brendan


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## noelÓm (17 Aug 2022)

Brendan Burgess said:


> You are allowed to overpay by 10% without a penalty.
> 
> But you will probably find that if you want to overpay more, the penalty will be very low and probably zero.


Noted. I will edit the OP to account for this.



Brendan Burgess said:


> It makes no sense to renovate in 2 years only to trade up in 5 years.  You will not recover the costs of renovation in the sale price.


Agreed. This is where we have the least clarity in our thinking. Our current home suits our needs now, but could be a little nicer. We also have no pressure to move relating to work or family, so we could stay here forever and probably be very happy. We will have to decide before committing to renovation. Either way, it will make sense to build up home equity and perhaps cash closer to the time. The idea of investing in our PPR, either through renovation or moving to a more expensive home, is still appealing from a CGT point of view and we like the comfort of knowing we could release equity late in life if needed by downsizing.



Brendan Burgess said:


> You are young and you have a good public service pension so don't really need to make other contributions urgently.


I think I'm saying the quiet part loud, but we do not anticipate having a major pension deficit at retirement and that is not our primary concern. Instead we are interested in AVCs because we want to get access to (1) generous Income Tax relief (2) high long-run expected returns (3) diversification of our assets away from housing and (4) diversification of our pension income away from the Irish state. We are acutely aware that our pension incomes depend on a pay-as-you-go model and the Contributory State Pension in place at our retirement date. The demographic politics will probably take care of us, but we'd like some control too.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (17 Aug 2022)

noelÓm said:


> we do not anticipate having a major pension deficit at retirement and that is not our primary concern. Instead we are interested in AVCs because we want to get access to (1) generous Income Tax relief (2) high long-run expected returns (3) diversification of our assets away from housing and (4) diversification of our pension income away from the Irish state.


What I'm reading here is saving for saving's sake.

I'm not a FIRE advocate but you seem to be the opposite here. You want to accumulate a lot of wealth but don't really have much of a plan what to do with it.

Where do you want to be in 20 years time? Early retirement? A prestige house? 2x intercontinental holidays a year? 

At the moment you seem set on working until retirement and on track for 80% replacement income at retirement. This is commendable but without a clear objective or heirs I don't really see why you want to build so much wealth.


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## T McGibney (17 Aug 2022)

noelÓm said:


> 8. Consider getting Income Tax relief on through the Employment Incentive and Investment Scheme, accepting the relatively high risk exposure to small Irish companies.


There's a very good reason why schemes like this are often described as being for "friends, family and fools".


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## noelÓm (17 Aug 2022)

Steven Barrett said:


> The Civil Service will not look after you. You get full pay for 3 months, half pay for the following 3 months and that is it. If you are deemed not able to return to work, you will be retired early. Nothing about if you are off due to stress, cancer etc and will be able to return to work eventually.
> 
> Income protection and serious illness cover are two different things. Income protection will pay out if you are unable to work due to any accident, illness or injury. It pays a percentage of salary until you return to work or reach the selected retirement age. Serious illness has a specific list of illnesses that are cover and pays out a once off lump sum. You do not have to be out of work to claim. Below are the 2021 claim stats from Aviva. To say they probably find an exclusion is clearly not true. They paid out 92% of all income protection claims last year.


Very helpful. Thanks.


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## noelÓm (17 Aug 2022)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> What I'm reading here is saving for saving's sake.
> 
> I'm not a FIRE advocate but you seem to be the opposite here. You want to accumulate a lot of wealth but don't really have much of a plan what to do with it.
> 
> ...


This is a fair point. I think it is probably a combination of (1) high and possibly irrational risk aversion about retirement financial health (2) both of us being happy in our jobs currently and income being a secondary motivation for us at work (3) not thinking carefully about the possibility of early retirement (4) we would need to spend like drunk sailors to wear out our excess cash. I'm quite sure it could be done, but it would be a step change for us.


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## noelÓm (17 Aug 2022)

T McGibney said:


> There's a very good reason why schemes like this are often described as being for "friends, family and fools".


Are you aware of published loss rates on these investments or insolvency rates for investee companies?


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## T McGibney (17 Aug 2022)

noelÓm said:


> Are you aware of published loss rates on these investments or insolvency rates for investee companies?


I haven't bothered looking closely at these sorts of investments for many years. But the overall picture, at least relating to Ireland, is grim. Put it this way, our Revenue authorities only allow companies avail of such schemes as means of funding when the proposed third-party investments involve inherent and significant risk.


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## Brendan Burgess (17 Aug 2022)

noelÓm said:


> Our current home suits our needs now, but could be a little nicer. We also have no pressure to move relating to work or family, so we could stay here forever and probably be very happy. We will have to decide before committing to renovation. Either way, it will make sense to build up home equity and perhaps cash closer to the time. The idea of investing in our PPR, either through renovation or moving to a more expensive home, is still appealing from a CGT point of view and we like the comfort of knowing we could release equity late in life if needed by downsizing.





NoRegretsCoyote said:


> What I'm reading here is saving for saving's sake.



You are well off. 
You are going to have a comfortable retirement whatever you do. 

I am a big advocate of taking a fully integrated approach to your overall assets including your PPR. But you seem to be overdoing it. 

You are well off and will be able to afford a nicer home in a few years. So that should be your objective.  If an Excel spreadsheet tells you that by staying in your present home and maxing your AVCs, on retirement you will have 10% more assets in total, so what?  You will have enough for a comfortable retirement. You will have enough to retire early. 

So focus on what you want - which seems to be a nicer house and go for that. 

Brendan


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## Steven Barrett (17 Aug 2022)

Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi Steven
> 
> Interesting figures.
> Is Aviva the only company offering it?
> ...


All the life companies publish their claims stats each year. I would hazard a guess that the critical illness is a lot lower because people submit claims for illness's clearly not covered from the list of covered illnesses. 

No one plans on being sick Brendan. Aviva's biggest claims are:

25% psychological 
25% orthopedic 
20% cancer

I don't know how you can plan around stress or getting cancer. As I said before, it is just in case insurance because being without an income, especially a higher earner, can be catastrophic. 









						Protection Claims Paid 2021
					

In 1978, while the nation’s kids held their breath for a second TV channel, we were busy introducing Income Protection.




					www.avivabroker.ie
				




Steven
www.bluewaterfp.ie


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## Brendan Burgess (17 Aug 2022)

Steven Barrett said:


> I don't know how you can plan around stress or getting cancer.


Hi Steven 

Can't plan cancer.

But most of us would not be subject to stress and would not go sick as a result.

The two OPs in this case are Civil Servants, so I would think it very unlikely.

Brendan


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## Steven Barrett (17 Aug 2022)

Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi Steven
> 
> Can't plan cancer.
> 
> ...


That is a wild assumption to make!!

A friend of mine is a civil servant and a qualified counsellor. He worked as a public service counsellor for a number of years and believe me, there are a lot of people under a lot of stress or worse in the public service. Not all of it is work related, it goes a lot deeper than that, but it exists. And stress doesn't turn itself off when you go to work.  

It is also unlikely that someone in their late 20's/ early 30's will die. The most likely event that will happen to cause death at that age is an accident. You can't plan for someone crashing into you.


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## messyleo (17 Aug 2022)

Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi Steven
> 
> Can't plan cancer.
> 
> ...



That's wild. Stress could come from bullying, a big project at a tricky time, personal stuff like a family issue etc.

Income protection is available through the public service union I think and is a cheaper rate than a lot of separate policies. The 3 months certified sick leave in the civil service is over a 4 year rolling period. Honestly, it only takes 1 bad dose of flu a year (say 1 week each) and maybe a broken arm or whatever (6-8 weeks off) and you have used it up. You could fall off your bike on the way to work etc. While a lot of people may not use it up 3 months over a 4 year period doesn't leave much room if you have any kind of accident or even normal bad luck, nevermind something like cancer.


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## noelÓm (17 Aug 2022)

Brendan Burgess said:


> I am a big advocate of taking a fully integrated approach to your overall assets including your PPR. *But you seem to be overdoing it.*


I can understand this perspective, but we'd rather understand all of our options clearly before settling on a decision. That's just us. It would be no fun to take a short cut.



Brendan Burgess said:


> You are well off and will be able to afford a nicer home in a few years. So that should be your objective.  If an Excel spreadsheet tells you that by staying in your present home and maxing your AVCs, on retirement you will have 10% more assets in total, so what?


A perfectly valid perspective and similar comments in this thread are helping clarify our decisions over the next 2-3 years.



Brendan Burgess said:


> But most of us would not be subject to stress and would not go sick as a result.
> 
> The two OPs in this case are Civil Servants, so I would think it very unlikely.


There are a lot of valid grievances you can have with the civil service, but this is not one.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (17 Aug 2022)

noelÓm said:


> Number and age of children: 0 (and agreed plan is to have none)


You're still young enough to change your minds on this. I know lots of people who have.

Kids are great, but also very expensive in the early years. Also in later years I would add!

In your shoes I would make my financial plans consistent with a change of mind on having kids in the next five years. Your housing needs would change (not just size but location) and moving to a "forever home" is best done only when you are happy with things like schools and other amenities for kids.

That probably means keeping more in cash or other liquid assets and not overpaying mortgage or making AVCs too much.


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## noelÓm (17 Aug 2022)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> You're still young enough to change your minds on this. I know lots of people who have.
> 
> Kids are great, but also very expensive in the early years. Also in later years I would add!
> 
> ...


This is excellent advice for most cases, but we both share a very firm position against having children and I doubt that will change. And it won't happen by accident if you catch my drift. Relationship breakdown or death is more likely in our case IMO. I suppose there could be a series of family tragedies after which we are called on to adopt nephews, but that is also a very long shot. So remote that I would ignore it for the purposes of planning the next five years.


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## _OkGo_ (17 Aug 2022)

noelÓm said:


> We are looking for feedback on the following plan, which is set out in order of our current preference and sense of time priority. We're particularly interested in if you think we are missing anything or if you disagree with our rank ordering.


I think you have your priorities in the wrong order.



noelÓm said:


> 6. Consider moving to a more expensive home if it would improve our lifestyle





noelÓm said:


> 3. Overpay our mortgage fairly aggressively, though with an eye also on financing some home renovation in the next 2-5 years (possibly going as far as a grant-aided deep retrofit). If house prices fall 20%, we would like to still have a respectable (70-80%) LTV as we we will likely have to switch away from PTSB at some point.



Housing should be your number one priority. You need to decide now/soon whether you actually want to move or whether you want to renovate. If you choose to move then you should aggressively overpay your mortgage. If you choose to renovate then I would be keeping most of the savings in cash as it will probably be easier to manage without needing an equity release.



noelÓm said:


> 5. Spend more money on nice things


Don't go mad but yes you should do this. You have 2 good and very secure incomes.



noelÓm said:


> 1. Take out income protection for myself, re-evaluate the terms of my spouse's income protection, and re-evaluate our life contracts. Our main asset is our ability to generate strong income for the next 30+ years, so illness or the death of one partner is a major downside risk.


An untimely death would obviously be emotionally devastating but it is not a financial risk to you especially as you will not have kids. In the event that one of you kicks the bucket, the other is left with a mortgage free home, a substantial lump sum from death in service payments and they will still be able to continue to work. They will have a good income and no more mortgage payments, it would be very comfortable financially

Additional life insurance is more important to families with young kids. In this case, the additional cover could allow for reduced working hours or just funds to manage childcare costs and education etc.



noelÓm said:


> 8. Consider getting Income Tax relief on through the Employment Incentive and Investment Scheme


Run a mile, there is no tax saving when you lose the rest of your money. This is really gambling and something you definitely should not be doing while you have mortgage debt



noelÓm said:


> 2. Set up self-directed AVC PRSAs for each of us and make full use of Income Tax relief


This should be low priority considering your housing needs. Your pensions will be good regardless of AVC's. Revisit it in 5-7 years after you have moved or renovated. Don't focus so much on the tax savings that you think you are missing out on


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## Gordon Gekko (17 Aug 2022)

EIIS/BES investments are a nonsense unless you’re allocating 1-5% of your investable wealth into what’s ultra high risk stuff.

i.e. you’ve no debt, €1m to invest into equities and you put €25k into something moderately sensible.


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## Clamball (18 Aug 2022)

noelÓm said:


> Our current home suits our needs now, but could be a little nicer. We also have no pressure to move relating to work or family, so we could stay here forever and probably be very happy. We will have to decide before committing to renovation. Either way, it will make sense to build up home equity and perhaps cash closer to the time. The idea of investing in our PPR, either through renovation or moving to a more expensive home, is still appealing from a CGT point of view and we like the comfort of knowing we could release equity late in life if needed by downsizing.


I think your way of viewing your PPR is incorrect here.  It really does not matter how much your PPR is worth unless you are planning to sell.  You don’t pay CGT on your PPR if it has been your PPR for the entirety of your ownership.

So you have a nice house and you are happy, but you can afford to move to a nicer house where you may be happier.  Anything from south facing, a room for a home office, a bigger garden to garden in, a shed for hobbies, space in the kitchen for 8 dinner guests rather than 4.  Any reason that makes sense to either one of you is a good reason to move to a nicer house.  This way you can enjoy your nicer home for your lifetime.  

And if your PPR increases in value from 500K to 990K after you pay off the mortgage, or reduces in value to 100K it should make no difference to you because you will continue to live in it as you PPR after you retire. 

Use your money to have a better, nicer lifestyle in your 30/40/50/60s before you retire.  You normally build wealth to support yourself and your family for unexpected life events, children, income in retirement.  You are well covered for all three, so use the money on buying that nicer house.


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## noelÓm (18 Aug 2022)

Clamball said:


> I think your way of viewing your PPR is incorrect here.  It really does not matter how much your PPR is worth unless you are planning to sell.  You don’t pay CGT on your PPR if it has been your PPR for the entirety of your ownership.


I don't agree. Our PPR has value whether we are selling it or not. There are costs to releasing equity or liquidating it (estate agent fees, uprooting from social network, general grief), but that doesn't mean our house should be treated as a special class of asset that is ignored for the purposes of financial planning. I think for some people the romance of a "forever home" and a bequest motive clouds their thinking on this issue. Perhaps there is something else I am missing in your argument? Imagine a situation in which I or my spouse is diagnosed with some rare illness that won't be covered by medical insurance or state provision. I certainly like the idea of having a very valuable, liquid CGT-exempt asset to sell or re-mortgage in order to finance treatment. I'll take the hit on a life loan if I get to stay alive!


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## T McGibney (18 Aug 2022)

noelÓm said:


> I certainly like the idea of having a very valuable, *liquid *CGT-exempt asset to sell or re-mortgage in order to finance treatment. I'll take the hit on a life loan if I get to stay alive!


A house is a comparatively illiquid asset in any short-term horizon. Particularly if you're needing money in a hurry because of illness or other calamity.


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## noelÓm (18 Aug 2022)

Clamball said:


> Use your money to have a better, nicer lifestyle in your 30/40/50/60s before you retire.  You normally build wealth to support yourself and your family for unexpected life events, children, income in retirement.  You are well covered for all three, so use the money on buying that nicer house.


This and other comments in the thread are helping us put things into perspective.

The crux for us will be to determine (1) if we are happy to stay in our existing house and renovate (2) if we think we will move instead and (3) what timeline we are satisfied with for (1) or (2) and if transferring wealth into retirement through AVCs is a good trade-off at this point.


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## noelÓm (18 Aug 2022)

T McGibney said:


> A house is a comparatively illiquid asset in any short-term horizon. Particularly if you're needing money in a hurry because of illness or other calamity.


Fair point. At the risk of going down a rabbit hole, we would dump all other liquid assets in this scenario and price the house keenly. Consider re-mortgaging through life loan or similar if that would be quicker. I wonder also would a medical clinic take a charge on a house if it was on the market. Maybe not.


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## T McGibney (18 Aug 2022)

noelÓm said:


> Fair point. At the risk of going down a rabbit hole, we would dump all other liquid assets in this scenario and price the house keenly. Consider re-mortgaging through life loan or similar if that would be quicker. I wonder also would a medical clinic take a charge on a house if it was on the market. Maybe not.


I suspect you are overthinking this. 

I'd have thought that with your resources it should be possible to have sufficient quality health insurance that would cover pretty much any illness? 

And houses are for living in and enjoying and shouldn't be a financial lifeboat. After all, if one of you dies, the survivor will have to live somewhere too.


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## noelÓm (18 Aug 2022)

T McGibney said:


> I suspect you are overthinking this.
> 
> I'd have thought that with your resources it should be possible to have sufficient quality health insurance that would cover pretty much any illness?
> 
> And houses are for living in and enjoying and shouldn't be a financial lifeboat. After all, if one of you dies, the survivor will have to live somewhere too.


I am certainly overthinking it. But it is a lifeboat, whether or not the waves are only in your head.


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## T McGibney (18 Aug 2022)

noelÓm said:


> But it is a lifeboat, whether or not the waves are only in your head.


It really shouldn't be, though.


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