What to do with spare money?

Xcellor

I have no debts apart from mortgage which is on tracker @ 1.3%. I overpay by 100 euro a month, the house in still in negative equity by about 40k I'd expect.

I'm now in the position I can save 1-1.5k a month but I'm sick of rubbish interest rates and then when DIRT is applied it makes it pointless. I don't think its worth putting more money into my mortgage.

What alternatives are there? I don't mind a bit of risk i.e. 500 euro a month into something risky and continue to save the balance in bank.

Cheers
X

GerardKeating

Xcellor wrote: »

I have no debts apart from mortgage which is on tracker @ 1.3%. I overpay by 100 euro a month, the house in still in negative equity by about 40k I'd expect.

I'm now in the position I can save 1-1.5k a month but I'm sick of rubbish interest rates and then when DIRT is applied it makes it pointless. I don't think its worth putting more money into my mortgage.

What alternatives are there? I don't mind a bit of risk i.e. 500 euro a month into something risky and continue to save the balance in bank.

Cheers
X

Pension scheme?

PaulM1977

Try Davy Select, you can save from €500.00 a month and can access the funds when and if needed. You can also get a better return compared to whats on offer through the banks, but this would depend on how much risk you want to take. Have a look at their fund of funds options.
Failing that, speak to a financial consultant who can go through all your options.

Xcellor

GerardKeating wrote: »

Pension scheme?

I'm putting 10% of my earnings into pension and I started doing this from 25 probably should have mentioned this but its something I forget about. I'm in my early 30s now so dont think there is a need a to increase this contribution yet.

Xcellor

PaulM1977 wrote: »

Try Davy Select, you can save from €500.00 a month and can access the funds when and if needed. You can also get a better return compared to whats on offer through the banks, but this would depend on how much risk you want to take. Have a look at their fund of funds options.
Failing that, speak to a financial consultant who can go through all your options.

OK seems like a good idea. I'll set up an account. Works out around 80 euro a year to keep the account running and then a % on the trade.

I haven't dealt directly with shares/trading, what is the tax liability?

newacc2015

PaulM1977 wrote: »

Try Davy Select, you can save from €500.00 a month and can access the funds when and if needed. You can also get a better return compared to whats on offer through the banks, but this would depend on how much risk you want to take. Have a look at their fund of funds options.
Failing that, speak to a financial consultant who can go through all your options.

Dont use an Irish broker. The commission and monthly charges are robbery. Use something with low fees like DeGiro. Its Dutch and regulated so its pretty safe. You can buy ETFs which are a pretty well balanced way of investing in stocks if you have little knowledge. They might buy parts of the top 100 shares on the Nasdaq which have different industries and markets. So you wont too exposed one sector/industry performs badly ie if the IT industry had a crisis on par with the dot com bubble, if your ETF investment will not be as badly hit as if you invested 30% of your savings purely in IT stock

Honestly I would use an Irish "broker". They lack experience and knowledge for a decent investment. Look at how many people got burnt with AIB investments in the likes of the IFSC. The most you learn about financial analysts, the more shady the whole industry appears to be. Eg selling of junk bonds, knowing they will never perform. But if you have the likes of Michael Milken to blame. You have zero issue selling them as a sound investment

A ETF is the best opinion. But IMO shares are totally overvalued at the moment. Most companies are underperforming and with the massive amounts of cheap credit from QE. Companies are using this to buy back shares to drive up share prices.

What appears to me as a safe bet is Employment & Investment Incentive (EII). You invest money in relatively strong Irish companies and get tax credits in return. Its the new scheme to replace BES. Some of the companies in it are pretty decent. You might not get an amazing return. But it will beat bank interest, you will get tax credit and imagine there isnt a huge risk of the company going under. I say its a safer investment than something mad like an Balkan investment fund or something insane that most investment brokers will tell you is a good investment


http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/it/reliefs/business-expansion-schemes.html

Xcellor

OK signed up with DeGiro... They only accept bank transfer so have to wait for a while for the money to hit them before I get to poke around. Since I'm completely green are there any obvious "gotchas" or "newbie" pitfalls?

Any useful reading material to start off with to get me going?

PaulM1977

Go in to the Investment and Markets section under Business and Finance and they can help you with some literature to read up on.

Best of luck with it all.

TallGlass

How much could you expect to make on 500€ a month?