Podcast97: The Mexican Fisherman........
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
Release Date: 07/23/2018
Prize Bonds Ireland: What the New 1.5% Rate Actually Pays You
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
The Prize Bond prize fund rate rose from 1.00% to 1.50% this month, the first State Savings increase in about three years. Almost every write-up has described that 1.5% as a return. It is not one. It is the size of the prize pool spread across the whole €4.4 billion in issue, and what an individual holder receives is decided by a draw. In this Episode, Paddy works through the NTMA's own published figures and puts a realistic number on what Prize Bonds are actually worth to a normal holding, then lines them up against what the same State will pay for certainty. What you'll learn: Why the...
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Inheritance Tax in Ireland: Gift Now or Leave It? - with Mairéad Hennessy from Taxkey.ie
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
Inheritance tax in Ireland is charged at 33% on anything above €400,000 passing from a parent to a child. The question most families never properly work through is whether to move assets during their lifetime or leave them until the end. And that decision changes the bill, the timing, and who ends up paying it. Paddy is joined by Mairéad Hennessy of Taxkey, a firm of independent tax consultants, for a practical conversation about passing wealth on in Ireland. What you'll learn in this episode: • Why the tax question is the wrong place to start, and what to work out first • How the...
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Should You Retire at a Market All-Time High? Sequence Risk & the Irish ARF
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
Should you retire with the market at an all-time high? In Ireland, the record level feels dangerous, but it is not the risk that decides your outcome. In this episode, Paddy asks whether retiring at an all-time high is really the risk Irish savers fear, or whether the thing that decides your outcome is something else entirely. What you'll learn: • Why all-time highs are common, not a warning: global equities sit at or near record highs on roughly a third of trading days • What Japan's lost decades really warn against: concentration in one market, not equities themselves • A...
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Planning to 95: Life Expectancy, the Irish ARF and the Real Retirement Lever
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
Your Irish pension plan probably runs to age 95, but you'll likely live to around 83, and the gap changes your pot far less than you'd expect. In this episode, Paddy digs into the retirement life expactancy in Ireland. He checks on the one age assumption buried in almost every Irish retirement plan, where the default of 95 comes from and what the most recent CSO life tables actually say about how long a 65-year-old really lives. It's for you if you're approaching or already in retirement with a meaningful pension or ARF, and you've never been asked (or never questioned) the age your own plan...
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72% - One Country: Is Your Irish Pension Actually Diversified?
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
If you hold an Irish pension or an ARF invested in a global equity index fund, you have almost certainly been told you are diversified: Thousands of companies, dozens of countries, one fund, job done. And it is true: your global index fund really does hold well over a thousand companies across more than twenty developed markets. But there is a second truth sitting right beside it. As at the end of June 2026, roughly 72.45% of that same "global" fund is allocated to a single country: The United States. Same fund, same name, same low-cost passive approach and yet quietly a very different animal...
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Should You Take Your Pension Lump Sum at 60? A Worked Irish Case Study
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
Turning 60 with a significant pension pot and nothing forcing your hand? This episode is a worked case study on the pension lump sum decision at 60 in Ireland: Take the tax-free lump sum now, or leave the fund invested and revisit it at 65. Paddy goes through a study-case: Larry is 60, a senior private-sector executive, with €1.4 million in a defined contribution scheme. He doesn't exist. The numbers do. What you'll learn in this Episode: How the retirement lump sum is actually taxed in Ireland: the first €200,000 tax-free as a lifetime limit across all schemes, the 20% band to...
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Private Credit in Ireland: Can You Actually Get Your Money Out?
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
There is a pitch doing the rounds in Irish advice circles at the moment: private markets have finally been democratised, and private credit and private equity are now open to anyone with a decent pension pot. But is it really like that? In this episode, Paddy looks at what is actually being sold, and at the one feature that matters more than anything else in the brochure, because liquidity here is offered, not guaranteed. Have a listen, if you’d like to get an idea of what these ‘zombie funds’ in the private markets sector are all about, what your ARF has to do with them, and what...
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Bucket vs. Total Return - Retirement Withdrawal Strategies for Investors in Ireland
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
If you’ve built a pension pot of €1m or more, you’ve almost certainly thought about how you’ll invest it in retirement. What a bunch of people haven’t thought through properly is how they’ll actually take the money out: that decision, not the fund selection, is often what determines whether your ARF supports you comfortably for thirty years, or gives you a fright in year eight. After his well deserved holiday, in this episode Paddy talks about retirement withdrawal strategies for an Irish ARF: the bucket strategy versus the total return strategy, and why the choice works...
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Strategic Giving - Philanthropy in Ireland: A Conversation With Community Foundation CEO, Denise Charlton
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
Most people spend decades building wealth and never quite get to the second question: not how do I protect this, but what do I actually want it to do? On this episode, Paddy Delaney talks to Denise Charlton, CEO of Community Foundation Ireland, about strategic philanthropy in Ireland. How it actually works, and where to start. What you'll learn: How a Donor Advised Fund works in Ireland, and why the entry point is lower than most assume (€25,000–€50,000) The difference between ad-hoc giving and strategic philanthropy How tax relief and Capital Acquisitions Tax exemptions apply to...
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Simplicity Is The Ultimate Sophistication (Replay)
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
This one was recorded a while back (in 2024), but the argument hasn't dated a day, if anything, it holds up better now than when we first put it out. A of complexity in Irish pension and investment advice isn't there to help you. It's there to help the person selling it. In this episode, Paddy explains why simplicity almost always beats sophistication when it comes to your pension and investment planning, and what a genuinely simple structure actually looks like. What you'll learn: ● Why financial firms are often incentivised to make your pension and investments more complicated than...
info_outlineWelcome to Ireland's only dedicated Financial Planning & Personal Finance Blog & Podcast. Last year we won the award of 'Ireland's Best Finance Blog'......we have re-entered that same competition again this year, and will hear how we get on over the coming couple of months.....this might just be akin to the 'difficult second album'!! As we approach our 100th Podcast we have really tried to focus on the areas that our readers and listeners get in touch with us about and who come to us for help on an individual basis.....we are on a mission to help people to achieve what is important to them, and stay authentic and true to our values in the process. If you have any questions or have suggestions on how we can make this site the best possible resource it can be please do drop me a mail directly here.
Speaking of Financial Planning there is one short story which, for me, sums up exactly what Financial Planning is all about, and the part it plays (or not!) in people's lives. I first read it about 3 years ago and have often thought about sharing it here, but perhaps felt it wasn't 'financy' enough. That view changed when I was working with a really motivated and hard-working person recently, who was really consumed and motivated by growing her business (which she loved in fairness!) and making sure she made the most of the financial situation she finds herself in. I shared this story with her, and it really resonated with her. I am not going to pretend that it changed her life dramatically over-night but she did say that it gave her a little perspective on what is real importance to her both now and into the future....I hope you enjoy it!
Paddy Delaney
QFA | RPA | APA | Qualified Coach