News

As we approach the income tax deadline, which is in November for online returns.

Individuals will begin to receive their tax bills and at this time, the best way to get a reduction on your tax bill is to make a personal pension contribution.

When you get your tax bill and you pay tax it goes to the provision of government services, so you can’t get the money back.

When you make a pension contribution you invest in yourself for retirement and the beneficiary of the pension will be you.

When you claim it at retirement age, not only does it help to reduce your tax bill, but ultimately you’re saving for yourself.

Given the investment markets at the moment I believe individuals might be concerned about investing and potentially incurring a loss.

So there are some very low-risk fund alternatives, temporary funds albeit, available but for long-term investors, I do believe there is value at the moment to be gained.

If you found this article helpful and would like to learn more about how to invest your money, feel free to connect and start a conversation or contact me directly at +353 (87) 778 5325

In 2013 I took voluntary #redundancy and I asked myself a number of questions to help clarify the situation.

💡How long the lump sum would cover outgoings

💡Would that period be long enough to find another job

Factors that I considered that would assist the process were…

✅ Cash Flow Modeling

This will allow you to project forward monthly outgoings to see how long the cash lump sum will cover you.

✅ Pensions

Getting advice on where I keep my pension, whether I can transfer it out and if you’re over the age of fifty you be able to access your pension depending on your scheme.

✅ Financial Policy Review

If you’re paying into policies you should know your options within the terms and conditions i.e can you take a break from paying into the policies without having any impact on them should it get that far?

If you found this article helpful and would like to learn more about how to protect yourself in the midst of redundancy, feel free to connect and start a conversation or contact me directly at +353 (87) 778 5325

I write a lot about financial planning and increasing assets through regular contributions and savings policies, pensions policies, and investments to make your savings work harder for us with inflation running at 8 or 9%.

💡What’s equally important is protecting what we have through insurance.

There are lots of insurances around, I’ll write about these over the next two weeks but today I’ll focus on income protection.

Our income and income potential over the course of our working career is the most important asset that we have because it pays for mortgages, pensions, lifestyle, holidays, and more, so when your income stops, all of that will come under pressure.

Income protection provides a regular monthly payment if you can’t work through illness or injury which will cover all the outgoings that I previously mentioned.

You can get up to 75% of your income, less any available state benefit or you can also go for a lower level depending on what is available to spend on it.

If you found this article helpful and would like to learn more about your financial planning options, please comment below, share with your network or tag a friend who might benefit from this information!

Feel free to connect and start a conversation or contact me directly at +353 (87) 778 5325☎️

How will Climate Change impact on Financial Planning?

Firstly #climatechange will impact the investments you make such as regular monthly savers, a pension or a lump sum investment.

From August your financial advisor will be required to discuss your 𝐄𝐒𝐆 (𝐄𝐧𝐯𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐥, 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐆𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞) preferences with you and explain their definition plus how you can incorporate them into your #investment decision.

💡Also to note, due to the Russian invasion of #Ukraine and lack of supply, energy prices have increased substantially.

From a cash flow modelling point of view, businesses and individuals can invest to lower their energy bills. This may be something that has to be done given the high cost of energy at present.

Contact us today to learn more on hlambert@integralfinancialplanning.ie.

On Friday I shared a video briefly (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7KIR9TRnOcE_mEyIpguRDQ) chatting about the impact of #ClimateChange on financial planning and for the next 3 weeks, I’ll share a series covering this topic.

I’ve recapped these points into today’s article with the main points outlined below📚

Recently there has been a push from European regulations for a lot of #investment funds to move towards #sustainability and ESG and over time I believe this is going to become even more common.

💡𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐄𝐒𝐆?
ESG investing incorporates environment, social and governance (ESG) elements into a fund’s investment process, in addition to financial considerations.

I believe it is worth reviewing where your #pension fund is being invested and considering investing it into an #ESG or sustainable fund.

It is also a good idea to consider expenditures and if they might be required when you are retirement planning.

For more information you can check out the link – https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevevernon/2022/08/02/climate-change-is-emerging-as-a-mainstream-retirement-issue/?sh=7ebef7775d40

Over the past 2 years or so we have had to overcome a pandemic, lockdowns, recessions, wars and inflation at record levels. It has been a tough economic landscape with many who have been out of work or had a significant income drop.

When money comes into a household or business there is always something it can be spent on but I do believe it is crucial that we cycle part of our income for an emergency fund to help ease the burden of hard economic circumstances.

If an emergency fund isn’t in place it’s as simple as setting up a monthly direct debit into a regular #savings account or an #investment policy with a modest level of risk. Get in touch today if this is of interest.

We’ve seen inflation remain stubbornly highly at around 8%.

Central Banks have a mandate to keep, certainly the ECB, inflation at 2%.

When inflation remains stubbornly high they look to act and increasing interest rates is one of the ways they (Central Banks) will look to curb inflation they are looking to increase interest rates probably at every periodic meeting for the foreseeable future.

The inflationary pressure we’re seeing at the moment is a lack of consumer goods coming from China, it’s from manufacturing disruption from Covid lockdowns, it’s from sanctions on Russia, which is limiting oil and gas supply and it’s from lack of foods and grains from Ukraine because of the invasion.

Now, increasing interest rates isn’t going to increase the supply of consumer goods or foods or fuels, while it will obviously, curb other parts of inflation.

Another consideration for central banks is the level of debt.

The level of debt globally between governments, companies and individuals in 2021 was $300 trillion.

So an increase in interest rates is going to have an impact.

A lot of that debt will be fixed rate but taking a local example of individuals looking for mortgages the cost of mortgages will increase for new mortgages which means individuals will be able to borrow less and standard variable rates will go up and that will obviously put more financial pressure on people.

Other considerations then would also be that in the last maybe 10 or 15 years or so, we’ve seen low interest rates and bond-buying has had a big impact on stock markets and property markets, we’ve seen a big increase there (in stock markets and property markets).

Stopping bond-buying (by Central Banks) and increasing interest rates will put pressure on opening markets.

I think what to do is, for those with mortgages if you’re in the position to review or to change, I think it might be time to look into that while interest rates are low, it might save some money when other things are getting more expensive.

I think for investors and for pension investors who have funds based on the stock markets or direct stocks, I think it’s to look at your time horizon.

If you’re looking at a ten-year time horizon, long-term growth in the stock markets is positive, so I would be mindful of that and keep an eye on your time frame as opposed to short stock market volatility, which is unfortunately just part of investing.

If you found this article helpful and would like to learn more, please comment below, share with your network or send a friend who might benefit from this information!

Currently, we are not in a recession and The Department of #Finance & The #Economic Social Research Institute are guiding us that we will not go into a recession.

Whereas a number of financial experts are expecting that it is likely that #Ireland will go into a recession.

💡With the rise in #inflation and the chance of #recession, I would expect consumers to continue spending less therefore the #SME sector will be challenged.

Internationally, I believe the #US will go into a recession and we will see #China‘s #economy slow down with the #EU expected to have a lower level of growth but not to go into a recession.

If you found this article helpful and would like to learn more, please comment below, share with your network or DM me – hlambert@hjlambert. Thanks for reading.

✅ 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
There should be a company pension scheme in place.

This will allow you to make an employee contribution or an additional voluntary contribution to your pension scheme and claim tax relief, and income tax relief on the money that you’re contributing.

✅ 𝐄𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 & 𝐈𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞
This is done on a personal basis, separate from your company.

You can invest in a basket of companies on a 4-7 year timeline and typically your investment serves as a type of funding for companies who are scaling their business.

✅ 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 & 𝐃𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬
If you take a simple equation by adding the value of your home or property, your pensions and your savings and take that as 𝐗 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.

Then if you take the number of children you have and multiply that by 335,000 and that’s 𝐘 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. – If X is greater than Y then your children and dependents will be liable for inheritance tax.

💡 From a tax planning point of view there are #insurance policies that will cover inheritance tax.

✅ 𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐆𝐢𝐟𝐭 𝐀𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞
You can gift anybody €3,000 a year tax-free – This will be tax-efficient inheritance.

If you found this article helpful and would like to learn more, please comment below, share with your network or tag a friend who might benefit from this information!

For three weeks starting this week, I’d like to talk about some financial advice for those working in the multinational sector.

This week I’ll talk a little bit about some of the investment alternatives to those who have built up money through stock options.

Stock options are part of remuneration to multinational sectors through bonuses, pay or whatever it might be, and individuals can build up pretty significant sums over the years.

Stock options, by their nature are in one share in one industry, and when the markets turn or take a drop as they have this year you could face the full brunt of the drop.

There will be those who are happy to sit and wait for the price to recover.

And I certainly wouldn’t  advocate selling in a loss making situation.

But there will also be those who maybe aren’t as comfortable with the level of volatility that they’re experiencing, and they’ll be those who have that money earmarked for something in future may now be looking to try and protect it a bit more than it is now.

So for those individuals, there are lower risk and diversified options available and I’d be happy to discuss at any point.

I should also say that selling stock options does will likely incur a tax liability.