What to do now that I am mortgage free?

Has anybody on here invested in VUAA using online brokerage per Persia's post or are ETF s too tax unfriendly for most?
 
I love hearing when people become debt free and especially clearing a mortgage within the term of the loan.

I dont Know in what/where you should invest in future so I’d advise you to take a well deserved break to re-charge your battery and enjoy for a while while deciding on your future.

And don’t take anything for granted; nobody can predict what will happen tomorrow never mind next year.
 
Assuming the OP only has one source of income and he is already maxing out his AVCs (availing of full tax relief) each year does that mean he is not allowed to put any more (each year) in to his AVC fund?

I thought you could put as much in as you liked but you just wouldn't get any more tax relief beyond the limit applicable to your age range?

If that is not possible could he set up a separate AVC PRSA and load any extra post tax income in to that? Wouldn't these be better options than an ETF since they have 0% tax on growth? Ok you have to think about the max pension threshold but if the OP can grow a pension fund to €2.8m he has nothing to worry about.
 
thought you could put as much in as you liked but you just wouldn't get any more tax relief beyond the limit applicable to your age range?

Read this thread. It applies to all Public Sector pensions and many private DB schemes also.


A person can put extra funds into their AVCs beyond the age related yearly tax allowable percentage.

They could claim tax relief on the surplus non tax relieved AVCs in future years.

Even if they didn't manage to claim tax relief on all their AVCs they might do okay if they are only taxed at 20% +USC+ Prsi on the surplus in retirement and have good investment gains
 
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Any bank investment funds here that is mostly equities? I Was meant to meet investment manager last year in aib but had to cancel and never rescheduled. Really not comfortable buying just a couple if stocks.
This is the reason I’m not keen on the advice generally given on AAM to buy individual shares - it’s fine for the odd person who wants to dive in and learn to choose some shares, for the vast majority it just scares them off leading to procrastination and the money sitting in a bank account.

In my view a single accumulating ETF is the correct advice for the average person. Yes the taxation is a bit higher, but it’s not nearly as impactful on the final return as the rate suggests, as the analysis in this thread shows - https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threa...non-tax-relieved-pension-contribution.237580/

My recommendation is to setup an account with DeGIRO or IBKR and buy a single accumulating ETF of either a World Index or S&P500 Index and pay an accountant to do you returns in 8 years time.

To Brendan’s point about not holding a large emergency fund in cash, I am doing some work on the house at the moment and am able to sell some shares in the morning and have the cash in my bank account in <24 hours. I presume that will improve further as instant SEPA transfers continue to roll out.
 
In my view a single accumulating ETF is the correct advice for the average person. Yes the taxation is a bit higher, but it’s not nearly as impactful on the final return as the rate suggests, as the analysis in this thread shows - https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threa...non-tax-relieved-pension-contribution.237580/
I don’t know how you draw the conclusion it’s not nearly as impactful…. 10k at 5% over 20 years gives you ~12k in an ETF wrapper versus ~21k for directly held shares. Your gain is over five times more on the directly held shares.

Comment withdrawn per post below!
 
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This is the reason I’m not keen on the advice generally given on AAM to buy individual shares - it’s fine for the odd person who wants to dive in and learn to choose some shares, for the vast majority it just scares them off leading to procrastination and the money sitting in a bank account.
FWIW I previously outlined my experience with this sort of analysis paralysis and procrastination before in case it's of any use to anyone else.
 
I don’t know how you draw the conclusion it’s not nearly as impactful…. 10k at 5% over 20 years gives you ~12k in an ETF wrapper versus ~21k for directly held shares. Your gain is over five times more on the directly held shares.
Could I suggest you read that full thread and respond there instead, so we can try to keep that discussion from fragmenting across multiple threads, it's a really important one I think.
 
I don’t know how you draw the conclusion it’s not nearly as impactful…. 10k at 5% over 20 years gives you ~12k in an ETF wrapper versus ~21k for directly held shares. Your gain is over five times more on the directly held shares.
If you mean the post starting "To create a comparative model of after-tax returns for various investment vehicles in the Republic of Ireland", I think it's just flat-out wrong. The figure for ETFs is based on accumulation over _8_ years (see the calculation); that for directly held shares is based on accumulation over 20 years. It also has some more oddities (a marginal income tax rate of 55%, for instance).

They mention that it was generated by an LLM, so it is more a machine's fever dreams about how things might work than how things actually work. Lesson is, don't use LLMs for anything important.

If you read further on the thread, there's a lot more discussion.
 
@conor_mc , you wrote:
I don’t know how you draw the conclusion it’s not nearly as impactful…. 10k at 5% over 20 years gives you ~12k in an ETF wrapper versus ~21k for directly held shares. Your gain is over five times more on the directly held shares.
That is not correct. I assume you're referring to post 5 by @galwegian44 . Read it again carefully. The calculation for the ETF stops after year 8. The calculation for directly held shares is for 20 years. So a completely invalid comparison.

And if you read the last line of the post it says that "this response was generated by AI". Completely irresponsible IMHO for @galwegian44 to post it in its current form. He should have highlighted that part and done at least some basic checking to see that the terms were completely different.

So, I would agree with @Zenith63 that for most people a single ETF in an accumulating MCSI World or S&P500 index is a very good option.
To the OP, you can set up savings plans with Trade Republic to buy, say, €1,000 per month of the ETF of your choice (which I am doing). I believe DeGiro and IBKR etc have similar savings plans.
 
And if you read the last line of the post it says that "this response was generated by AI". Completely irresponsible IMHO for @galwegian44 to post it in its current form. He should have highlighted that part and done at least some basic checking to see that the terms were completely different.
That post (now removed?) served a valuable lesson for people to read the full posts, and to apply some critical thought to what they are reading on the internet.
 
That is not correct. I assume you're referring to post 5 by @galwegian44 . Read it again carefully. The calculation for the ETF stops after year 8. The calculation for directly held shares is for 20 years. So a completely invalid comparison.
Thanks for pointing that out @Persius, I took the figures at face value. I withdraw my comment @Zenith63!
 
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