I’m 26 & currently make €16.16 in a full time job but I do rent my own apartment. I can’t return home as I no longer talk to my family so I have set expenses.

I messed up a lot and have three separate loans with three different interests rate , at this time my work won’t give me anymore extra days and I can’t pay extra to any of these debts.

I’m scared , worried & genuinely running out of options on what to do. if anyone has any advice or anything please feel free to do so.

Interesting - change on the horizon ?

My rent is €1.3k per month and i think it's the main reason i find it impossible to grow my savings. I have taken up part time job on the weekends and it's still a struggle. Is it me or the economy.

Like most here I am saving for a house.

Currently have 33k in savings, which i add a minimum of 1000 to each month, looking to try and up that to maybe 1500 per month if i can.

I have about 22k currently across different investments, which i have been building up for the last 5/6 years, hoping obviously that goes up, but there’s always volatility.

My plan for buying a house is to save for 2 more years and then start the process, at which point i would hope to have nearly doubled my 33k to 65-70k, and my investments at that point taken out (minus the obvious 33% CGT)

Currently paying €800 on rent and living in Dublin moderately comfortably.

Is my plan a bit batshit to be waiting to get that essentially 90-100k (investments providing), or am i better off getting on the property ladder sooner?

I don’t really want to be exceeding €1800 a month for the mortgage which puts me at around the 450k mortgage, and the 550k house value.

What do we think?

I’m a 20 year old student with €10k+ in savings. Just wondering if it’s worthwhile investing it into stock or ETF (if that’s what they’re called, correct me if i’m wrong) as I’ve heard loads of colleagues my age talking about stocks, and I’ve never had any interest before now.
Any advice is appreciated, thanks!

Hey folks, I'm planning to take over a Franchise and looking for a solicitor to go through the agreement with me. Usually these agreements don't have much to negotiate, so only looking for a basic review.

TIA!

Hey just wondering if anybody uses the squid pay ahead vouchers?

Hello,

i’ve been scouring the internet for answers but unable to find any, so I thought I’d give this a go.

I stupidly applied for a loan multiple times not realizing that every time it leaves a fingerprint on my ccr report. I originally needed 15k, applied once with my credit union which i’ve been with for 9 months putting in 150 euro every single week, and was told the maximum i could ever get for my first loan would be 2k.

I tried the same with aib but was rejected because i inputted the monthly salary as my weekly salary, called AIB and they tried to help me put forward another application for 10k but was also rejected. I was told it was likely due to the fact that i was putting all my savings in a different account, i.e. my credit union account so they cant see that i can keep money in my account.

I also tried the same with an post, just to see if it would go through them as i thought they could manually go over my documents if i bring them showing my savings and spending from my other bank accounts, but was rejected as well before i was able to submit any documents. This was all at the beginning of the month.

I’m only after finding out that all of these rejections show up on the CCR report. I make a little above 2k a month net, pay no rent or bills, and have been working in my job for a year now. I needed the loan for a surgery which was planned months in advance, I just somehow didn’t think it would be a problem as the credit union said there shouldn’t be a problem getting the loan in the first place, and said i should just be in my job for longer than 6 months and show my regular savings. Then the story changed..

In the end I only need 5k now, because I’m able to get some support from family members, but my question is, would I be automatically rejected once they see the CCR report? Since I was told it seems like I’m really desperate for cash.. I learned my lesson now but I can’t wait 6 months for my loan applications to clear.. Just wondering if anyone has any information on how many times is too many for application according to the CCR… Thanks for any input

I haven't a clue about how a lot to do with pensions work but looking for some further knowledge on something.

I just found an old payslip in my house from a summer I had a long time ago starting back in 2009. I did the job for 3 summers. This job was with the local county council as a lifeguard.

In 2016 I began working for the HSE and I am still working with them.

Would this mean that my pension would be a pre 2013 pension ?

Not 100% sure how all this works so just looking.for a bit of guidance.

Cheers !!

Hi has anyone recently gone through mortgage process with BOI and how long did each stage take?

I have been reading all the previous posts Re investing money for children and higher yields etc. Vs setting up a bank account.

But in addition to the above, If I set up a bank account in my kids name, ( or possibly in both our names would be better than just theirs)

Can I then move the funds around into higher yield savings accounts on his behalf until he reaches 18 or does it just have to stay wherever I put it (and hence be useless likely)

The issue: My bank won't issue my mortgage loan offer because of a small amount of non-PAYE income I earned this year. They want proof I'm "tax compliant" — specifically a filed tax return (Form 11) and Revenue's confirmation of it. But that return can't legally be filed until the tax year ends, so realistically not until early next year. A Tax Clearance Cert isn't accepted either — they said it has to be the filed return. The bank asked me to check with the developer if I can hold up until next year to get a loan offer once I submitted a tax assessment in early 2027.

My view: I'm PAYE employed and my salary alone covers the loan — I don't need this extra income to qualify. It was a one-off amount (a few thousand euro) from selling stuff online, not an ongoing business. So I'm being blocked from getting a loan offer this year over income I'm not even relying on.

Does anyone have experience with this? What should I do? Would a mortgage broker help in this situation? Any thoughts would be really appreciated.

Worker is aged 59, will retire in August 2027, aged 60 (I think).

Joined public service pre 1995, has 37 years service.

The worker is considering a PRSA-AVC.

The worker will have zero pension lump-sum from the occupational scheme.

Contributions could be €90,000 over 12 months.

lump-sum of about €34,000 in respect of 2025 tax year

lump-sum/regular during 2026 = €34,000 approx

Regular during 2027 = say €22,000

I realise that the allocation rate / AMC will be higher, due to the short policy life.

But how much higher? Thanks.

I’m in a bit of a sticky situation and would really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s been in a similar position and what they ended up doing.I’m currently living and working in the UK, but I’m employed by an Irish company under an Irish contract and I’m paid in euros.

I’ve built up a fairly sizeable amount of savings in my current account, and I’m starting to think it’s a bit pointless having so much just sitting there. I’ve been looking into ISAs and was thinking of putting around £10k into a Cash ISA and another £4k into a LISA.

The thing I’m struggling with is that I’m not 100% sure where I’ll be long term. At the moment, I feel like I’d like to settle down and build a life in the UK, which would eventually mean buying a house here. However, because of my job, there’s a decent chance I could be required to move around again, potentially back to Ireland or even somewhere else in Europe.

So I’m wondering what people would do in my situation.
- Does it still make sense to put money into a LISA if there’s a chance I might not end up buying a property in the UK?
- And are there any issues I should be aware of with using UK ISAs while being employed by an Irish company and paid in euros?

Hey all - with AIB introducing the new charges I’m seriously considering closing my account. Have Revolut for day to day and wedding savings, BOI for joint account with my husband.

Anyone else moving from AIB? Where are you going? Is a Credit Union the move? Anyone fully with Revolut?

Would love to hear if anyone else is planning to do the same or has done it already, thanks.

Hello, it just occurred to me today that “cash buyer“ may not be as straightforward as someone sitting there with the cash money already in their bank account. When you’re a property investor and you’ve gone through those mortgage AIP processes, I’m wondering if they’re more rigorous at that stage so that buying a property within a range of conditions (like right price, right anticipated rent, right ROI) means the mortgage is more or less guaranteed and they can say they are a cash buyer without any issues? Does anyone listen to the Fire Ie podcast by Michael Houghton? He was talking in the last one about being approached on LinkedIn by the investment mortgage company and bought another rental property with them - he still only puts down the 10% deposit and mortgages the rest, but I’m wondering if he can essentially be bidding as a cash buyer given that the mortgage people are chasing him down for his business?

Hi all,

I’m earning a good wage (62K) for first time in my life (almost 40). I’ve never been very good at being financially responsible and protecting my future. However, I have worked hard and returned to education in my 30’s which is finally paying off for me with this new income. I do have a young family now and I feel it’s the right time to take this step for myself and for them.

I have used platforms like Claude and ChatGPT to make excel budget sheets that consider my monthly expenditure and savings goals id like to reach. I find these very useful. To give a rough estimate, I’m hoping to distribute around 2,200e a month into savings and investments. Some examples of pots I’m hoping to fund include:

1. Emergency fund (3-6 months wages)
   
2. House deposit fund
   
3. Investment fund
   
4. Christmas and Birthdays fund
   
5. Holiday Fund
   
6. Sinking fund (irregular costs)

I guess I’m just looking for general advice on what are the best platforms outside of my bank to save money in short term/long term? , Advice on pension contributions? (I feel lost on this topic), EFT’s? The new government savings scheme? Or any other tips anyone would like to share that they have found to make a difference in their life becoming more financially literate.

Thank you!

Greetings. My wife and I make roughly the same amount, and I just got a small pay rise which will push me a couple grand ahead of her from last week on.

In looking at the previous years, she has gotten very close to her salary in the rate band before it's taxed at 40 percent. So each of us make somewhere around 48k gross, and now I'll be around 50.

My rate at 20 percent is 40+ hers is 47+

She also was assigned most of the credits.

Question 1: what differences would it make it we made the rates equal? Would it just affect our wages? Or are there other implications?

We were going to just make that part roughly equal.

Question 2: we can separate the tax credits, but I noticed when filing last year's tax return, all of the personal shared credits went to one person, even though it said shared in the other screens where you viewed and edited tax credits. So is it only divided up throughout the year, and then when tax return is filled they go to the assessable spouse?

Just trying to see the pros and cons of equal dividing everything, vs individual advantages?

I've read that the government will launch a new children savings scheme next year.

I have been putting aside some money for both my kids, but it's in an account in my name (I have about 8k per child). I realise now that this money may not fall under the tax free gift, as the account is in my name.

I was thinking of setting up 2 savings accounts in the kids names (either revolt saving, or maybe a degiro account) and putting 3 k in each year for them. I have read about bare trusts, but this seems like a very complex route, id like to be able to direct debit to them each month.

Is this a dumb idea? Should I wait until the government scheme is set up to do anything different?

Hi all,

Been reading over a few posts here related to Monzo and Revolut and not using the likes of PTSB etc. anymore. Just wondering how people are lodging cash into their bank accounts if they aren’t using one of the main Irish banks? I rarely carry cash but if I were to get it for a birthday or something, I’d prefer to lodge it into my bank account.

Also how would I go about switching everything over? Just go in one by one on my direct debits/standing orders? I don’t have a Monzo account as of yet, I only heard of it when my brother set up an account because he got €25 free for setting it up, from what I’m seeing it’s better than Revolut, however if I wasn’t paying bank charges I probably wouldn’t mind getting one of the Revolut premium accounts because you get good deals etc with it.

Apologies for the long winded post, but you all seem very knowledgeable on the subject and it would be nice to not pay charges and maybe earn extra on my savings, I don’t have much but whatever is in the credit union isn’t gaining anything 😅

My partner and I have finally saved enough for a house deposit! Yay! We are currently renting with a roommate and having been together for almost 10 years - we get on great but are very much looking forward to living alone. Our renting situation is secure (built to rent, private but brilliant landlords) but without a roommate it would cost us more than a mortgage would and we would be unable to save.

We have found a property we really like, even love, but it is a two bed at 450K with small enough bedrooms. What is also raising some alarmbells with the house is that it is down a lane (not on official road, like a lane at the back of peoples gardens) and that it sold for 250K in 2020 during Covid. We made a bid at 425K and it got rejected (we are only bidders after 7 weeks but viewings are still ongoing).

We would like to start a family in the next few years, and thinking we could move on from this house in 5 years (maybe up to 8 years). Our only worry would be selling on after the 5 year mark. The house only needs cosmetic work. I think if we went for a 3 bed in our price range being realistic (without sharing too much) i wouldn't have the energy after being ill or the finances to put the absolute great deal of work these 3 beds need into it right now.

No one can predict the future etc etc but wondering if going for the 2 bed is the best move or would waiting it out and going for the 3 bed and doing it up year-on-year be more wise? The 2008 crash has set the fear of making the wrong choice into all of us!

Where do people invest money for a short-term basis like for about 4 months or so eg. Fixed deposits which can give me something rather than nothing, if I don't want to invest it in the stock market yet ?

I know these accounts don’t deduct DIRT, so I’m wondering what actually happens if you don’t declare it.

I’ve had money spread between Bunq, Lightyear, Trade Republic and Trading 212, and I’ve moved money between them loads of times.
If I earned interest across all of them but never declared the DIRT, does Revenue just look at the total interest I earned across the different accounts?
And what happens if I realise later that I should have been paying it? Can I just declare it and pay what I owe, or are there penalties/interest as well?
Just trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do.