We’ve written before about the importance of a very planned approach to retirement. Having a healthy pension fund is what springs to mind for all of us in this regard – of course this is very important, as having access to financial resources will help you to ensure that you can enjoy your retirement and live it on your own terms.

But it’s not only about money. Money may be an enabler of the lifestyle that you choose. But you have to first of all do some thinking about what that lifestyle actually looks like! Who are the people that will be around you, where will you live, how will you fill your days, will you continue to work etc.? All of these are important questions that require careful consideration.

We recently came across The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), which is a large scale, nationally representative, long-term study on ageing in Ireland. It collects information from adults aged 50 years and over resident in Ireland and is one of the most...

We are living through unprecedented times, that will be remembered by us all for ever. Our focus is on staying healthy and flattening the Covid-19 curve. We are worried about our own health and that of our loved ones, particularly the elderly who are cocooned in their own homes. Some of you have seen your jobs disappear (hopefully temporarily) and others have seen their income reduced.

On top of all of this, stock markets have been extremely jittery and this is causing anxiety for investors and pension plan holders. Do you remember when all we had to worry about was Brexit?? However we can help you manage this investment anxiety. After all, while Covid19 is a unique event, volatile stock markets certainly are not. We've seen them before and we'll see them again. The key is not to panic and make any rash decisions. So, what do you do?

Stick to the plan

Your financial plan was developed to guide you to achieving your goals. Your plan is there to guide you, both when markets are...

We have reviewed our Business Continuity Procedure in light of the developing situation with Covid-19 and the Government Directive to stop all non-essential activities for 2 weeks. In any eventuality we will continue to be operational and remain accessible through email and phone. As personal safety continues to be paramount, where meetings are required, these will be facilitated through Zoom or conference call in the interim period.

Customer Services
We will support our customers through this period of restricted trading activities as follows:

New Business
Not available until further notice

Existing Clients

• Changes to existing policies.
• Review meetings by conference call.

To facilitate our existing clients to conduct business remotely you can arrange the above services by ringing our office line which is currently being answered remotely or email your usual Premier Financial contact at the following emails.

Let’s be honest, who really saw Sinn Fein winning the numbers of seats that they won in the recent election? After all, they had never come close to winning such a large number before. And we also see surprising results all of the time in sport - who really thought that England wouldn't win the Rugby World Cup last year after such a comprehensive win over the All Blacks in the semi final? And sure South Africa were no great shakes.. These events show that recent history doesn’t determine the future and that one small factor can change everything. We see it in politics and sport all of the time - the past is the past, and its not always a good guide to the future.

The same rules apply in business. It’s very dangerous to base decisions only on what happened recently, which is known as recency bias. It is the phenomenon where people recall and give more credence to very recent events, as opposed to events from the more distant past or indeed other tried and trusted...

In today’s era of consumerism on a grand scale, it can be hard to maintain a clear and constant perspective about the value of money. Many of us muddle along, surviving, making mistakes and getting by. However this is no example to give to the next generation who are likely to pick up on our behaviours and habits. Instead we need to carefully teach our children about how to act responsibly with money and to give them the best chance of building positive financial habits for life.

We’ve set out a few areas that you might like to talk to them about as they begin their lifelong relationship with money.

1. Establish a savings routine

This can start as soon as children start to receive pocket money. Encouraging them not to spend it all as they receive it and instead to save for a bigger treat to be bought every few weeks or months can set in place the benefits of delayed but ultimately greater rewards. We all know the benefits as we’ve got older of saving for...

How has this happened? Surely we can’t already be facing into a new decade! Many of us remember fondly the big party we were at on New Year’s Eve as we entered the new century – and all the worries about the Y2K bug that was going to bring the end to many IT systems across the globe. We’re coming up to the 20^th anniversary of that now…

Time just relentlessly marches on. It never changes pace and before we know it, another year or another decade has slipped by. As we entered the current decade, the world was struggling to emerge from the deepest economic crash in a generation. Many people in Ireland had lost their jobs, had lost a lot of money in investments – particularly in property ventures and bank shares and were really struggling under enormous piles of debt. Many were simply hanging on at that stage.

The last decade has been a period of re-birth for many, but certainly not all people in Ireland. Personal debt issues have reduced, but this...

As part of our work with clients, one really important element of an overall financial plan is retirement planning. Of course, it happens quite often that clients are some way along this journey before we come into contact with them.

What we see sometimes leaves a lot to be desired… Some people think they are well on the road to a comfortable retirement. However when we investigate, we don’t see a plan, we simply see a lot of policies. These clients often don’t know what they have – they know they have “bits and pieces” of pensions and are assuming that they all add up to a satisfactory picture. Quite often, this is not in fact the case.

Sometimes of course, having lots of different policies makes perfect sense. That is, when it is part of a planned retirement strategy where it is beneficial to have multiple policies. A client may have multiple sources of income for example, each requiring a different approach. Or a client may have a specific...

Paying tax bills can be a challenging time for both business owners and sole traders alike. Of course if your business is very successful, tax is simply an expense that needs to be met when your tax payment deadline rolls around. However, there are also many small enterprises that don’t enjoy the comfort of high levels of excess cashflow. For these businesses, the tax payment deadline can be a stressful time, gathering all expenses together and working with your accountant to identify ways in which you can legitimately reduce your tax liability.

Pension contributions are rightly viewed as one of the most effective ways of reducing your tax liability. The challenge is often having the spare cashflow to make that pension contribution while also being able to meet your tax payment! And as a result, the pension contribution often gets reduced or indeed removed in order to meet the tax liability. The unintended consequence of this is that your retirement plans and future lifestyle...

We came across a quote recently that has really got us thinking, as it hit home on one of the most important aspects of financial planning. The quote is, “Money always moves when life is in transition”.

The reason the quote had such an impact is because it makes financial planning real. When some people think about financial planning, they think only of life assurance, income protection, pensions and investments. This is a mistake, as these are simply products that are sometimes used to enable a financial plan to be implemented. Financial planning itself is about helping you to identify what you want to do with your life, and then devising a plan to help you financially achieve that life. Yes, we might suggest that some products as mentioned above are used – but these are simply vehicles to help you achieve your goals.

And when we talk about your financial goals, we’re not talking about some random figures such as, “My goal is to have €800,000 in...

We carry out a lot of research throughout the year, whether it’s attending conferences and seminars, meeting investment managers and product providers and also carrying out desk-based research. Inevitably from time to time, our reading pile gets a little higher! However this is now a great time of year to make real inroads into that reading.

When scanning through some recent research, we reviewed again two particular articles that we’ve shared with you previously. Both of them are worthy of further comment and while the overall topic of each of them is different, they both in fact finish with similar conclusions.

The first piece that we wish to discuss is from Dalbar, who are a world renowned and independent expert for evaluating, auditing. and rating business practices, customer performance, product quality and service. The research that caught our eye from them is, “U.S. Investors Lost Twice As Much As The S&P 500 In 2018”.

The second piece is a superb...