Hello,
I suggest you keep it simple, to begin with....
Do a budget of all of the monthly household bills. There are lots of templates to be found online, you just need to fill in the amounts (which you can easily get, by looking at previous months expenditure). Don't forget to include things like your mortgage, life assurance, house insurance (10% of the premium every month, if you've paid it annually) etc.
- I thnk the two of you should open a joint account, each lodge half of the total monthly amount needed, by standing order, on the day you each get paid - every month. To begin with, each of you also lodge €250 to create a small surplus in the new account. Set up / move all existing direct debits and standing orders (for household bills) to this new joint account. All regular bills now get paid from here, but nothing else. Never touch any remaining funds, if there's a shortfall, top it up by €250 each and continue. After a year, you'll be able to see your true livinv costs.
Stay in for four nights per month (get a takeaway, the odd time, if you must). You'll dislike this the first month, but suck it up, and stick to it, it's really not that hard - and I suspect that you'll still have very healthy social lives, even with this cut back.
Each of you put €100 into a regular savings account. This is should go in by standing order, on the day that you each get paid. Don't touch this for at least one year...
Increase your AVCs by €75 each, per month. This will be deducted from salary, and will only reduce your salaries by about €40-45 per month, after tax.
Cut up your credit card - don't cancel the account. Pay off the balance over six months. Treat it like a loan, once you pay it, you can't reuse it. You'll have to pay interest on it and without being funny, it'll annoy you a little, so you'll likely remember the feeling of having to pay a high interest rate.
If you both don't have individual debit cards, get them. From now on, you pay for things directly out of your current accounts. No one credit cards, for paying for day to day expenditure.
Next thing - get working on cutting your costs back a bit.
Go onto the likes of Bonkers.ie, register your details, then work through the various service providers, to ensure you are getting the best deals on gas, electrivity, broadband, mobile phones, landline etc. Be serious, and you'll save serval hundred euro in 12 months, possibly more (and that's after tax!).
Forget about residential investment properties..... I thnk you'd be crazy to even consider taking one on, before sorting out the many other things that you guys need to attend to, first. Even then, residential properties are currently very expensive to buy, and you don't strike me as the sort of people who will go and repair the leaky tap etc. when you tenant phones to complain, so whatever small rent you'll have left after payment of tax, will quickly be gone, paying third party service, maintenance and repairs etc.
Put the inheritance into a 2 year fixed term savings account. Then, see where your area at, in two years time - with regards to planing for children's education etc.