Podcast98: Can A Couple Retire In Ireland With €1million?

As a young boy growing up many years ago a million euros (or pounds as it was!) always sounded like an inexorably large amount of money. If you had €1m you were officially a millionaire and were in our eyes elevated to a stratospheric status.......The same can't be said anymore though! While it no doubt is still a significant amount of money by anyone's standards the sheen of being a millionaire has dampened thanks to inflation mostly! Nevertheless we are are today going to explore how and if €1m in an Irish Pension is enough, and specifically explore if it would be enough on which to retire at say 60 years of age.

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Impact Of Inflation On Your €1m:

In order to elaborate on the comments about impact of inflation on your €1m lets just look at that for a moment. It was 25 years ago when I was 13 years of age. When I was 13 years of age €1m seemed like a crazy amount of money. Indeed it was, and still is however if you had €1m 25 years ago (1993) and you put it under the mattress, it would today have approximately 40% less purchasing power, due solely to inflation.

According to data from Central Statistics Office you would need to have €1.61m today to be able to buy what €1m would have bought in July 1993! The price of goods and services here have increased by over 60% in those 25 years. If on the other hand you had invested that €1m in the S&P 500 Index in 1993 it would now be worth approx €12m!

Bottom line is that if you decide to invest your funds under the mattress you will lose every time! If you want to retain and indeed potentially grow your funds above inflation you may need to consider this. If you are a long-time listener you will know our views on that whole topic very well by now however!

Let's look at how you would be set if you retired right now with €1m, as a couple at 60 years of age......

Paddy Delaney

QFA | RPA | APA | Qualified Coach