My initial meeting with clients is to find out about them. Where they are now and where they want to get to. Of course, one of the questions is when they want to retire. More and more frequently, they are telling me that they don’t think they will ever retire. It is not because they don’t […]
Last Wednesday was a day full of excitement. Ireland beat Italy in the Euros to get out of our group and through to the round of 16. Earlier, an announcement was made by the Minister for Finance that got all of us who work in personal finance all excited. The ARF option is being made available […]
Last week, we had the headlines No pension freedom for Irish retirees in The Irish Times and the most sensationalist headline Fears pensions will be cashed in for Ferraris in the Independent. Both articles said that members of the Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF) didn’t think that it was a good idea if people cashed in the […]
My car broke down last week. So I phoned my mechanic, Ian, in Green Auto Service who told me to drop it in and he would have a look at it. Now, I have zero interests in cars and how they work, so when Ian started telling me what had gone wrong and what he did […]
I had a meeting last week with a non national who wanted to know her options at retirement before she made her pension investment. As she is unlikely to stay in Ireland when she retired, she wanted control over her retirement fund. ‘No problem’, I said, ‘You can take complete control of your fund in […]
Retirement is a huge event in someone’s life. For 40 odd years, you have been going to work, meeting and working with the same people. Then it all comes to an end. For those who plan, they will start a great new chapter in their lives where they start doing all those things they always wanted […]
A report issued last week for the Journal of Aging & Social Policy found that 66% of over 50’s didn’t know either how their pension pot would be paid at retirement or the amount of their benefits. This is a frightening statistic for a demographic that should be thinking about life after work. You have to […]
Last week, I wrote about diversification and the need to have it as part of any investment strategy. Once your investment strategy has been put in place, it has to be managed to ensure that it meets long term expectations and risk exposure. Rebalancing forms a key part of that strategy management. What is rebalancing? The […]
The deadline for submitting a Personal Fund Threshold (PFT) notification on 31 July 2015 is fast approaching. While it only affects a few, if it does apply to you, it is very important to make the notification in order to avoid a very hard taxation system. So, what is a Personal Fund Threshold Standard Fund […]
A few weeks ago, I got a phonecall from a retired member of the DAA pension scheme. He had contributed to AVC’s for all his working life with the DAA and when he came to retirement, he decided to buy back years to boost his pension. He was phoning me because as part of the recent […]