r/irishpersonalfinance

Every year it's the same story energy contract ends, broadband goes up, and suddenly I'm spending a Saturday trawling through comparison sites that probably aren't even showing me the full picture anyway.

So I've just started building something myself to track it all and ping me when there's a better deal. Nothing fancy, just tired of doing it manually every year.

Anyone else gone down this road or found something that actually works?

Half of consumers surveyed would use savings or income to fund the cost, but one in four would have to sell an item or borrow money...

Hello folks,

We’re moving into a new build in North Dublin soon (new build - 95 sqm 3 bedroom house) and looking for recommendations for companies that can supply and fit:
- Flooring (likely SPC/LVT downstairs and carpet stairs and bedrooms)
- are Coretec floors worth it
- planning for herringbone design
- Carpets for bedrooms/stairs
- Curtains/blinds throughout the house
- ceiling to floor sheer and curtains for big windows with ceiling track and roman blinds for smaller windows (are recessed ceiling tracks worth it?)
- lightings/pendants/additional ceiling lights if possible

Ideally looking for somewhere that can handle both supply + fitting and has a decent showroom around Dublin.

Would really appreciate:
Companies you used and would recommend
Rough costs for a similar-sized house
How long fitting took
Any places to avoid
We’re trying to balance good quality with reasonable pricing — not looking for ultra high-end, but don’t want the cheapest option either.
Thanks in advance!

In summary, I currently own a house with my wife, we have a 35 years mortgage with PTSB, 5 year fixed to start.

We are currently just over 3 years in to the term, due to family circumstances and other factors we have had to take the decision to move.

We will be mortgaging our new home with PTSB again and have received our AIP. Depending on required mortgage level on the new home we wpuld ideally like to keep the term the same of shorter (32 years or less).

Im looking for advice on any ways to improve our repayment plans i.e regular overpayment, fortnightly payments, etc

We've done none of these things over our 3 years so far

I’m newly graduated and got offered my first job. Ive been here about 3 months now and I enjoy the work I do. Ive heard alot of complaints about salaries not aligning with the cost of living in general so I was wondering if my take home pay is considered standard or if it is pretty good starting off. I rent a room, dont spend much or go outside so I save almost 2k per month. I’m also curious what other graduates are earning in 2025/2026

Hi

I am looking at buying my first home, I am interested in a home that is a bit of a doer upper, but once tidied up will have 6 bedrooms. My plan was to live in one bedroom and rent out the other 5 bedrooms. Can I deduct interest against rental income in this scenario? Or would I just have to declare that I dont live in it?

I left Ireland in 2018 and reside outside the EU (and also not residing in any country that has social insurance-related agreements with the Republic of Ireland). It seems that I've misunderstood entirely the subject of paying voluntary social insurance contributions. I thought at the time that I had a period of 5 years within which I could buy back those five years while not having the opportunity to contribute further going forward, paying annual contributions on a year-on-year basis up until retirement age.

I've now discovered that I could have applied within that timeframe to make ongoing annual contribution payments. Having long past the five year rule, is there any leeway on this? Has anyone ever made a late application to the Department of Social Welfare in order to be permitted to make voluntary payments. I left Ireland 8 years ago.

EDIT: My interrogation of AI is telling me that its highly unlikely that the Dept. of Social Welfare will entertain a very, very late application. It says that my only other option is to return to Ireland and work - not something I would ordinarily want to do - but if there's no other way!
AI suggesting I would either need to work for 1 week (earning a minimum of 38 euro) or be self employed and invoice at least 5,500 euro. I'm not thinking cynically here - I want to work within the requirements - but at the same time, it would suit me to just achieve the minimums in order to get back on track. I've built a life elsewhere that I would want to get back to! I've emailed DSW on this anyway but is there anything I haven't considered with this? Or maybe you can tell me AI has misled me (it's often wrong)?

Started a new job in the middle of last month and have been emergency taxed every week since, when I look through my details it seems that revenue have my new employment on record and the cessation of my last employment. I'm not very savvy when it comes to changing any of these details online so I do prefer to actually speak with a human being so I can be sure of things. I have tried calling every day since my first payday with this new company but their lines always seem to be busy, I put In a query online and was told to wait 7 to 17 working days, but from speaking to others it seems they've been waiting anywhere between a month and several to get their queries answered. A month of less than half a paycheck is starting to snowball into a financial struggle and I'm incredibly stressed with having to wait for their reply. Does anyone know of any other ways to get in touch? Much appreciated.

Hi all, I am a bit confused and would appreciate some perspective.

Looking at buying a car and was considering using a personal loan for it. The personal loan interest rate is turning out to be around 8.7%, or something similar. The loan amount would be around 10k

The part I’m unsure about is this: I currently have ~60k in savings. My initial thought was to take the personal loan, keep most of my savings intact, and then pay off the loan aggressively within 6–9 months. The idea was that this would let me keep liquidity in the short term while still allowing me to clear the debt.

But, now I am wondering whether this actually makes any financial sense. If the loan is around 8.7% and my savings are earning much less than that, am I just paying unnecessary interest for no real benefit?

Would love some feedback on what you would do in my situation. I’d also appreciate any advice on shopping around / suggestions for personal loans, as the quoted rate seems a bit high.

EDIT:
- I am renting right now

- And, plan on spending about 15k on the car

TIA!

Forgive my ignorance, but financially I'm dumb as soup.

Earlier this year, I transferred a lump sum of €10,000 into my pension (effectively capping my 20% tax-free allowance for last year). Around the same time, I also switched my entire pension balance into a different, higher-risk fund. yes i'm a stupid gambler.

A couple of days later, once the system updated, I noticed my projected value at retirement jumped to €621,000 (up from around €120,000 previously).

My question is: how do I interpret this moving forward? Does the system's calculator assume I am going to continue contributing that maximum 20% lump sum every single year to hit that €621k target, or is it just projecting based on my new fund's growth rate and my normal monthly contributions?

Thanks in advance!

I’ve been working in marketing now for 2 years in B2B tech. I came in as a graduate as the only marketing resource but I was doing what I could with the resources I had and essentially no budget. A CCO came on board at the end of last year who really helped enable marketing activities and set proper budgets etc. and we’ve really ramping up marketing activity by A LOT. I pride myself in working hard and now doing marketing activity over 6 different channels (fully owning strategies and delivering them - ads over 2 platforms, event planning, brand proposition development, account based marketing, website updates and lots more). I’m really learning lots and feel my skills are developing. This is a really great opportunity for me.

But Dublin is an expensive hole and I could be making more money. My salary was initially 32k when I started. I asked for a review after a year and got it up to 37k which increased to 38k at the start of this year.. After doing a bit of research I think 42k wouldn’t be an unreasonable ask… However I don’t really have anyone to bounce this off of..

I almost don’t want want to bring it up ‘too soon’ considering the small bonus (company wide) at the start of the year out of fear of being ‘greedy’ but I need more money and I believe if you don’t ask you don’t get.

Any thoughts/ advice from anyone working in the field?

I’m looking at buying a house, the estate agent told me that a house next door was rented at a yield of approx 4% based on asking price for the house we were looking at. The house next door was probably nicer. I know things are crazy but is this were things are?

Hello,

33/m here - curious to get some feedback and thoughts on where I am with my personal finances and if I'm applying things efficiently or if there's room for improvement.

For some further background - I've no mortgage or children, but hoping to change the former as soon as possible and aim for a house purchase. Currently renting with my partner at €1,700 a month where I'm paying €1k of that as she is on a lower salary.

- Salary €66k/year

- Current account usually floats around €4-6k

- Pension pot currently €78.5k - contributing 7.5% which is matched by my employer.

- I have €46.5k invested in various S&P/FTSE ETFs since around 2021, with a P/L currently of +€23.5k

- I have a further €10k invested in a Zurich investment fund - this was out of a recommendation through my employer's pension provider, but now feels superfluous to my needs given I have investments in ETFs.

- I have no dedicated mortgage deposit "pot"

- No loans/debt

There's been no real science to my approach - I stick some cash in ETFs when I remember, but otherwise I'm fairly hands off and just let things ride. Spent most of my 20s living at home hence I was able to save quite a bit but never had my savings working for me until I discovered ETFs etc. around COVID time, and now I'm obviously hoping deemed disposal is binned off in the next 2-3 years!

Many thanks for reading.

My virgin media 1 year contract at 1GB is ending soon. Previously i signed up as a new user for the first time and got €45 per month for 12 months. As of today, virgin media website lists offers for new customers as €40 per month for the 1GB for 12 months.

I spoke with their sales team and best offer i could get was a 12 month contract,

€40 for first 9 months and €80 for the 3 months after.

Averaging €50 a month. (is this a good enough deal to accept?)

I see comments from some posts that people get their partner, house mate, siblings, etc to switch to their name after the first year to avail the new offer. But does anyone know Are you able to repeat the same process back and forth? or does the system recognise the direct debit account?

• Like year 1, person 1 makes an account, get the deal.
• Year 2, person 2 makes an account, get the deal.
• Year 3, person 1 makes a new account to get the deal again - is this possible?

Or does anyone know what is considered a "new customer"?
Is it a “once per person” or “once per person-and-address combination.” Or is it as simple as a new email account.

🙏🙏🙏 Thank you

Retired couple, both aged 71, seeking some opinions on investment options recommended by our financial advisor.
We have been advised to invest in the following funds:

- Dimensional 60/40
- World Allocation 80/20
- Dimensional World Equity

Our situation is that we are unlikely to need to draw on these funds during our lifetime, and the intention is for the investments to eventually pass to our children.
The financial advisor has quoted annual charges of 1.75%, which seems quite substantial over time, so we are also considering the possibility of self-investing after carrying out thorough research.

We would really appreciate any views or experiences people may have regarding:
- The suitability of these funds for our circumstances
- Whether holding a mix of all three makes sense
- Any thoughts on risk levels for investors in our position
- Whether the advisor’s fees seem reasonable
- We are comfortable taking some level of risk and were considering possibly splitting the investment across the three funds.

Thank you in advance for any advice or insights

Sorry in advance for the long message, I’m not great at keeping things short haha.

Our 5 year fixed mortgage ends in October and I’m starting to get everything in order to switch provider for a better rate. By then I’ll owe around €185,000 on the mortgage (originally €206,000), and the house should value at roughly €500,000 (I know I'll need to get it valued by the bank first).

I’m wondering about the possibility of releasing equity for debt consolidation. After getting the mortgage, we took out home improvement loans of about €60,000 and a car loan of around €15,000. They’re manageable, but I regret taking them out now...

Current monthly repayments are:

Mortgage – €715

Home improvement loans – €708

Car loan – €326

Total: €1,749

The idea would be to switch the €185,000 mortgage and release another €50,000 to clear the loans. From what I can work out, that would bring the mortgage to around €235,000, with repayments somewhere around €900–€950 a month depending on rates at the time. So overall we’d be reducing monthly outgoings by roughly half...

Based on our combined salaries, we should be able to borrow up to around €270,000 so should be no issues there..

My main concern is that we currently have no savings. We’re clearing credit card debt at the moment and should have the remaining €3,000 paid off by October. We’ve never missed repayments on the mortgage or any loans, but our bank statements definitely aren’t as clean as they were when we first applied for the mortgage as in we don't show constant savings, usually only have less than 50euro in our accounts each by the time we're paid again etc.

Would the fact that the consolidation would nearly half our current monthly outgoings be enough for the banks to accept the switch and release equity, or do we need to start showing consistent savings?

It's either show consistent savings starting now or clear credit card debt.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: we're both 32 years old if that makes a difference

Hi all, would appreciate any advice on this. I have about 10k in savings and considering travelling/moving abroad for a year. Looking for advice on where to put this 10k as I don't want to let it just sit there in bank account. Or should I wait til I get home and put it in a pension when I get back? (Is that even possible? I have zero clue about any of this stuff)

Any advice would be appreciated including any articles/books you can recommend on investing? Thanks!

Hi Lads,

Just looking to get a sanity check on some financial calcs; if possible. The below have been done using AI and financials I will admit may not be my strongest suit, so a validation would be welcomed.

Currently I have a Master Trust Pension and I am weighing up the options of of either increasing contributions to this fund or opening up an execution only PRSA to avail of lower AMC fees.

I am interested in keeping the Master trust going with the advice that comes with it

There is an increase in fund value close to 950k , with a reduction of fees of approx 23k; I suspect something is not correct in the calcs.

Does the AMC have this much of a bearing on the fund ? I have often heard people saying they are expensive but not 100% if the calcs below are I would welcome a sanity check by somebody.

Assumptions in calculations

Current Fund Value = €150,000

Years until retirement = 22

Growth rate = 3%

Scenario 1

All contributions are paid to existing Master Trust in full to a total of 60k per year.

Yearly Contribution = €60000

Provider fees = 1.0%

Broker fee = 0.25%

Results Scenario 1

Projected fund at retirement €2,630,000

Total fees deducted €382,000

Product provider fees (1.0%) €305,600

Broker fees (0.25%) €76,400

Net growth rate used 1.75%

Scenario 2

Master Trust Contributions are kept at 30k per year and remaining 30k is used for an Execution only PRSA fund.

Master Trust

Yearly Contribution = €30,000

Provider fees = 1.0%

Broker fee = 0.25%

PRSA

Yearly Contribution = €30,000

Provider fees = 0.40%

Master Trust

30k Yearly deposits & 1.25% Fees

Projected fund at retirement €1,676,000

Total fees deducted €243,000

Product provider fees (1.0%) €194,000

Broker fees (0.25%) €49,000

Net growth rate used 1.75%

PRSA

30k Yearly deposits & 0.4% Fees

Projected fund at retirement €1,903,000

Total fees deducted €116,000

Product provider fees (0.40%) €116,000

Broker fees €0

Net growth rate used 2.60%

ResultsScenario 2

Item Value

Projected fund at retirement - Total €3,579,000

Total fees deducted - Total €359,000

Product provider fees - Total €310,000

Broker fees - Total €49,000

Results Scenario 1 – Scenario 2

Overall Value

Projected fund at retirement – Total €949,000

Total fees deducted - Total -€23,000

Product provider fees - Total €4,400

Broker fees - Total -€27,400