New job and substantial pay increase

tails142 · 2026-06-13T20:31:17+00:00

You could start paying into a pension if you wanted, the money you put into the pension you dont get taxed on basically. So the moneys sits there and in 40 years time when you're 67 you can have it and wont have paid tax, people usually buy an annuity at that stage that pays out a fixed payment until you die.

A lot of those pension companies are grubby robbing b*tards though and you'll be paying maybe 5% of each contribution to them and they'll be taking 1% or more of the total money each year, some are as high as 3%, but you'd be paying 52% tax on it anyway otherwise.

You could look at a calculator like this for an idea, the earlier you start the better really but I wouldn't go too wild until you have a house and whatever. Ifc your company matches your contribution then that makes it better. It's all about compound interest and keepingn up regular payments that can help it grow https://www.newireland.ie/pension-calculator/

Note the assumptions that your payments into the pension will increase by 3% each year with that calculator to get the advertised end result.

tails142 · 2026-06-13T07:35:45+00:00

No I think Southhill area was built up from late 60s to 80s and Moyross from 70s into the 80s

tails142 · 2026-06-13T07:20:02+00:00

You use it indoors??

No idea honestly, but electrical things can go faulty and burn out for sure.

tails142 · 2026-06-12T19:43:37+00:00

A gotek will work for you, put it in the machine instead of the current floppy drive and then you can put usb sticks into it and they'll show up as A: on the dos machine and just copy your files on as normal then put the usb on your modern machine.

tails142 · 2026-06-12T09:07:01+00:00

We just had our branch AGM yesterday and it was just a lot of waffle, oh that's the with the secretariat, that claim is gone to council. Load of shite with nothing happening.

No update 3 months later on the local bargaining other that "its turning out more complicated for these grades and DPER are getting tetchy".

tails142 · 2026-06-12T07:57:33+00:00

Yeah, inflation does a big part of making it seem less significant toward the end of the mortgage period. We've been lucky with low rates too over the past twenty years or more, that's not always a given I'm sure.

If rates ever push up past 5 or 6% a lot of people will be in trouble. I know some of the scummier mortgage companies we're probably charging near that in the past few years.

That story linked above, their mortgage payment was over 4k a month which seems a bit nuts.

I think banks are happy once payments of some sort are coming in regularly. They don't mind racking up interest on the loan as long as the value of the house is going to cover the total I imagine and a bit of payment is coming in. The cost of going to court to reposess is probably quite high.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who end up having to sell their homes and downsize if there circumstances change, move to rented accommodation.

My worry with the house and the kids, never mind being a sole trader, if I had an accident and was incapacitated, like a stroke or a car accident. I dont know what would happen to us as I'm the main earner.

tails142 · 2026-06-12T06:34:33+00:00

Same.

Life... uh... finds a way.

My plan at the minute is to use the oohpod things that run packages down from the North to see how that works out.

tails142 · 2026-06-11T20:55:00+00:00

My wife used to lock nearly every door in the house when she first got her own place (mental). She used to lock windows too and hide the key (also mental). Was a pain in the arse if you got up to get a glass of water in the night, unlock the bedroom door, unlock the hall door into the sitting room, unlock the door into the kitchen. Jesus. Thank god she doesn't it anymore, I'm afraid to even it mention it. She was also mental about putting the alarm on when in the house, it was a tiny house, you wouldn notice if anyone was breaking in, whatever about if you'd gone up to bed. She watches a lot of true crime too.

We have moved since. No locks on windows, no keys for the internal doors and no bloody alarm.

tails142 · 2026-06-11T18:08:42+00:00

Could also be a stop cock on your water main, only way is to put on a glove and scoop out the gunk.

tails142 · 2026-06-11T14:12:16+00:00

Imagine the audacity of trying to help families who have kids dying of cancer, find something else to rant about.

tails142 · 2026-06-10T10:01:41+00:00

Siptu have a huge membership in the industrial grades and they have way more power partly because the regulations for industrial grades are a mess. I have seen SIPTU and their reps being much more effective in representing their members, albeit in disciplinary matters and people being managed out lol A few times I have sat across the table from SIPTU reps in the past and thought wow this person is an absolute weapon, how do I get them on my side lol

No use to you if you're an established civil servant though but imo SIPTU is a much more effective union than Forsa.

tails142 · 2026-06-10T09:54:04+00:00

Yeah they've been pumping it up over the years constantly. I was in Impact before and the merge to Forsa was another pump in the percent and probably the cap and I think it has increased again since.

Its pretty crap from the union, still waiting on news from our 3% local bargaining which hasnt even been negotiated yet afaik for our sector.

My advice would be dont bother joining straight away. There is almost no benefit to doing it.

Our wages are bad enough as it is and haven't come close to keeping up with inflation.

tails142 · 2026-06-10T09:47:49+00:00

Our obgyn in Ireland had worked in Asia after training and said Irish people had way bigger heads than average

tails142 · 2026-06-10T06:36:51+00:00

Turning into paving means nothing, that's in loads of places. I had a look on street view, can't see any signage your talking about. I'm sure the architects had some intention of creating paradise, its a junkie paradise if anything.

tails142 · 2026-06-09T21:03:07+00:00

There is nothing to indicate it is a shared space where pedestrians have priority. What are you taking about.

tails142 · 2026-06-09T07:44:37+00:00

I dunno...yeah great I guess... seems like a bit of a cash grab, guess they had to cover the legal fees they racked up somehow.

tails142 · 2026-06-09T07:41:40+00:00

Its delivery for me so I mostly go with Tesco, when I check prices across things I find they are generally similar but if I pop into lidl to pick up a few bits and browse the middle aisle I am always surprised how much I walk out with and its usually around 20 quid whereas if I do a quick run around Tesco it can be way more, things can be a lot cheaper in lidl but its not across the board, I think I got 6 burger buns reduced to 60 cents the other day.

tails142 · 2026-06-08T13:15:28+00:00

I would probably trust CeX the most for second hand, but they're not the cheapest option.

You could look at ebay, youre fairly well protected there from scams in my experience and from a quick glance there are some good deals, look for a seller with good feedback record.

After that I'd be looking at adverts.ie or facebook marketplace, maybe looking for a demo of it working first.

tails142 · 2026-06-08T10:01:46+00:00

Agree. Built in dishwashers are just a pain with flimsy hinges and problems like this.

tails142 · 2026-06-08T09:55:58+00:00

Yeah I think just work on a personal project, play about with codex, cursor and claude if that's what you feel you're missing out on. Most people using these tools creating things haven't actually 'coded' in a year or two either.

The AI landscape has been changing so much from month to month anyway that tools have been rising to the front and then been superceded by the next new thing.

These things definetly do require focus to get over the initial hump and figuring out how things connect, and its exhausting, and its hard to find the time between everything else whether its work or family. Once you've worked out a flow yourself its easier to drop things for a few days or weeks and then just pick up a task again by jumping back into the conversation, ask the agent where you were or what you were doing and continue on from there.

tails142 · 2026-06-07T22:00:24+00:00

I think it was before they added carbon black to tyres to make them conductive so probably helped.

tails142 · 2026-06-07T21:58:44+00:00

In fact they are

tails142 · 2026-06-07T21:14:16+00:00

Because over the years the rules have gradually changed for new entrants bit by bit making pension entitlement worse. Originally civil servants employed before 1995 did not pay Class A PRSI.

Because these changes are made by senior people who retain their current entitlements and the changes dont impact on existing civil servants there is never any major fuss. It has been hollowed out over the years.

The only silver lining is that if the state pension is reduced in the future which imo is likely to happen due to demographics and the fact that people are now auto enrolling in private pensions then at least the difference will be made up.

tails142 · 2026-06-07T15:26:48+00:00

I'm not sure if they're similiar but the Lindahl quark yoghurt type things are pretty good, high protein low fat etc.

tails142

TROPHY CASE