Clueless in Connaught

longwexman

Registered User
Messages
14
Hi folks, I've had my head down burrowing away for about 20 years and have gotten to a pretty comfortable position through a mix of hard work, some good investments, and a little bit of good fortune along the way (lots of bad luck too but that's another story!) We're recently in a space now where we can lift our heads a little and come up for air and I am pretty clueless about the best way to proceed - I'm going to get some detailed financial advice but before I do, I don't want to look like an eejit so I'd like to have put a bit of thought into options, based on perhaps some suggestions from people here.


Personal details

Age: 41
Spouse's age: 40
Partner's age if not married:

Number and age of children: 2 - 8 and 6


Income and expenditure
Annual gross income from employment or profession: 198,000
Annual gross income of spouse/partner: 55,000

Monthly take-home pay: c. 10k, with some variables but generally 10k across both salaries

Type of employment - e.g. Employee or self-employed. Employee
Employer type: e.g. public servant, private company. Self - semi state, Spouse - State, full time but considering part time from next year

In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving? Saving.

Summary of Assets and Liabilities
Family home value: €550,000
Mortgage on family home: €0
Net equity: € 550,000

Cash: €320,000 simply sitting in demand deposit accounts
Defined Contribution pension fund: c. €250k, wife will have a state fund but shes been in and out with maternity, career break etc, so hard to call the value of that
Company shares : None
Buy to Let Property value: None, sold 1 in last 18 months
Buy to let Mortgage: None

Total net assets: 2 cars - c. 70k in value combined, no loans on these.

Net worth c. 1.2m

Family home mortgage information N/A
Lender n/a
Interest rate
Type of interest rate: tracker, variable, fixed.
If fixed, what is the term remaining of the fixed rate?
If tracker, what is the margin e.g. ECB + 1%

Remaining term: (Original term is not relevant)
Monthly repayment:

Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc

Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? Yes, clear
If not, what is the balance on your credit card?

No other loans

Pension information

Value of pension fund: DC fund, c. 250k, I put in 12% of salary and company does 8%. I have c. 60k in an old pension from a previous employer also

Buy to let properties
Value:
Rental income per year:
Rough annual expenses other than mortgage interest :
Lender
Interest rate
If fixed, what is the term remaining of the fixed rate?

Other savings and investments:

2 x child benefit, c. 6k in each account, going straight in there for when kids are in college - don't plan on touching this for the next ten years, but I know I have to do something better with this.

Other information which might be relevant

Life insurance: None, no mortgage and have death in service with employer


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

Essentially we are in a good place - valuable property, good cash pile, good pension, no debt, and id see it as having worked hard for the first half of my career to get here, and not i need to focus on putting this hard work to harder work and getting the benefit of it for the second half of my working career. I've been beavering away with work and saving hard, and raising 2 kids, but also having a good quality of life. We holiday, we eat out, we have nice cars and most importantly we are healthy. We had buy to lets - they were a good investment bought at the right time, and we sold them when the time was right (hassle of landlording wasn't worth it and the capital appreciation was the main benefit). We've been able to buy a home and complete a refurb and extension over the last few years, and it's at A2 rating now, and luckily there is no mortgage. My job is secure and I'm near the pinnacle of that in terms of promotions etc.

As I said, I'm going to go and pay for advice, and this is not me looking for free advice - I'd like to just be able to understand the advice that I pay for with a little bit of advice from this group!! Thank you!
 
You should be maxing out your pension contributions and, at your age, investing your pension 100% in a global equity fund.

You should be putting €28,750 a year into your pension, on top of your employer’s contribution.

And your wife should be looking at purchasing notional service and/or making AVCs.

Allowing large amounts of cash to build up without maxing out your pension contributions is a mistake.

Otherwise, it looks like you are in great financial shape.

Finally, make sure you have appropriate insurances (particularly income protection) in place.
 
Hi folks, I've had my head down burrowing away for about 20 years and have gotten to a pretty comfortable position through a mix of hard work, some good investments, and a little bit of good fortune along the way (lots of bad luck too but that's another story!) We're recently in a space now where we can lift our heads a little and come up for air and I am pretty clueless about the best way to proceed - I'm going to get some detailed financial advice but before I do, I don't want to look like an eejit so I'd like to have put a bit of thought into options, based on perhaps some suggestions from people here.


Personal details

Age: 41
Spouse's age: 40
Partner's age if not married:

Number and age of children: 2 - 8 and 6


Income and expenditure
Annual gross income from employment or profession: 198,000
Annual gross income of spouse/partner: 55,000

Monthly take-home pay: c. 10k, with some variables but generally 10k across both salaries

Type of employment - e.g. Employee or self-employed. Employee
Employer type: e.g. public servant, private company. Self - semi state, Spouse - State, full time but considering part time from next year

In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving? Saving.

Summary of Assets and Liabilities
Family home value: €550,000
Mortgage on family home: €0
Net equity: € 550,000

Cash: €320,000 simply sitting in demand deposit accounts
Defined Contribution pension fund: c. €250k, wife will have a state fund but shes been in and out with maternity, career break etc, so hard to call the value of that
Company shares : None
Buy to Let Property value: None, sold 1 in last 18 months
Buy to let Mortgage: None

Total net assets: 2 cars - c. 70k in value combined, no loans on these.

Net worth c. 1.2m

Family home mortgage information N/A
Lender n/a
Interest rate
Type of interest rate: tracker, variable, fixed.
If fixed, what is the term remaining of the fixed rate?
If tracker, what is the margin e.g. ECB + 1%

Remaining term: (Original term is not relevant)
Monthly repayment:

Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc

Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? Yes, clear
If not, what is the balance on your credit card?

No other loans

Pension information

Value of pension fund: DC fund, c. 250k, I put in 12% of salary and company does 8%. I have c. 60k in an old pension from a previous employer also

Buy to let properties
Value:
Rental income per year:
Rough annual expenses other than mortgage interest :
Lender
Interest rate
If fixed, what is the term remaining of the fixed rate?

Other savings and investments:

2 x child benefit, c. 6k in each account, going straight in there for when kids are in college - don't plan on touching this for the next ten years, but I know I have to do something better with this.

Other information which might be relevant

Life insurance: None, no mortgage and have death in service with employer


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

Essentially we are in a good place - valuable property, good cash pile, good pension, no debt, and id see it as having worked hard for the first half of my career to get here, and not i need to focus on putting this hard work to harder work and getting the benefit of it for the second half of my working career. I've been beavering away with work and saving hard, and raising 2 kids, but also having a good quality of life. We holiday, we eat out, we have nice cars and most importantly we are healthy. We had buy to lets - they were a good investment bought at the right time, and we sold them when the time was right (hassle of landlording wasn't worth it and the capital appreciation was the main benefit). We've been able to buy a home and complete a refurb and extension over the last few years, and it's at A2 rating now, and luckily there is no mortgage. My job is secure and I'm near the pinnacle of that in terms of promotions etc.

As I said, I'm going to go and pay for advice, and this is not me looking for free advice - I'd like to just be able to understand the advice that I pay for with a little bit of advice from this group!! Thank you!
if you are near the pinnacle of what you can earn do you expect youll stay there for another (potentially) 24 years or seek other opportunities?

as sarenco said the only misstep really is saving all that cash when you are leaving behind 5k a year at current rates that could be gone into your pension.
 
I'm not sure you really need any advice, well done on getting to this position - you are ahead of 90%+ of your peers.

320k in cash is the only obvious blind spot. Are you at least getting a decent rate on this (should be 3%+)? You should be looking into long-term investment options for the vast bulk of this.
 
if you are near the pinnacle of what you can earn do you expect youll stay there for another (potentially) 24 years or seek other opportunities?

as sarenco said the only misstep really is saving all that cash when you are leaving behind 5k a year at current rates that could be gone into your pension.
Thanks, I'm not sure about the next few years - the apple cart is stable at the moment after a few years of upset so I'll see. Thank you to you and sarenco also, I had assumed that because I was maxing out on the company policy (ie. we do 12%, they do 8%), then I was maxing out in total but now I see that that assumption was wrong so thank you for that.
 
I'm not sure you really need any advice, well done on getting to this position - you are ahead of 90%+ of your peers.

320k in cash is the only obvious blind spot. Are you at least getting a decent rate on this (should be 3%+)? You should be looking into long-term investment options for the vast bulk of this.
This is probably my main concern - what to do with that 320k. I see lots of people taking about shares, raisin, degiro, bonds, etc etc, and I'm probably looking for the best return at medium risk. Embarrassed to say that i'm getting nothing on it currently, sitting in AIB at 0.25% demand deposit, which is awful I know.
 
I wouldn't say you need to worry about investing the cash now, you should be getting exposure to equity markets and the risk of investing via your pension.

Maximise your pension contributions, gift money to kids tax free, put excess cash in most efficient savings accounts. Enjoy the rest.
 
This is probably my main concern - what to do with that 320k. I see lots of people taking about shares, raisin, degiro, bonds, etc etc, and I'm probably looking for the best return at medium risk. Embarrassed to say that i'm getting nothing on it currently, sitting in AIB at 0.25% demand deposit, which is awful I know.
in the short term the deposits best buy thread should give plenty of food for thought, various options for deposit interest from 2.6-3.8% that you can spread across instituitions to keep within gtee limits.
 
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