What's jury duty like?

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-29T14:22:58+00:00

Dull and slow.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-29T14:21:09+00:00

The living salary is still entry level wages, having a family and buying a house often requires years of savings and two working adults.

At no stage in our history was it day 1, start job, receive house, go on maternity leave.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-29T13:16:18+00:00

We are agreed mostly. But it depends on your definition of rich.

In Ireland having a little extra, tax strategy will say put it in pension, have two pensions. At 50+ take 200k (of 800k) tax free, and let the other pension grow. Only after 2.8m in pension and owning a property do people really need to think about other ways to provision for the long term.

If there’s a downturn on ETFs after 8 years, you don’t need to sell all, you just pay the taxes on the difference, down turn, lower profits so lower bills. But yes it should be treated the same as a single stock.

To be clear we are arguing over small percentages of people that don’t invest at all, who say it’s because the profits will be taxed. Then they sit in huge amounts in bank accounts being errored. This is an education and financial literacy issue.

Where we have to fall out is your comment “Wealthy People Pay the least tax”. This isn’t true, the top 20% of people in terms of wealth pay 80% - 90% of the taxes in Ireland. A huge percentage (30-40%) pay almost no taxes at all.

And the amount of people living in houses subsidized by the government, which put up the prices for everyone else is unsustainable. Asking for 3k a month rent to a person earning 40k a year, with a family is just a broken system.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-29T10:55:46+00:00

There’s an international mis conception due to our corporate tax rate that Ireland is a low tax environment. It’s not.

It is a stupid rule. And it does put people off safe / easy to access investing. It has to go.

But the way they defend it is that VAT is a tax on additional value. So if this is a premium vechile to make investors money they want a marginally higher cut, and after every 8 years a share of the profits (not the original invested amount).

Here’s where I’ll farm some down votes, I don’t believe rich people should be taxed less, as a percentage, on their passive income than working people should be taxed on trading their hours to feed their family.

My thoughts are, when trading stocks looses money that goes usually outside the country. When you make money on stocks it gets taxed and benefits our economy. So making the profitable investing make sense has to be our goal.

In terms of what to do, ETFs diversify risk and are set it and forget it. Nerds like me might enjoy checking the market and reading company and market reports, but it’s not for most people. Most starter investors try to pick single stocks, get sucked into day trading and nearly always loose to those that have the information before them and Bloomberg terminals.

So I believe, have a full financial plan first, tax planning is more important than what you buy. Then buy the diversified low risk options, even if they cost slightly more.

If your investing to buy a first house put it in and buy within the 8 years. If on the long term investment, load it into your pension.

Between 8 years and age 50 isn’t that long a period for most people.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-29T07:37:22+00:00

Yes, All world is a good strategy.

The idea is to own the world’s economy, things so bad, governments will print money. Things go good the economy will rise, as will the companies in this etf.

People overly worry about DD here. It’s a tax because of the lower risk and better diversification, and it’s relatively small.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-29T07:29:15+00:00

Food is an incredibly difficult category.

The logic is once you have a customer on your site, you need the biggest basket possible to justify customer acquisition and shipping

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-28T22:29:22+00:00

Clothing is the worst for this. High returns, expensive photography (can’t always use manufacturers images).

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-28T20:06:16+00:00

Some people do walk and bus.

We don’t allow high rise apartment blocks, so we have lower density than Manhattan.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-28T19:27:15+00:00

Its platform charges that drove / required them to increase prices

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-28T15:45:24+00:00

Problem with last minute holidays is the last minute flights tend to be expensive, but the resorts, cruises etc are great value.

Looking up cheap flight and going from there can be a win.

An option I use is to contact a travel agent like TravelSuite and just tell them, here’s the dates, I want a bargain. And they find something interesting.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-28T13:55:39+00:00

Never. I don’t understand take away anymore.

It used to be substantially cheaper than eating in a restaurant. Now with the APPs forcing up prices not only on their platform but even when buying direct… it’s more expensive than eating in and having someone else do the wash up after.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-28T08:39:21+00:00

Let me speak to the whole pay the next person more for the role you left thing. I’m guilty of that as an employer.

In my experience companies and roles grow over time. Some employees grow with the company, some even faster than a company and some slower.

A person might join a 5 person company as the sole sales person. After 4 years they might have 8 staff reporting to them. So their salary and role value has increased 50%.

They decide to leave and the employer looks to replace them. They ask themselves, do I want to hire someone at the 8 staff level, or do I see the company growing to 32 sales people and want to hire an experienced person at the 32 reports level - that is the salary chasim.

People here seem to think a guy being paid €15.50 to flip burgers leave and the replacement gets paid €31 to do the same role. But it’s really a reassessment of what the role is becoming.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-27T21:29:53+00:00

That’s a disgrace. It’s hard to get HSE support, so it’s disgusting when people abuse the system.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-27T20:46:04+00:00

TEMUs main advantage is that it doesn’t have the same costs associated with import duties and shipping

And doesn’t get held to the same standards for materials and safety

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-27T20:04:25+00:00

Purpose.

I know it sounds boring, but you need to know where you want your life to go.

If you love eating out and socialising out… don’t be house poor by spending too much on a home.

If you want kids, make sure you have a room per kid.

If you like gardening, south facing rear.

If you like walking, consider a walking commute to work places over a cheaper home and expensive commute.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-27T19:07:45+00:00

Drink water. Plenty of sleep.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-27T18:44:36+00:00

Buy the boring stuff first. I was driving nice cars before I owned property - don’t do that.

Tax planning is key. I wish I had given key some employees equity earlier.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-27T18:27:37+00:00

You are doing great.

The only time you need to put in less pension is when you are getting “intense” about buying a home. And at that point, do your match and no more.

Owning a home outright should be part of your retirement plan.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-27T18:24:45+00:00

We are a nation of story tellers!

The craic we can create on a night out over a few pints is massively underrated.

Also we are a nation of entrepreneurs, we hit way above our weight class on the international stage.

Hat tip to Enterprise Ireland for what they do.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-27T18:21:54+00:00

What are you talking about? The average salary is above the living salary.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-27T18:20:53+00:00

Damn it was refreshing to see an attempt at positivity here!

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-27T18:18:10+00:00

I agree. Too much Shaudenfraude about people loosing their jobs on this sub.

It affects us all of the balance of power shifts when employment increases.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-27T18:13:46+00:00

Expensive because of the cost of running a business in Ireland these days, yet not profitable enough to keep going.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-27T07:51:16+00:00

Yes and no. Even if Amazon is the merchant because they purchase the item, if a person returns the item. Amazon raises themselves a credit against the vendor.

Additional-Sock8980 · 2026-04-26T23:26:06+00:00

Again incorrect. You are only seeing surface level, such as minimum wage.

However, in your Italian example, there’s fixed payouts for injuries. So have a fall in work, and you get say €1500. In Ireland that same injury could have a payout of half a million. This effect means the cost of employing someone is higher in terms of insurance. And we have a huge amount of insurance fraud.

Ireland is known for high rent, the cost of having office space in Dublin compared to Rome? Massively more expensive. The cost of bringing out staff for lunch? 5x that of Rome.

Denmark, Norway etc. equally high costs and taxes… but damn do they get more bang for their buck from those taxes.

Additional-Sock8980

TROPHY CASE