Financial

Whilst renting a property has some advantages, such as being able to live in a location you’d otherwise not be able to afford, the distinct downside of renting is that you ultimately have little to show for the thousands of Euros you pay out in rent each year. 

As retirement approaches, many people can have conflicting feelings. The opportunity to stop working and spend more time doing the things you enjoy and seeing more of the people you love is an exciting prospect. However, having worked for, perhaps, 40 or 50 years, the prospect of such a dramatic change can be deeply unsettling.

When the temperature starts to rise and the days lengthen, spring is clearly upon us. For many people, the changes of the season, from Winter to Spring, inspires them to declutter and spring clean their homes in preparation for the warm, sunny months ahead. This year why not also take the opportunity to give your finances a thorough dusting down, to ensure they are also in good shape for Summer and beyond? Here are a few tips to help you do it:

4. Choose the right time

As with many things in life, timing can be everything when it comes to asking for a pay rise. Don’t try to have a conversation with your manager in the middle of a busy office, at the end of another meeting or just because you are both in the kitchen making a coffee!

In an ideal world, our employers will always value the work we do and pay us what we are worth. That doesn’t always happen though. For many people, the pandemic has increased the likelihood of them feeling undervalued and underpaid, as working from home has made them less visible to their line managers, roles have changed, and greater demand is put on us in order to help our employers navigate what has been an economically challenging period.

A group of people who are frequently overlooked when it comes to financial tips and guidance are those who fall into the “middle earner” bracket. Middle earners are neither the highest paid, lowest paid, or the poor and, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) around 60% of workers across Europe fall into this category.

When it comes to creating a better financial future, we know it’s important to have an emergency fund which is easily accessible (see “Building an Emergency Fund”). For this reason, people will often save money in a bank account which ensures your money doesn’t decrease in value and you can usually access it if you need it. However, with interest rates being low it does mean that there is a risk your money doesn’t grow quickly enough in a bank account to keep pace with the increased cost of living.

For many people, their appreciation (or perhaps that should be grudging understanding?) of tax is often limited to how much tax is deducted from their hard-earned wages when they get paid. They consider tax to be complicated and dull and taking an interest in tax can be seen as something only high earners, the wealthy or the self-employed really need to concern themselves with.

But the reality is that understanding tax is important as it affects us all, regardless of how much we earn or how much money we have.

Why is it that some people find money easy to deal with, regardless of how much they have, whereas for others it is a cause of stress and anxiety? Your relationship with money will be determined by the feelings and thoughts you have from your life experiences. It’s not simply about whether there was enough money in your household as you grew up though. If that were the case, people from poor backgrounds would always be bad with money, and the wealthy would always be good, which simply isn’t true.

At the beginning of the year many people take the opportunity to make changes. Some decide to adopt a healthier lifestyle; losing weight, stopping smoking, or reducing the amount of meat they eat. Others see the start of a new year as the motivation they need to look for a new job, start a new hobby or even move house.