NoRegretsCoyote
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I guess so.
This is more economies of scale. One management company to deal with. You are more attractive customer to a managing agent and contractors.
I guess so.I understand the rationale behind most of these, but not the last point, is that just for convience? Same development seems to concentrate your risk?
| Typical value added for client (basis points) | |
| Suitable asset allocation using broadly diversified funds/ETFs | > 0* |
| Cost-effective implementation (expense ratios) | 34 |
| Rebalancing | 26 |
| Behavioral coaching | 150 |
| Asset location | 0 to 75 |
| Spending strategy (withdrawal order) | 0 to 110 |
| Total-return versus income investing | > 0* |
Unfortunately (from my point of view!) my spouse does want to work. They value having their own independence and career highly. I think this is mostly about, the what ifs, and in particular, if we seperated, they still have their own career and income. Relationship longevity statistics are not awe inspiring.
They also enjoy the intellectual and social side of working outside the home, but they also tend to overwork,and their employer is not as considerate as mine, so their work life balance is worse.
They would also be very interested in getting invlved in some charity/not-for-profit stuff, but don't have the time today.
Overall, I think our qualiy of life would be much much higher if we only had one breadwinner, and with the rental, and tax bands, and childcare, I don't think we would even be that much worse off.
It takes time and energy to organise outings, activities, social events, weekends away, holidays, Having someone with more time to focus on that would be really great for the family.
Any strategies to convince my spouse to take the plunge?
That's a good point, you can't overpay with Avant, the interest bill would be about 10% lower with avant, but if I pay down 10% a year with UB, it gives a similar net interest bill for the year.So you’ve about €450k in cash/shares, the renovation might cost €600k, your mortgage is €275k, and you’re generating a surplus of €150k a year.
You’re already maxing out your pensions, so my analysis would be quite simple:
- Use your €450k and one year’s surplus income to fund the €600k renovation
- Don’t switch to Avant’s 1.95% rate as you won’t be able to pay down your mortgage aggressively
Thanks Gordon.- Then over two years clear your mortgage and make sure you’ve around €50k in cash for emergencies
- Then invest €150k a year in a diversified share portfolio and don’t look back
I will have to work on this.If you could convince your wife on the above she could then take a part time charity role which would give her all that she values from work except financial independence, thats something you have to work on together i suppose.
I see @Bronte and @Blackrock1 also strongly recommended cleaner, housekeeper, gardener. And I really think some extra help would be great, it might even help me work a few more years in the high earning job.Hi,
I'm in a situation not dissimilar to yours. You already have a number of suggestions relating to mortgages / build or buy / investments etc already. I don't think I can add much to that. But I can suggest a couple of "lifestyle" comments...
- We have a really good cleaner who has been with us for almost 10 years. We also have an equally good gardener. Neither need any form of supervision or tracking. They come and do their job and maintain the place seamlessly. The cost is not large but the time and hassle saving is well worth it - weekends aren't about chores or looking at an overgrown garden. We have continued to pay them through the lockdowns - it's in our interest.
We need to do more here. We haven't done enough of this.- On holidays, I'm not that into doing multiple holidays a year or some of the more ostentatious stuff that you see sometimes. But I would recommend thinking of a special "experience" holiday every 2 or 3 years - especially with the kids at the age where they can get a lot out of them. One time we did a three week trip to Costa Rica with stops in various environments (rain forest, cloud forest, pacific ocean). Another time we did an "all in" holiday in Mauritius. In between we had pretty simple holidays. But the kids remember the "big" holidays more than anything else.
I'm jealous of this! For the moment my spouse would prefer to have an independent career.- Flexibility is a major thing for us. We treated the fact that my "salary man" status gave my partner the flexibility to do more flexible work or do things not based on earning a certain salary. That has a big impact on the stress of the household. So, the idea of doing something charitable or socially minded would fall under that. Also allows location flexibility - a couple of summers we rented a place on the west coast of France for a couple of months on AirBnB - big discount because of the months and length of time. Was easily accessible which meant my partner was based there with a couple of trips back, I could go over and back a couple of times.
Have you done a money makeover post yet? I recommend it to get views from others! Sounds like you have most of your affairs in good order though.Otherwise, like you, we haven't a lot of overheads or status symbols. Car is 10 years old, house is mid-size and suits us, outlays are low. As with you, if I lost my job, I don't think I could achieve the same revenue - so am conscious of not digging myself into a hole by ramping up general expenditure without reason
Interesting document but I wouldn't give it too much weight unless it's been peer reviewed and published in a respectable academic journal.It’s also worth pointing out, especially in the context of the number of AAM contributors naively looking to “go it alone”, that Vanguard have a study showing that clients with a financial advisor do 3% better per year...
[broken link removed]
People need to be very wary of all of the “which cheapest ETF or pension should I buy?” threads...
Interesting document but I wouldn't give it too much weight unless it's been peer reviewed and published in a respectable academic journal.
i think you have hit the nail on the head there, when we weighed it all up, having one breadwinner and one person solely dedicated on the family and organising all that goes with that (which is more than a full time job in reality) leads to a better life for everyone.
We were fortunate in that while my partner was a very high achiever when she started out, as we started our family and she was out of the work place for extended periods (i think she took 14 months off for each child) she started to get left behind and seeing less capable people elevated galled her a little (even though she understood why). After the second we started to look at the financial reality of one income and realised that with some adjustments we wouldnt be that much worse off and would accrue all the benefits of her being at home full time. Added to that there was the opportunity of a vol redundancy (she has been with one employer since we left university) so it would have been crazy to pass on that. So it gives us the opportunity to treat this as a temporary career break (which is mentally easier) but i dont see her going back (to her old career at least who knows what will happen in the future).
If you could convince your wife on the above she could then take a part time charity role which would give her all that she values from work except financial independence, thats something you have to work on together i suppose. My partner and i have been together since college so we had nothing when we met and everything we have now is considered shared, even with the current arrangement we split everything down the middle which makes life easier.
There was a large pay variation by the time we made the decision but for 15 years or so my wife earned as much as i did, but one way or another us starting a family impacted that, either by her deciding not to move jobs as we got closer to starting a family and missing out on promotions due to the time she took off to have the kids. Anyway by the time the second came along we were both of the view that for us it would be a better family life and a better life for the kids if she was off. We will see how it goes but for now its definitely the best thing for us.I assume this is a much easier conversation when there is a large variation in pay between spouses?
Interestingly I think this is starting to shift for those starting families now in their late 20s early 30s. There is much more equality in the workplace and support for mothers taking maternity in not falling behind in their careers. I know in my own experience that I historically earnt more than my spouse but in the last few years the gap has closed. We probably need 75% of our total income to live comfortably but each contributes near 50% each.
As an observation with the high salary and low mortgage you could probably employ somebody part-time to do your admin for you.
We had a cleaner before for a few years, but we suffered from the (self enforced stress) on the amount of tidying we had to do in advance, for the cleaner to be able to clean somewhat effectively.
What does a housekeeper do?
We could do with some advice, on how to find good folks to help out, but maybe more importantly, on how to manage and organise the work, and how much to pay/budget for the work. How frequent, how long etc?
I think we could do with that advice for gardener, cleaner, and house keeper
The way the tax system works, couples are heavily incentivised to have a second spouse earning at least €25k pa.
I don't think my first spouse would like that muchThe way the tax system works, couples are heavily incentivised to have a second spouse earning at least €25k pa.
I don't think my first spouse would like that much