Is everybody broke?

Got to keep them in the lifestyle they're accustomed to.

It's disgraceful that someone can pay 2k per month rent but the bank won't give them a mortgage for 1100 or 1200. That's just completely wrong.

Yep, this is a truly shocking state of affairs…. people getting refused a mortgage because the bank feel they can't make payments of €1200/pm, yet those same people are paying rents of €2k and above.

These threads are always fascinating. It's almost self-selecting people from both extremes (those that are fighting to survive, and those that are awash with cash earnings 6 figures).

The truth lies somewhere in the middle I think and really depends on your lifestyle and your outlook and how much value you put on things.

For example you'll have people who watch every penny and still be poor, or others that'll watch every penny and make sure every penny has a job to live and plan for the future.

On the other hand, Ireland has a super highly educated workforce (mainly tech/pharma/legal) where salaries are super competitive. And in this bracket again you'll have people who'll be poor due to lifestyle creep and those that spend frivolously but still plan for the future.

I'm in the latter portion here, I earn well but I'm frugal as feck. I'd pick a penny off the floor where others would walk over it. I'm smart when it comes to spending, every euro of my pay cheque has a job, I separate my outgoings into needs and wants and make sure that all my needs (housing/future/food/transport) are taken care of before a single euro is spent elsewhere). I have a buffer fund that anything unforeseen is taken out of and is topped up over the next few months (car needed new brake pads and a service, €800 came out of the buffer and was replenished over 3 months), this stops any unexpected cost to cripple me for a month and it's extremely liberating not having to worry about this on a weekly basis.

Living this way is quite tough to set up and took me years of investing in myself and my wife to get to this point but I'm reaping the rewards of it now. It allows me to go on two/three holidays a year (did Indonesia and New York this year and maybe one European city break by year end). I know my family and peers are jealous of this lifestyle, but really don't like it when I point out that their 3 kids that are all teenagers cost roughly 11k per year until they hit college age ( https://www.layahealthcare.ie/pressandmedia/pressreleases/105321---the-cost-of-raising-a-child-from-cradle-to-college.html#:~:text=Irish%20households%20are%20spending%20an,every%20year%20on%20their%20children. ) (not a super valid article statistically but eye opening nonetheless). They've put their money into growing a family (totally fine), whereas I have not (also totally fine).

They used to talk about the rat race years ago and it's still going on

Parents commuting and paying OTT rent and creche fees no time or money

It's hardly living at all

Almost like it's a personal choice, I get it. I just don't get when people are jealous of someone's choice.

Am I jealous of someone who personally decides to have kids for whatever reason? No. Should others be jealous of my personal choices? I'd say no but (in my opinion) they show otherwise and that's on them not on me. I guess there's a reason why Irish people are known as begrudgers but I don't know where it's come from personally (the well off girl that comes back from London at Christmas, the fella that's always away/wears nice clothes etc.).

I don't need to have kids to support me in the future as I'm not banking on there being a state provided pension to the levels it's at currently (which is piss poor already) when I retire in 40 years.

I'm frequently called "Rich Uncle John*" by my siblings (that have kids). So no, it's not just my perception. If that's not jealousy then I don't know what is. This is just one example, there are many others that I won't go into.

*Johnn not my real name, just example.

Not to mention the weekly ration of Columbian marching powder to enrich their weekly bout of vanilla sex.

Can only speak for myself but our household income is significantly above the median and we are definitely feeling the pinch.

Im one of these people that has a spreadsheet and a detailed budget for the house and the upwards creep in spend across the board is very noticeable. I have put off changing the car and we have changed other habits as well.

We also ended up sitting the kids (teenagers) down earlier in the year and explaining that money doesn’t fall from the sky and that while we are not in financial difficulty we needed to cut back on some things they had begun to take for granted, takeaways every weekend, concerts and trips etc.

The CSO data on disposable income is from the SILC survey, where disposable income means before any consumer spending.

Disposable income is either spent or saved, there is nothing else you can do with it.

"after essential expenditure" - there is no such concept in the data.

Here is some data on household saving:

Households are saving 4bn to 6bn each quarter.

Yeah because we should always compare ourselves to tinpot 3rd world shitholes.

Yes, disposable income is after the State intervenes.

It is after the State pays out social cash benefits, and charges direct income taxes.

Your term discretionary spending is helpful, but alas, there is no data on that, AFAIK.

Is the savings data helpful? We can see how much households save each year, out of their disposable income.

If you are pushing me to answer the question posed by the OP, my answer is "no, everybody is not broke".

There are significant sections of society doing very well.

Profits are strong, many firms are doing very well, in many sectors.

GPs are busy, they charge high fees.

Look at the queries on AAM from one-person firms, making 100k+ profits per annum, and asking what to do with it.

Landlords are earning huge rents and capital appreciation.

Fancy steakhouses have opened in Dublin.

Dublin airport is at capacity.

People paid huge money to see Taylor Swift

I often use the example of two 45yo lecturers married to each other, working in Athlone/Carlow/Tralee/Dundalk, at the top of their scale, earning 200k gross combined. They can have a great life.

However, there is also a significant section of society struggling.

Rents are unbelievably high.

Childcare is expensive

House prices are too high

People paying urban rents while trying to save are struggling.

Back then, we were not far off developing world status economically and socially.

Female teachers couldn't get married, protestants and catholics marrying was, lets say, problematic, homosexuality illegal, unmarried mothers were thrown into laundries and we lived in a quasi theocracy. Books and movies banned and censored.

Here is net wealth data by decile:

I do get the feeling that some people have gone a bit celtic-tiger-ish, spending up on cocktails etc because they cannot spend on property.

At the same time, it's early July and in weeknight evenings, many Galway city pubs are unusually quiet for this time of year. There are very few "staff wanted" signs up around town (unusual for July), and those that do appear are taken down quite quickly.

Wwould kind of agree with the above prob some feel well what's all the hard work for if it'll never afford a house I might as well enjoy myself.throw in the lock downs some probably feel they are making up for thing.

There will be others no matter how much they earn will always be broke as they just don't have financial disapline. Overheard a guy at work complain recently he can't get a mortgage cos he I'd on his own while had freshly filled lips and botox done. Same guy on a decent wage living on home.

I think more people are beginning to feel a pinch now. I know some teenagers starting to find it harder to get parttime work compared to recent year

The squeezed middle are really getting hammered. Have taken cost of living increases, inflation etc on the chin with no support or relief from government. In tandem, there has been a noticeble decrease in the availability or standard of public services they rely on. They are also subsidising everyone else - the low or unwaged and high earners who can avoid tax.

Im going to give a couple of interesing examples of how government policy has hit them with the wealthy benefitting.

The fuel crisis has seen petrol/deisel rise in price. Government reaction is to subsidise electric vehicles, with a focus on company cars. So squeezed middle person in a 10 year old hatchback's taxes are subsidising the new Tesla company car given to the company executive. This also reduces the company executives outgoings- electric cars are cheaper to tun.

Example 2. People are being hammered by gas prices. So the squeezed middle person who cant afford to refit their house is having their taxez subsidise retro fitting of wealthy peoples houses - which reduces their heating costs, while the squeezed middle person cant afford their gas bill.

Well it's not as bad as that…. at the end of the month I populate the spreadsheet, and send it to herself… it's hard to track cash transactions, but probably 99% of spending is done by card, so easy to track and record… and there'll always be the odd random bits here and there that don't make it onto the spreadsheet, but by and large most of our expenditure does, and yeah, it works for us…

It was actually herself that was more up for it as she earns more than me and when we discovered that I was paying a lot more than half for groceries she insisted we manage it better so I'm not losing out…

Never underestimate the power of a spreadsheet… I had another that was monitoring our mortgage balance (which we were overpaying), and if ever any motivation was ever needed to continue overpaying (by almost 150%), looking at the balance reduce as quick as it was reducing was all the motivation we needed…

I guess we're happy enough without a joint account (it's just another card that needs to be held, and another account that needs to be maintained/paid for)… mortgage is paid off (it was solely in my name), bills are in my name and I'm happy enough to pay them… when she receives the spreadsheet, she'll deduct 50% of whatever she's bought the previous month from the final amount..

Sensible advice. It’s amazing how much you CAN spend over the course of the year on ad-hoc purchases - even if you like a drink and drink at home more so than the pub, just to save money-even 1 bottle of wine less a week is 500 squid a year straight away.

Eating a vegetarian pasta dish at least once a week instead of choosing to eat a meal containing meat can save you a few hundred euro a year - looking at your weekly spending habits (we all have them) and multiplying them by 50 can show you just what you can save with a little behavioural adjustment

…this is a perception of being free, low waged and the unemployed also pay taxes, via consumption related taxes, the squeezed middle are indeed getting hammered though, particularly in relation to property, rent and mortgages, financialisation of our property markets has been a monumental failure, its also important to note, most tax revenue is via corporate tax receipts at the moment……

Yes I think we can all make savings, how many of us have unnecessary entertainment subscriptions, haven’t moved utility providers in years, don’t meal plan or shop around for groceries etc.? These costs all add up

That is not to make light of the fact that many people are finding things very hard and are genuinely struggling

The biggest issue for a lot of people now and in to the future is housing as somebody else said earlier in the thread. Anybody who is spending a disproportionate amount of their income on housing is going to be having a very tough time, and no spreadsheet will fix that

With couples it’s often swings and roundabouts and it generally works out ok (for me anyway)

My best advice for couples is commit as much as you can to long term savings and maximise your pension contributions where possible- even if it’s a 70/30 split in terms of contribution based on different salaries/income- in the long run a properly managed investment fund will be worth it to you both.

This means that even if you’re left with very little discretionary spending you know you have savings growing in the background - there’s a lot of temptation out there to spend unnecessarily

we split 50/50 groceries too, but it's more a; you get this week, I'll get the following week. If there's a week where we need to replenish expensive things like dishwasher/washinng machine stuff, I'll pick that up.

I pay all other bills (bins, tv, subscriptions, life assurance, serious illness cover, electricity (no gas)) and mortgage as there's a disparity in our salaries, it works out well in that it spreads the cost but without having to go down to the exact cent.

We're not joint account people either, we both felt strongly about that for various reasons, we are joint account holders in terms of savings and mortgage etc.