Investing and Insurance

NewIrish

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Relatively new to Ireland (7 years now). I have a few questions on ways to invest money. Below is our profile:

Age:

40
Spouse’s/Partner's age:
40

Annual gross income from employment or profession:
E 83,000
Annual gross income spouse:
E 63,000

Monthly Take Home (After Tax):
Euro 7827

Type of employment:
Full time (Private Sector)
Spouse: Contractor (Private Sector)

Expenditure pattern:
We are both generally 'savers'

Rough estimate of value of home
E 405,000
Mortgage on home
E 300,000 - we've been paying our mortgage for 20 months now.
Period Remaining – 15 years 4 months
Monthly payment - 2,203.62

Mortgage provider:
AIB

Type of mortgage: Tracker, interest only, fixed rate
Fixed (3 years)
Interest rate
3.2%

Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
Car Loan Monthly Payment– Euro 354.41
Car Purchased in Jan – 2019, for 5 years

Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month?
Yes

Savings and investments:
E 50,000 savings.

Do you have a pension scheme?
I have a company pension.
Have started personal pension upto 20% from Nov-2020.
Spouse – No Personal Pension

Do you own any investment or other property?
Yes, In other country

Ages of children:
10 and 4

Life insurance:
Not in Ireland.

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

We want to start investing our money so that we build a corpus for our retirement and have enough for a rainy day and for kids education.
  • Do we increase the personal pension amount to max?
  • Do we start a personal pension for my spouse
  • Do we pay a part of money when mortgage rate is revised
  • We need to invest money in funds etc, what is the best possible way we can start, any website or through a broker?
  • Best company to go for Life insurance? (We have contacted a broker, but seems they were tied to acorn, so not sure if that is a good policy. Any inputs will help)
  • Ways to invest Lump sum amount.
 
Why have you a car loan while you have €50k on deposit earning nothing?

Is the car loan interest free? If not, then pay off the car loan as a first priority.

Ring AIB and ask what the break fee would be on your fixed rate.
It would probably pay your to break.
Pay the balance of your savings against your mortgage.
The refix at a lower rate.

We will probably have a big debate over whether you should pay off your mortgage or contribute to a pension. My view is that you should reduce your Loan to Value to 50% before starting a pension. Others will disagree.

Are you non-nationals? Is there a good chance that you might find yourselves living in another country in retirement?

I wonder if you would be better off saving outside a pension scheme.

You have an investment property in another country. How much equity is in it? Have you considered selling it and paying off your mortgage?

If you have substantial equity and don't want to sell it, then maybe you don't need to get the Irish mortgage down to 50%. If you get into difficulties you could always sell the foreign property.

Brendan
 
Why is your mortgage term 17 years?
Ie you only have 15 years remaining?
Would be easier if it was bit longer term?
 
Thank you for your answer. My answers are in Italics........

Why have you a car loan while you have €50k on deposit earning nothing? - Yes at the time of buying we did not wanted to liquidate all, so bought a mortagage. We were not sure if we would be able too have some good deposit.

Is the car loan interest free? If not, then pay off the car loan as a first priority. - Yes I would inquire about it

Ring AIB and ask what the break fee would be on your fixed rate.
It would probably pay your to break.
Pay the balance of your savings against your mortgage.
The refix at a lower rate.

We will probably have a big debate over whether you should pay off your mortgage or contribute to a pension. My view is that you should reduce your Loan to Value to 50% before starting a pension. Others will disagree. -

Are you non-nationals? Is there a good chance that you might find yourselves living in another country in retirement? - Yes we are and that is the reason we did not invested in pension yet.

I wonder if you would be better off saving outside a pension scheme. - Any options you suggest?

You have an investment property in another country. How much equity is in it? Have you considered selling it and paying off your mortgage? - It will waste a lot of money plus tax. We inquired that option

If you have substantial equity and don't want to sell it, then maybe you don't need to get the Irish mortgage down to 50%. If you get into difficulties you could always sell the foreign property.
 
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