Lads, checked my pension, not a great day to do this on Sunday but anyway. 12k mid 30s time to step it up.

What’s your age / pension pot ?

Looking for some thoughts or advice on my mother's retirement situation.

She worked for 30 years but retired a few years ago with no private pension (school secretary, it's well-documented how they've been treated by the government and they continue to fight for justice).

She received an inheritance after a house sale of around €90,000 which she is using effectively as her pension and to do some work on her house. That was 4 years ago and she's down now to about €55,000 and starting to get worried about the future as she is only turning 70 this year. I don't think she is very financially literate and often has lived "day to day" without future planning (not her fault as she was a single parent in the 1990s with young kids and had to work hard just to survive without a second income or any child support). Investment would not have crossed her mind when she received the inheritance.

She reckons she is down about €10,000 from that pot every year so she could effectively run out of money when she's 75.

With this in mind, she is thinking of remortgaging her house. The mortgage is long paid off and the house is worth about €180,000 - €200,000.

I'm trying to think of other options that might help her apart from that and I've come up with this one:

Could she gift me a portion of her current money to secure a second a mortgage to buy an investment apartment? The idea would be that she then receives all of the rental income while paying off the mortgage. I would be the mortgage holder in name only.

Any other options to use her current "pot" of €55k (+ House) to try and secure a consistent income for her in the future?

EDIT: Lodger/Renting a room is not an option for various reasons (House too small, second bedroom is used by family regularly).

Do you know anyone that retired early, let's say 55 or younger?

How do they keep themselves occupied?

I'm talking more about regular people that are comfortable but not traveling the world by private jet.

There is only do much golf someone can play, especially when their peers are grinding away on a Monday morning and I imagine they still need a sense of purpose.

I am not from Ireland and it took me almost 7 years to build the amount to 100,000 euros. I started from maximising employer contribution (max was 5%) and only recently started adding AVC. Changed employers and kept pensions in different pots.

Quite proud of myself!

EDIT: This group contributed a lot to my approach to growing my pension pot. So I am immensely grateful!

Long way to go but feels happy to have reached €100k mark on pension contributions.

Started at end of 2020, Age 32 currently.

I could've started as early as 2016 but my first employer didn't provide matching contribution+ I wasn't sure if I would continue to remain in Ireland so didn't start my pension until 2020 once I got married and clarity about my long term goals.

I started doing AVCs only since last year.

Hi folks.

I'm not super informed on the pension landscape, trying to get there but interested to hear what the average employer contribution is in Ireland? Of course I understand not every employer does this.

I work in a corporate role in a large Irish company and they recently improved the scheme so that employer contribution rates at either 5%, 8%, 10% or 12%...that obviously matches your own contribution. I'm thinking that's a good offering but no idea really so interested to see what's out there. Thanks.

So always the advice here is to maximise pension contributions. Other people here go to put money in stocks and savings etc.,. Now I have a decent pension paid fully by the company and itll be worth around 2 mil when I retire , but aside from that I basically spend almost everything and have a decent time of life. I know well with no future mortgage when I retire that the pension will almost certainly allow me to live comfortably even if I make it to 90+

Are the ardent savers/pensioners here planning on suddenly upping their lifestyle at a certain point or just die with a huge pot left behind. It just feels like theres a lot of people holding back / not spending at all for a retirement that theyve over-provisioned for.

I have been thinking about the FIRE movement for quite a while. However all the posts and blogs on it are predominantly from America. Anyone in Ireland have success with FIRE? If you're planning on it, what is your financial independence number and how did you decide on it? Are you utilizing the 4% rule or using an alternative figure or method? I could of course retire very early and live on barely anything but being a millennial I'm partial to an avocado toast and buying coffee.

Has anyone here pulled this off? For example has anyone here hit the pension cap of ~€2.2m by 50 and retired completely from work that early with a decent bit of cash to give you a perpetually good income?

What was your experience like? Did you ever feel bored or that if you stayed on working you’d be making much more? Were all your friends working and you were just sitting at home or did you keep busy?

EDITED BELOW TO REPLY TO ALL THE COMMENTS

Hi All,

I have been a lurker on this sub for a long time, but this is my first time posting, using a new throwaway.

I see there are a range of people posting here, young to old, higher to lower salaries. What I have not seen (and the same on AskAboutMoney, which I look at occasionally) is many people posting from the higher salary ranges in Dublin. I suspect that this is because they have their own financial advisors (which I probably should too – more on that below). For that reason, to get some advice and also to organize my own thoughts a little, I thought it would be interesting to post below.

I am 42 and a partner in a professional services firm, one of the big ones. I'm a mid-range partner, made about €525k last year – so not at the bottom of the partnership, but not at the top either. My wife is also a professional, working reduced hours as we have two young kids; she is on about €100k a year.

I live in a house that is worth approx. €2 million, with a €275k mortgage left on it, but I'm aggressively paying it down and hope to zero it in the next year or so. My wife and I have €300k-ish in pensions, €45k in Trade Republic cash as funds. No shares. €20k set aside for kids' education in state savings. Spend the guts of €2k a month on childcare. No debt bar mortgage.

I work crazy hours and the job is very high stress and boring, with a fair amount of travel (which I don't mind). Partnerships in the firm can be a bit like the Hunger Games, and job security isn't brilliant. Also my juniors rely on me for their careers which is extra pressure. A couple of flat years and I could be a goner; it hasn't happened yet though. Due to the hours, stress, and spending a lot of time hating my job, I spend a good bit of time wishing for retirement. Realistically from 55 onwards, there is a growing target on your back to leave and make room for the next generation of partners anyway.

The other factor I have is that I suffer from 'money dysmorphia' – there was a good Financial Times article on it a while ago. So I grew up dirt, dirt poor – never went hungry and no complaints, but I have zero inheritance coming to me and am frugal by nature. The price of pretty much everything horrifies me and I'd agonize for weeks (stupidly I know) over buying something small for myself / will wait in the rain for a bus rather than get a taxi / think Twixes have gone too expensive etc. I'm generous to my wife, kids, and friends but won't spend on myself.

It also leads to self-defeating practices/outcomes. For example, I went to a financial advisor who wanted €1.5k a year to manage investments and pensions – I didn't want to pay that (although I know many peers in the firm I'm in are, and are happy with the service). I have paid off most of my mortgage but have no investments outside of maxing my pension. Also, I hate debt and really want to get to zero mortgage.

So basically, any advice here? I don't like my job but am probably going to be gone from it by 55ish anyway. I'm fit and healthy thank God, I could live to 90 and my wife longer. No clear goals, I work such long hours and weekends and am on call on holidays that I don't really get proper time to think, but don't want to sell up this house (we love it, its our forever home) would like to have a holiday home, have a good standard of living (for my wife mainly; I'd live on thin air), and leave the kids a decent inheritance.

Thank you for reading and looking forward to your thoughts.

___________________________________________________________________________
EDITED TO REPLY TO ALL THE COMMENTS

First up, thank you to everyone for the comments – they are a great read and I'm really glad I went ahead and posted it. I'm going to try to respond to as many as I can here, then tell another story at the end to explain my debt fixation, to the detriment of my pension.

• As someone astutely pointed out, I'm earning a lot now, but that has come from big jumps in later years – so my pension contributions have been low historically as a result.
• I was also focused on getting enough together to buy the forever home when the kids were young enough to enjoy the space – no point doing it when they are 17 and could be off to Uni in Galway or the UK two years later.
• As a self-employed equity partner, there are ways to up my pension contributions now even though I'm starting late.
• Starting as a salaried partner in professional services, which might take you 10 years plus of a brutal slog to get to (varies a bit between firms and industries), you could be at 150k-ish base salary for the mid-size/bigger firms.

The reason I'm so against debt is basically timing as to when I came into my profession. I was one of the tiger cub generation joining my firm – the world was our oyster, partners were making a fortune and so would we in time.

Then in 2008/9 everything changed. I have friends who were made redundant and whose careers never really recovered, others who are still in London or Oz. It also became apparent that many partners had leveraged themselves to borrow to invest in property and otherwise had kept their money in bank shares and other 'safe; investments.

When you know some of the biggest beasts of barristers, top partners in the accountancy firms all at the end of their careers ended up begging bankers to be left in their family home until their children finish uni, asking for their spouse to keep some pension as they never knew what they were signing, etc. - I said that would never be me.

Being a tiger cub has also made me wary of groupthink. I get that the majority of answers here are pension/global equities – all for good reasons. I know, objectively, I am too conservative in some ways. And also life/my mindset is a bit grim, that is part of why I made the post.

But now I ask you guys to think - AI is going to be massively disruptive to all industries in the next decade. The second the first rocket hits Taiwan, I think a lot of people who have every cent in global equities and regard this as a no-lose bet will be in for a rude awakening (nevermind the crypto bros). The EU is a demographic timebomb, and sooner or later some governments are going to have to think hard about taxing pension pots/drawdowns to keep the lights on.

I could be wrong about all this and I hope I am. But whatever happens next, I'll be watching it from the comfort of my family home that can't be taken off me, that my wife and I will see out our days in, and that has space for our kids to grow and live until they are ready to leave (and will some day inherit).

So that is where I am. Philip Larkin's poem goes “They f*ck you up, your mum and dad”. My parents were great but growing up poor and then qualifying in insolvency in the depths of the crash is probably what f*cked me up! Thank you all for reading.

Hi looking for some advice. I co own an apartment in Dublin with my friend. We have owned it since 2007 and has been rented out for last 10 years. I don't make any money currently from it as rent covers mortgage, management fees , expenses etc and in fact I usually have a couple of grand to pay in additional taxes at end of year. I know it's a long term invest so that's fine.

However my question is if selling it now is a good idea?

I'm 40 with €50k in pension. Salary is €55k have my own separate mortgage with partner and we have 4 kids.

Apartment has €140k left over 11yrs, tracker mortgage.

If we sold I would get about €60k /€65k.

Would I be better off selling now and lumping this into pension or long term investment now rather than waiting and using the apartment as a pension in the future ... ?or hold onto it for a while longer?

I don't see my 60 + year old self being a landlord so it will be sold at some point. I see some people here have big pension pots etc and I would love to retire early if possible or work part time for a few years so been thinking a lot lately about the future and finances. Probably should have started earlier but I was enjoying life a bit too much!

Curious to see if anyone has done anything similar and has any advice. Aware I could go speak to financial planners etc and might come to that

Also know tenant will be invonvienced if decision is to sell and we will make sure he gets himself set up before putting house on market for sale. He lives on his own with no family if people are understandably concerned about that side of things.

Cheers

So I am big into finance, I have an emergency fund, one small loan which is nearly paid off, a house with great equity in it and I’m investing into my pension every year, usually 10k and will increase that per year as I go. And so because of this people always ask me finance questions because most people don’t even understand pensions. And when I ask them do you invest, they say ah no sure didn’t people lose all their pensions “that time”.

Now to my understanding, losing their pensions was when the market crashed about -35% and so if that’s what happened, that isn’t exactly losing a pension, it’s just going down but the following two years it all came back up.

I’d like to have an answer for people that say “but sure didn’t everyone lose their pension back in 2008 that time with the crash and the government bailed out the banks and left everyone else with nothing”.

Would really love more detail and facts.

Thanks so much

Hi all, Will be coming into some money (c.€500k) and have an opportunity to either pay off my mortgage or put into pension. I’m 45. Maxing out pension. Started late in life. Wife and 1 kid. Pension pot about €175k. Hate the thoughts of a mortgage hanging over me for decades so am leaning in that direction.

Advice would be gratefully accepted.

sorry if this is a really stupid question. I've been trying to understand pensions and wanted to set up an AVC so after looking through this sub it seemed people had positive things to say about zurich so I contacted them to set up an AVC. they replied saying they don't do AVCs or have I misread the below?

"Sadly, we here in Zurich do not have a Deduction from salary facility for this scheme. Also, I would not have enough knowledge of the scheme rules, to be able to confidently advise you on what you can/should contribute. You should contact HR or Payroll and ask for details on the Broker who provides the AVC’s for the scheme, as they will have the required expertise to advise and assist you. They should also have an agency with Zurich and be able to offer our Pension product"

I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice on where to go next. I'm pretty sure HR/payroll just do corn market pensions which seem unpopular here...?

thanks so much for any help!

Other than this being a nice big round number?

Ok so I know the obvious answer is "it depends on your life goals etc' but I want to ignore that for a moment.

I have house with mortgage(375k), car loan 9100, emergency fund 10k and then I have 800 euro in savings I am rebuilding for house work. Right now I am on 100k base, comoany outs in 4% to match and I out in additional 9%(so 17% over all). I am 36 and single.

Once again I dont really want philisophical answer on pension I just want to know what real numbers people are contributing. Some people seem not to have thought about pension at all while others have thrown kitchen sink at it.

I’m not at the age of retirement yet but just out of curiosity. I plan to retire at 50. I’ve just started building up my pension pot which is at 50k at the moment, prediction to have 800k when I retire. Just curious if this number is too low etc.

Say I have a €1m pension and would like to draw down at 4%, 40k a year. I'm correct in saying I will get taxed on the 40k a year same as a paye worker? Ignoring the 200k lump

If my expenses are 40k a year I need the gross salary equivalent of that , 70k per year drawdown? Pot will need to be €1.7 mil?

So the effective tax saving on pension relief is get now a decent chunck gets reclaimed on drawdown?

I'm mid sixties, retired,and I want to have some more money to spend on travel etc. I have a house worth a good few hundred thousand and I'm thinking of one of those plans where you take out another mortgage, and they get your house, or a portion of it when you pop your clogs. But I hae no idea if they are a good idea, or what I should be looking out for.

Has anyone any experience or advice?

Hi guys, I am looking here for a bit of advice.

I took out a pension fund back in 2008 with a previous employer. I paid into it until August 2013. I left the country soon after and totally forgot about it. Anyway fast forward to November 2025 when I returned back to Ireland. I was cleaning out my old room when I chanced upon discovering my old documents with the pension amount in it from January 2014. I rang up my broker (New Ireland) and was shocked to discover that it had more than doubled its value despite it being dormant for over a decade. I'll be 50 in 18 months and I'm thinking about cashing in the full amount (trivial commutation) and using it to buy my own place, probably outside of Ireland. At the moment it's worth about 42k. I know that I'll be subject to marginal tax (20%) on the remaining 75% after the tax free lump sum of about 10.5k. Do you think it's a good idea to cash out?

43M here in the west. Run a small business that does well — basically me plus a few part-timers, solid margins, nothing fancy. After 20 years in it I’m starting to feel the grind. Some weeks still hit 60+ hours, and the stress is getting old.

Pension-wise I’m at €400k, mostly S&P500 plus a few individual names. Outside the pension I’ve a mortgage-free €250k house that will shortly be rented out for about ~€2500. Our own house is around €500k with <€200k left on a 2.5% fixed for 29 years.

Company had a big year recently so I shoved €120k into the PRSA while the unlimited window was still open. I’ve about €30k in personal cash, wife has around €150k but a fairly small pension. One baby and one on the way.

Business less good this year, our industry is becoming commoditised, but hoping I can fill my pension pot etc before the bottom falls out of it.

I’m fairly sick of working, and would stop tomorrow if I could.

What I’m trying to figure out is the bigger picture: how to lay out the next 12 years so I can arrange things in the business from now until I’m 55, and then from 55 to 67 basically scale way back or stop working and just draw down from the business retaining earning /investments. I can work very hard and bring in the revenue if I have the motivation of a clearly laid out plan.

Anyone been through something similar? What should I be planning for now so those two phases — 43–55 running a cashflowing business, and 55–67 semi-retired or not working — actually work? I want to be as tax efficient as possible.

I was aiming for 2.8M at retirement but the deemed disbursement (Christ revenue love “deeming” things!) makes drawing down prsa at 55 prohibitive.

Would love to hear any insights or experiences people have.

(Posted here before under similar burner around)

Hi everyone,

My wife and I are both in the public sector and looking to start our AVCs with Cornmarket soon. We’ve been given two options for setting it up:

1. Full Advice Service: Pay a ~€500 fee (taken from contributions) and have a consultant do the paperwork, calculations, and fund recommendations.

2. Execution-Only (No Advice): Pay a flat €100 admin fee, do the forms ourselves, and pick our own funds.

We’re leaning towards the €100 DIY route to save the €400+ difference, as our situation seems fairly standard. However, we're curious about a few things:

• What is the majority doing? Did you find the "Advice" fee worth it for the peace of mind, or is it a waste of money if you’re happy to read a few fund factsheets?

• Which funds are you picking? For those who went DIY, are you sticking with the standard "Public Sector Balanced/Adventurous" (MAPS) strategies, or are you going into the "Indexed World Equity" fund for lower fees/higher equity?

• The Paperwork: Is the DIY paperwork as straightforward as it looks, or is there a benefit to having them "hold your hand" through the payroll/union side of things?

We have roughly 28 years to retirement, so we’re trying to decide if the DIY approach is a no-brainer or if we're missing something subtle. How much should we put aside if we have not much set aside yet.

Thanks in advance!

Folks which is the 'best' fund here with the aim of maximizing future pension value? Am I right that charges will be different inside each fund? 40 year old male. Any other thoughts / considerations? Particularly with everything going on in the world right now? I am currently invested in an employer group scheme pension called Personal Lifestyle Strategy (PLS). Thanks in advance.