Informed Decisions Independent Financial Planning & Money Podcast

Hi and welcome to Ireland's dedicated Financial Planning and Personal Finance Podcast. We are on a mission to share ideas and unbiased insights that might help you make beneficial decisions. Speaking of mission we are joined this week by non-other than Andy Agathangelou who founded the Transparency Task Force and which is on a mission to have a positive and lasting difference on financial services and on those that it exists to serve. I was so taken by Andy and the band of volunteers that have joined him that I have accepted the invitation to become Ireland's first (and so far only!) Ambassador. It is my intent to help have a positive difference on this mighty profession so that it can survive, serve and help many more thousands in the years ahead. Thanks for listening! Paddy Delaney QFA |RPA | APA | Qualified Coach

Hey there and welcome back to Ireland's #1 personal finance blog. This week we are exploring what is quite a common challenge for people, the decisions about investing a lump sum now or waiting for markets to fall or crash. Funnily this is not usually a challenge for would-be investors when markets are calm and rising. It more often becomes a challenge when market volatility hits, or when media is claiming that the market it 'over-priced' or at an 'all-time high'. The Impact Of Time In considering this it obviously makes sense to consider what the intent is with investing. When doing a presentation last week for a group of advisors I asked them what the main purpose of investing is, 50% of the room said it is to beat inflation, while the other 50% of the room said it was to achieve decent growth. If you are considering an investment perhaps it is worth considering what your intent is with that investment. I firmly believe that unless there is a clear goal or plan for the funds then you are much more likely to make decisions that would be detrimental to your long term investment success. We can never obviously predict what the future holds for markets, and that history may well not repeat itself, but history (and the constant upward curve!) are all that we have to go on. One piece of data I particularly like relates to the impact of time in the market, as opposed to timing. It analyses the Standard & Poors 500 (S&P500) between 1926 and 2011, and determines what percentage of rolling periods had positive returns, for various durations in that market. 1 Year - 73% of rolling periods positive (752 of 1021 rolling periods) 5 Years - 86% of periods positive (844 of 973) 10 Years - 94% of periods positive (860 of 913) 15 Years - 99.7% (851 of 853) 20 Years - 100% of periods positive! These numbers basically speak for themselves here but to quickly look at both ends, 1 year and 20 year periods. We can see clearly that we stood a fairly decent likelihood of our investment being in positive territory after 12 months, but certainty of positive returns if we had invested for a 20 year period. Not everyone will have a 20 year window over which to invest but there is no denying that it clearly demonstrates the old and over-used mantra of 'its not about timing the market, rather time IN the market'! Read the full Blog here. Paddy Delaney QFA | RPA | APA | Coach

Hey there, it's great to be back after a few weeks of rest over the Christmas, it was probably good for all of us to have a break from listening to me! Anyway, very excited about developing what we are doing here, growing the community, and helping more people get the information they need to make good financial decisions for themselves. On reflection over the Christmas I am more keen than ever to keep trying to make a positive difference and to keep telling it like it is! Ever wondered how to get financial advice in Ireland?? This week in our first episode of 2019 I want to outline the options open to people who are perhaps hoping to get their financial lives sorted or who have some big financial decisions to make. Looking for financial advice in Ireland can be confusing; who to trust, how they can help, what they can do or can't do and what do they charge? Here I hope to outline the various options clearly, outline some of the possible pros and cons of each, and ultimately share some ideas that might help....I hope it is useful. If you haven't seen it then I suggest reading Blog 27 where I share ideas on what to consider prior to getting advice. Where Should I Get Financial Advice? This is a question that many who have had financial decisions to make have considered, some may have had an obvious answer and others less so. My intent with this episode is to outline the various options and help in your decision, if you have one to make. The answer to that question really revolves around the outcome you seek and the manner in which your advisor operates. For some people the way that your advisor works will be important, they will want to know how they are paid and what potential conflicts might be present in their advice. Others will not care one way or the other provided they get what they need in place. Full Blog Here...

Welcome back to Ireland's award-winning & independent Financial Planning blog and podcast. We are on a mission to share ideas and educate people to avoid mistakes and make decisions that will benefit them in the future. Drop me an email here with any of your ideas or feedback on making the site/podcast better, would love to hear from you. For a while now I have been really keen to get a 'non-advisor' to tell us what has changed in recent years in the UK in the financial advice arena, and how that has impacted consumers like you and I. The reason I have been keen to get speaking to a non-advisor is because advisors can have tainted views of things particularly when it comes to regulatory change etc, understandably they don't always like it! Rory Percival is the person for the job here, as a former FCA regulator and now running a Consultancy and speaking business that helps advice firms to stay abreast of regulatory change, there aren't too many others as well placed to share some insight with us. We have a fairly broad-ranging conversation covering some questions like: What has changed in recent years in financial services and advice? What lessons can we learn about transferring defined benefit pension scheme? How are people protected when it comes to seeking advice and is that advice up to scratch? Should I transfer out of my defined benefit scheme, and if so what should I look out for? What are investment platforms and can they be trusted? Be sure to listen to the end where Rory shares his top tips for people in how to best manage income in retirement, and ensure that they have the best chanve of maintaining lifestyle in retirement. Have a hugely Merry Christmas and see you in 2019! Paddy Delaney QFA RPA APA Coach Links: Rory Percival site Rory's guide to Defined Benefit Pension Transfers (UK)

Welcome back to Ireland's independent & award winning Financial Planning Blog & Podcast. We don't claim to be perfect but we have been creating and sharing ideas here on the podcast for the past 2 years and are on a mission to help people of Ireland (& beyond!) to make decisions which benefit them in the long-run. All we ask is that if you like what we are doing that you'd tell a friend or loved-one about us and see if it can be of any use to them! Speaking of long-run we are hugely grateful for your ongoing support, readership and listenership, if the few thousand of you who listen every month didn't do so we wouldn't still be producing the show, so thanks for that, we love it! I know I say 'we' but it is really only me, but for some reason it seems right to me! Maybe we will be a we in future! Last week we tackled Entrepreneur Relief, and had some interesting emails from some entrepreneurs who have learned a thing or two as a result, which is cool! This week I have to vent a little, not for my own good but as a bit of a warning or war-cry for us all. It is pretty disappointing that people still need to be warned about what I am talking about today but it is a fact, and an important one at that. What I am talking about is a charging structure that I witnessed on a retail savings product recently, that was being promoted on a state-funded website by an 'advisor' with national media coverage. It also ties-in with my announcing that I have recently become Ireland's first Ambassador for the Transparency Task-Force. This is a voluntary group/movement based in several countries, with a few hundred members, and a dozen or so ambassadors. As the title suggests they exist in order to encourage more transparency and improved provision of information in financial services industry. I hope to interview the founder Andy Agethangelou in January so we'll have more for you in a few weeks! Paddy Delaney QFA | RPA | APA | Qualified Coach

Welcome back to Ireland's independent & award winning Financial Planning Blog & Podcast. We don't claim to be perfect but we have been creating and sharing ideas here on the podcast for the past 2 years and are on a mission to help people of Ireland (& beyond!) to make decisions which benefit them in the long-run. All we ask is that if you like what we are doing that you'd tell a friend or loved-one about us and see if it can be of any use to them! Speaking of long-run we are hugely grateful for your ongoing support, readership and listenership, if the few thousand of you who listen every month didn't do so we wouldn't still be producing the show, so thanks for that, we love it! I know I say 'we' but it is really only me, but for some reason it seems right to me! Maybe we will be a we in future! Last week we tackled Entrepreneur Relief, and had some interesting emails from some entrepreneurs who have learned a thing or two as a result, which is cool! This week I have to vent a little, not for my own good but as a bit of a warning or war-cry for us all. It is pretty disappointing that people still need to be warned about what I am talking about today but it is a fact, and an important one at that. What I am talking about is a charging structure that I witnessed on a retail savings product recently, that was being promoted on a state-funded website by an 'advisor' with national media coverage. It also ties-in with my announcing that I have recently become Ireland's first Ambassador for the Transparency Task-Force. This is a voluntary group/movement based in several countries, with a few hundred members, and a dozen or so ambassadors. As the title suggests they exist in order to encourage more transparency and improved provision of information in financial services industry. I hope to interview the founder Andy Agethangelou in January so we'll have more for you in a few weeks! Paddy Delaney QFA | RPA | APA | Qualified Coach

Welcome back to Ireland's award winning & independent financial planning blog & podcast, where we are on a mission to share ideas and information that hopefully helps you make decisions that delivers long term results for you. Thanks for the lovely reaction to last weeks' episode, I certainly enjoyed sharing the story! This weeks' topic is kinda closely related to the oul' lizard-brain and relates to entrepreneurship! We are not tax experts but it has been asked of us a few times recently so this week we will share a wee bit of info about how 'entrepreneurs' can stand to benefit from a pretty significant chunk of relief......of the financial sort. A Short Story: Maria Dalmation set up a dog grooming company back in 2010, called 'I Shitzu-Not' Limited (I don't think I'll ever make it in advertising!). Anyway, she had a steady start, and then when she won a national dog-grooming title for her grooming skills her business took off. For the 4 years from 2013 to 2017 she had revenues each year in the region of €200,000, business expenses including wages of €100,000 meaning she had profits of €100,000 per year. She did pay corporation tax at 12.5% on the money in the business each year however the company had cash of €550,000 in it's bank account at the end of 2017. Maria Dalmation had an epiphany in January of this year, she wanted to leave the grooming business, it was time for a new adventure, to pursue her love of discovering and documenting Mongolian Cave Art (please understand I had to make this really random so as to avoid the chances of anyone coming forward to claim I was talking about them!). So she sought to leave it all behind, and sell the business to a colleague that had been working with her for the past few years. Maria's business at that stage was worth €750,000 (including cash and goodwill), she sells it for €750,000 and pays a measly €75,000 Capital Gains Tax on that sale of her shares in the business. She pocketed, perfectly legitimately and appropriately, €675,000 of the €750,000 sale price. To put that in context had she sold an investment, property or other asset other than a limited company on which she had the same gains she would have paid Capital Gains Tax at 33%, equating to €247,000, meaning she would have pocketed €500,000. A simple thing now called 'Entrepreneur Relief' has reduced her tax liability on disposal of her business by €175,000. Continued......... Paddy Delaney QFA | RPA | APA | Coach

Welcome back to Ireland's award-winning Finance Blog where we are on a mission to share ideas that will have a lasting and positive impact for you. This week were are sharing something a little different, and hope that it hits the mark, that it perhaps gets you thinking and perhaps even encourages you to do something you want to do! It is bigger than personal finance or financial planning, this is about you and your life! In November each year, for the past 6 years anyway, there has been an 'unconference' called Congregation happening in the small and lovely village of Cong in Mayo. It was created by and organised each year by one man, a guy by the name of Eoin Kennedy, who is a digital communicator, entrepreneur, trainer and all round good guy it seems! Not sure where he got the idea but he gets 80-100 people to Cong every year, from a hugely diverse range of backgrounds to present their thoughts, ideas and debate on various different topics. Unlike a typical conference where you sit and listen to a speaker Congregation revolved around the principal that everyone in attendance presents a piece during the day, and then the groups have an opportunity to discuss what was just said, share their views and get lots of different input from lots of different people. I always find it hard to explain it, indeed I was total at a loss when it was first explained to me by Alan O'Rourke from Bettystown who is a speaker, lecturer, marketer & writer. Anyway, unlike a typical conference you can't buy a ticket, you can only gain entry by submitting your thoughts on the given topic each year. This year it was 'ideas' so in order to get a spot you had to write, record, create a short piece about 'ideas', and then prepare to pitch that to the group on the day. Sounds daunting to some but this is the most familial, non-threatening and open gathering of interesting and smart people I have had the pleasure of attending in my 38 years! It is an eclectic mix of all-sorts; writers, CEO's, farmers, coaches, teachers, entrepreneurs, educators, inventors, makers, doers and dreamers, and all in it to share ideas and hear from other interested folks, where would you get it! Thanks For Listening, Paddy Delaney QFA |RPA | APA | Qualified Coach

It was in conversation with a friend recently, who has just started working for a new company, that I was asked if I believed it makes any sense to join a pension scheme offered by an employer. He was told that if he put 4% of gross salary into his pension that the employer would put 6% in, totaling 10% of his gross salary. This seems like a reasonable offer from the employer in this Defined Contribution scheme however he had concerns which he shared with me! Having done a little of his own research he had concerns about the fees that he had read of, concerns about the fact that 'you could get back less than you invest', and the mystery about how one goes about taking the money out at the end. These 3 very real and very common questions and concerns lead to, I guess, many people not engaging with pension, and without answers to those questions I wouldn't blame them for a second! Welcome to Ireland's double-award-winning Finance Blog and Podcast where we are on a mission to help readers and listeners make decisions which benefit them now and into the future. We thank you for reading and the greatest compliment you can pay us is to tell a friend about us, or drop me a mail here with any ideas or suggestions that would make this site as useful as possible. In trying to answer the question 'should I join my company's pension scheme or not' it might be worth taking each of the 3 questions, not with a view to finding an answer in the affirmative but a considered and credible answer! Paddy Delaney QFA | RPA | APA | Executive Coach

BlackRock Investment Managers conduct an annual piece of research (in the US) of around 30,000 individuals and get their sentiment and preparation for retirement. Obviously it is heavily slanted to the financial. One of the surprising things, for me at least, was that the #1 concern for the majority of respondents was not health or social interactions or purpose, it was 'running out of money'. I guess running out of money in retirement does bring up all sorts of miserable and unfortunate images in our minds, and that is probably enough of a motivation for us to want to do something about it! Sequence risk is something that can result in us running out of money, and which we covered in a little detail last week, and this week we aim to share some ideas in how to minimise the impact of that very occurrence. Welcome back to Ireland's double-award winning Blog & Podcast. On a mission to share ideas which will help you both now and into the future. The biggest compliment you can pay us is to tell a friend about us and/or drop me an email here with any ideas, suggestions or feedback. Thanks, Paddy Delaney QFA | RPA | APA | Executive Coach