Generally speaking, women face different challenges through their financial life journey, compared to men, including:

The Gender Pay Gap

The gender pay gap - the differential between the average pay of males and females within an organisation - is estimated at an average of 14% in Ireland (Eurostat). This means that the average woman, even those in leadership positions, will be earning less than male counterparts in a similar role.

Maternity Leave and the Need for Flexible Working Conditions

Compared to men, women are more likely to leave the workforce for extended periods of time, or reduce their working hours or stop working completely, particularly those with young children. These gaps can often make it harder for women to progress in their careers as well as leave them with a reduced income. 

Longer Life Expectancy

According to the Central Statistics Office, women’s life expectancy at birth is 82.8 years, versus 78.4 years for men (Life tables 2010-2012)....

For most people by the time, they have reached 50 years of ages they have experienced most of their major expenses such as a mortgage, a wedding and having children. We’re not saying that all major expenses are now non-existent as you may still have children’s college expenses, a new car etc. Everyone is different and has different goals and responsibilities at different stages of life.

In this blog we’ve picked tips that we believe will be most relevant to people in their 50’s but if you don’t see what you’re looking for here be sure to look at our previous blogs. We’ve covered different milestones for different age categories throughout our previous blogs.

1. Review Your Pension

The retirement age in Ireland to receive the state pension is currently set at 66 which if your currently 50 means you’ve about 16 years before you can claim it. If you do not have a private pension, it’s never too late to start to try and provide...

Retirement

No one really likes getting older but it is a fact of life and realistically you need to plan for the day that you eventually get to retire, ride off into the sunset and enjoy your golden years. If you’re in your 40’s you’ve still got 20 years before your retirement and you still have a decent amount of time to plan for it.

If you don’t have a pension it might be time to look into it. If you do have one reviewing it now may ensure you maximise its efficiency.

Housing

There are two elements to this part. You either own a house currently or you don’t. Either way planning for your future accommodation needs is important. Renting is becoming more common place it’s quite expensive to rent for your lifetime especially in densely populated areas. If renting long term is not for you then looking at buying a house might be the solution.

If you currently own and a house and have a mortgage you should review it every 2 to 3 years to ensure you are...

1: Get Rid of Bad Debt:

This step will be very relevant to anyone looking to get a mortgage, as bad debt makes it much harder (if not impossible) to acquire one. The highest rate of interest you will pay is on short term debt and credit cards which is a major drain on cash flow. Interest rates on short term loans including car loans can really eat away at your income and with some credit cards carrying a rate of 20% these unpaid bills can very quickly add up. The first step in any financial plan should be to work on clearing this debt and as your cashflow improves you will find it easier to save.

2: Build up An Emergency Fund:

This will often be known as a rainy-day fund and is exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a fund that you have in case of emergency because unfortunately emergencies happen and no matter how good you’re at budgeting you can’t plan for everything. This money should be kept in an easy access savings account. These accounts offer very...

1. Budget

Perhaps the most obvious piece of advice, this is something many people avoid at all costs – literally. But creating a budget is nothing more than exerting your own control over the financial side of your life in a mindful way. Sit down with an excel spreadsheet (or any planner) and enter your costs and incomes, within an hour you’ll be done.

Don’t look at this as an exercise to limit yourself but rather to enable your future self.

2. Save (surprising tip)

Just 50% of Irish people save regularly. If you’re part of the 50% who don’t save regularly there’s no better time to start than the present. It doesn’t mean putting €500 a month away but rather put anything that you can afford away into a savings account. By getting into a routine of saving you can eventually begin to save more and more. Creating a good habit of saving is the hard part.

3. Set realistic goals

Setting high goals seems great in theory but much like a new...