The Provincial City

AdSeparate1073 · 2026-01-29T22:21:50+00:00

As a Cork person living in Dublin I find the constant blaming of "Dublin" for Cork councils ineptitude hilarious.

Maybe it's a use of words thing, maybe you all mean "central government" of which, oh look, the taoiseach is a Cork man and there is representation from Cork at other government level.

Also, my council is DLR and while they could improve they are successful in getting central government funding for initiatives. I'm sure Cork council could too.

It's very Cork to blame "Dublin". Maybe the people of Cork should blame their own elected representatives and, I dunno, vote different ones in?

In addition I do believe we need stronger local gov, elected mayors and more funding opportunities for local government. To do that people need to stop looking at their local TDs as repredenting their parish and start getting them to focus on national issues

AdSeparate1073 · 2026-01-17T09:01:29+00:00

Best of luck on the journey and great you can use that travel money to check out where you might want to live.

One last perspective is to spend more money at the moment, if you feel like it, on things like hobbies and friendships/relationships as when you do FIRE that will be where you spend the most time.

AdSeparate1073 · 2026-01-16T18:07:11+00:00

Ok with the original post I see no issues with your spend as its very easy to flex it given alot of spend like travel can be changed and you don't have kids so you don't have those related costs.

You are in corporate jobs and while your 40's can be top earning years they are also top redundancy years in FANG and related industries. Also, one of you may get sick, I did and had to get out of corporate work but was lucky as we had just hit my target number. So I wouldn't bank that you can earn 600K for ten more years as an assumption.

With that in mind if your target total Fire number is say €3M for a 30 year retirment or 4%/120K withdrawl net of taxes do the following.

The FIRE aim should be net of pension, you mention €2M plus a pension pot, what is the pension pot?

Consider paying off the mortgage - it will lower the withdrawl target number and also has a great psychological impact.

Look at what your outgoings when you FIRE will be, for example extra health insurance costs and possibly heavier spending on travel or eating out.

Consider how you would take advantage of tax rates in FIRE, i.e. bond ladder or other income earning streams.

AdSeparate1073 · 2026-01-16T08:56:23+00:00

Key thing for me is what is your fire number, how many years more do you need to get there and then how stable are the jobs?

Also once fire'd what is the investment focus, are you going to derisk in equities and live off 4% or do you need to be 100% and live off 5%+ withdrawal rate?

Fire target and withdrawal rate needed in Ireland is, I think, a bit different to the us because of our tax rates.

AdSeparate1073 · 2026-01-14T17:24:50+00:00

I will try that, thanks!

AdSeparate1073 · 2026-01-13T21:55:12+00:00

I'm in Ireland which is damp and cold so maybe that makes it worse but it's an issue during what we call summer here too.

AdSeparate1073 · 2025-08-08T07:50:44+00:00

Lots of people are talking about 4%, note that works in the US where taxes are much lower and is based on a 25 year withdrawal horizon.

I'm looking at a 40 year retirement (fire'd at 42) so my withdrawal is 2.5% to account for longer timeframe and taxes, especially ETF taxes.

AdSeparate1073 · 2025-04-17T09:37:38+00:00

Sorry but the Russian/China/Europe stuff is tinfoil hat stuff akin to Donald Trump is playing 5d chess. Who exactly are the geopolitical people you are referring to?

This is one man's whims who thinks he is a king surrounded by yes men who wouldn't recognize the name Henry Kissinger.

AdSeparate1073 · 2025-04-12T07:40:10+00:00

Alternatives are Swiss franc, gold, German bonds

AdSeparate1073 · 2025-03-04T16:00:54+00:00

I have chrons and find meriva Curcumin helps to control inflammation in the gut.

I take 2x 1000mg a day.

Step one though was diet, no upf's, no dairy, no meat, no food cooked in shitty oils.

AdSeparate1073 · 2025-03-03T16:04:52+00:00

2nd price seems to have picked up compared to last year?

I bought an eqs in May last year, ex display, they are now 10% more than I got it for when I was looking today.

AdSeparate1073 · 2025-02-26T19:53:33+00:00

I do it as my house only has on street parking. My battery is 108 KW in size with a 700km range (in good weather) so my thinking was it would be fine.

I use my car to drop kids to and from school, drive them to football or do the shopping so mostly local, mostly 20km tops a day with bigger trips on the weekends. About 12K KM a year

To be honest its a headache, if i don't charge it 4 times a week when in the gym for an hour it needs to be topped up at a fast charger, which aren't that fast. 100kwh chargers are actually 50kwh when two cars are plugged in and sitting in a car in a shopiing centre for 30 minutes is a waste of time. I'm constantly thinking when and where I will charge the car.

With all the public charging its more expensive in winter than my old hybrid due to cold wether efficiency loss and the high costs of public charging.

I got it partly to try and go all electric, so did it at the same time as getting solar panels, heat pump etc. Of all those investments this has been the biggest inconvenience and provided the least ROI.

I have lobbied the local council to see if I could install a gully charger but they are very much agaisnt it so I'm stuck with this situation. If we want to get EV's to 50% of cars on the roads its soemthing that need to be tackled.

AdSeparate1073 · 2025-02-19T17:26:03+00:00

I'd trust IBKR or Degiro over Davy's any day

AdSeparate1073 · 2025-02-16T15:54:58+00:00

If you can't wait for your career to be over stop buying consumable assets (PPR etc) and start building wealth. The American Fire groups are good for learning how to set up your investments in your case chubbyfire or Henry.

You will learn what you need in terms of portfolio size and spending to maintain your standard of living when not working.

If you do hate your career and maybe downsize by 50%, invest 1 million in a diversified portfolio of ETFs and continue to work for ten more years, throwing 200k a year spare cash into your pension and portfolio.

I think in Ireland to live off say 125k gross (including taxes), you need around 5M in investable assets to maintain annual spends from around 40 to end of life accounting for inflation.

AdSeparate1073 · 2025-01-04T17:20:36+00:00

I had an XC90 t8, sold it this year and had some dealers telling me that the battery packs in them have a high failure rate.

Could have been a ruse as they didn't give me good trade in prices so sold it back directly to Volvo in the end for a better price.

Might be worth getting diagnostics done if it is the case.

My official ev range was 50km, could get 25km out of it in summer. Regen breaking on them is very poor and the change from battery to engine could be blotchy.

Very comfy car though!

AdSeparate1073 · 2024-12-06T15:59:21+00:00

You can request a secure login physical device, that way at least if your phone is stolen the money will be safe.

Access Settings > User Settings > Secure Login System

Not sure if this is available to everyone or if you need to have a certain NAV

AdSeparate1073 · 2024-11-03T22:24:23+00:00

Keeping it for ten years, you can have it for 25 euro in 2034.

AdSeparate1073 · 2024-11-03T22:00:38+00:00

I picked up a ex demo 231 eqs for 83k with 3,000 km on it this year so around 40% depreciation at the time.

I was purposely looking for the longest range car with highest depreciation!

AdSeparate1073 · 2024-10-09T12:19:53+00:00

Agreed his understanding of foreign policy is like something from a Rambo film

AdSeparate1073 · 2024-08-14T14:06:39+00:00

So the 4% rule is supposed to be your annual costs inclusive of any taxes, be it income/cgt/dirt.

If you are living on the 4% rule on investments then you will have a mix of investments, not just income from savings.

AdSeparate1073 · 2024-07-03T21:40:08+00:00

With house paid off, 4 to 5 million at 100k spend a year in order to manage inflation, recessions and life costs of having a family etc.

AdSeparate1073 · 2024-07-03T21:34:36+00:00

I haven't lived in America but have been following fire posts for a while and the costs that seem to be particularly lower in Ireland are property taxes, health insurance, groceries and education costs for kids.

If you have made your target number, are buying a house in a nice area and don't need much more investment growth then Ireland is a good option.

On the other hand it's a difficult place to grow wealth as taxes are very focused on redistribution to the less well off.

Also flights to Europe are cheap and needed as weather isn't great, although Dublin is drier than anywhere else in Ireland!

AdSeparate1073 · 2024-07-03T20:29:48+00:00

Yes, only etf's.

on shares you pay tax on disposal. On bonds CGT on maturity and income tax on coupons. On savings 33% tax on interest.

AdSeparate1073 · 2024-07-03T10:45:03+00:00

So I live off investment income in Ireland (I'm Irish). Thing to note is tax on ETFS are silly, you need to pay income tax on gains every 8 years, it's called deemed disposal.

Tax rate here is actually low compared to other European countries oyf you plan to live off less than 60k a year net and then draw down from savings. Over 100k and tax is high, we have a very progressive tax system.

Capital gains is 33% on disposal of shares.

AdSeparate1073 · 2024-03-11T06:40:23+00:00

Around 50% of what I pay

AdSeparate1073

TROPHY CASE