Informed Decisions Independent Financial Planning & Money Podcast

Two people can retire with the same ARF, the same average return, and the same withdrawal rate and still end up in completely different places. One leaves over €1m to his family. The other runs out of money before he turns 88. The only difference is the order in which the returns arrived. In this episode, Paddy breaks down sequence of returns risk in Ireland. The risk that gets far less attention...

An Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA) is the planning step most Irish adults never get to. Only around 8% have one, against roughly a third who've made a will. Yet if you lost capacity tomorrow, it's the document that decides whether the people you trust can actually act for you, or whether your family ends up in front of the Circuit Court. Paddy Delaney is joined by Áine Flynn, Director of Ireland'...

As you get closer to retirement, move your money to safer investments. It sounds reasonable. But what if that one piece of conventional wisdom could cost you €80,000 or more? In this episode, Paddy unpacks one of the most consequential (and most overlooked) investment decisions you'll make: whether to reduce investment risk before you retire . For a lot of Irish pension holders, this decision has...

If your pension is approaching or has passed €2 million, the question is no longer just how to grow it, it's how to generate income without handing a significant portion to Revenue unnecessarily. The Standard Fund Threshold in Ireland rose to €2.2 million in January 2026, and the decisions you make in the next few years will determine how much of that headroom you actually use. In this episode, Pa...

A lot of investors have written off bonds after 2022. In this episode, Paddy Delaney explains why that conclusion is based on a misreading of how bonds work — and what the historical data actually shows. The 10-year US Treasury yield went from under 6% to over 11% during the 1970s. Bonds still returned 5.4% per year. The worst single year was a loss of less than 1%. If bonds survived that rate env...

"There's a pension somewhere in your name that you haven't looked at in five years." That's a sentence Paddy finds himself saying in client meetings more often than you'd expect. Across a 25-year career, the typical Irish professional works for three or four different employers — and the result, by the time someone reaches their mid-fifties, is often €100,000 to €500,000 spread across multiple dor...

After the 22 April IORP II deadline, thousands of Irish directors are now in a pension structure they didn't deliberately choose. Most transitioned from an executive pension to a Master Trust or a PRSA under time pressure. Few sat down to ask whether the resulting structure is actually the one that serves them best. In this episode, Paddy walks through the PRSA versus Executive Pension / Master Tr...

Most people approaching retirement believe their job is to reduce risk. Get out of equities. Move into something safe. Ben Carlson disagrees — and he has the research to back it up. Ben is Director at Ritholtz Wealth Management in the US, author of Risk and Reward (Harriman House, May 2026), and one of the most widely read financial writers working today. He's spent his career studying every major...

Most Irish high earners are claiming roughly half the pension tax relief available to them. Not because the rules are complicated, but because the contribution percentage set years ago has simply never been revised. In this episode, Paddy walks through the age-related contribution limits (15% to 40%) the €115,000 earnings cap and what it actually means in practice and a real worked example of a di...

Most ARF holders know their fund value. Most know Revenue requires a minimum annual drawdown. Very few have stopped to ask whether meeting that minimum is actually a strategy, or simply the path of least resistance. In this episode, Paddy explores safe withdrawal rates in an Irish context: the research on real retiree behaviour, why the 4% rule is both useful and misunderstood, and why the sequenc...

You've built a €2 million pension. Now here's the question nobody asked you: how much of it will you actually keep? In this episode, Paddy runs the real numbers on what a €2 million ARF looks like in Ireland in 2026: mandatory drawdowns, income tax, USC, PRSI, and the phased strategy that could save you tens of thousands every year in the early stages of retirement. What this Episode covers: Why a...

In this week's episode, Paddy tackles the question he gets asked more than any other: how much do I actually need to retire in Ireland? Well, for an answer to that question, one should make a proper calculation beforehand, and Paddy is here to help you out by covering the key benchmarks from the Pensions Council report, what they mean in practice, and where they fall short. Some of the specific po...

In this week's podcast, Paddy talks about what a €1 million pension can actually generate in retirement—and why the headline number doesn't always match the reality of income. The tax-free lump sum explained You can take 25%, but only the first €200,000 is fully tax-free. The rest may be taxed, reducing what you actually receive. ARF income isn't as high as you think A €750,000 ARF might generate...

In this week's podcast, Paddy talks about why leaving your cash in a current or low-interest account is quietly costing you. Your savings could earn more Demand deposit accounts now offer around 2% and fixed-term options near 3%, so idle cash loses ground to inflation. Use the right tools The CCPC comparison tool helps Irish savers easily compare domestic and international deposit accounts. Rates...

Most people with significant pension assets have no real idea what their financial advisor earns from their money. Not because the information is illegal to share — it isn't — but because the system is designed in a way that makes it genuinely difficult to see. In this episode, Paddy looks at how commission structures work in Irish financial advice, why the difference between a percentage and a eu...

In this week's episode, I welcome Aaron to the podcast before diving into a timely topic for Irish savers and investors: how inflation quietly erodes cash savings over time. I look at why holding too much cash can damage long term purchasing power, why fear often keeps people on the sidelines, and why a diversified, low cost investment approach has historically offered a stronger path for long ter...

Michael Houghton returns to the Informed Decisions Podcast seven years after his first appearance to share how his thinking on money, work and property has evolved.   Michael is a personal finance writer, former software developer, FIRE advocate, Irish Independent columnist, and now an active property investor building income and wealth through rental property in Ireland.   In this conversation, M...

In this week's podcast, Paddy is joined by specialist solicitor Elaine Byrne to demystify trusts and explain why they're one of the most powerful — and underused — tools in Irish estate planning. From discretionary trusts for young children to protecting a family member with additional needs, Elaine covers the types of trusts, the tax implications, how to update your will, and what it actually cos...

We can spend decades building our wealth, protecting our families, and planning for retirement. But there's one question most people avoid until it's too late: what happens if you can't make decisions for yourself? In this week's podcast I look at Enduring Power of Attorney. I hope it helps

In this week's podcast, Paddy sits down with guest Brendan Allen to unpack the rental market right now, and it is messy. They get into why so many landlords feel stuck between shifting government rules and real world supply shortages, and how that tension can push rents higher even when the aim is tenant security. Brendan also breaks down the practical business case for staying invested long term,...

If you're saving for retirement or nearing the end of your career, or eyeing retirement or a 'handier' role :) a significant change is on the horizon that could meaningfully affect how much tax you'll pay on your pension. From 2026, the Standard Fund Threshold (SFT), the maximum value you can accumulate across all retirement benefits without triggering additional tax charge, will begin to increase...

If you are thinking about retiring in 2026, or even easing back from full time work, this is the year where small decisions start to matter a lot. In this week's episode, I look at how to check if retirement is actually realistic, which pension moves still make sense, and how to think about income rather than just fund size. This is about clarity, not hype. And avoiding expensive mistakes!   Key t...

If you have an Executive Pension/SSAS or are a member of an Occupational Pension Scheme approaching retirement, you might want to know about these big changes coming your way! Two major pension updates are colliding; - One from European regulation relating to 'Exec Pensions' and 'Small Self Administered' schemes (SSAS) which impacts self employed directors - One from Revenue relating to employees...

Welcome to the very last, and shortest, Informed Decisions Blog of 2025! We've had a very interesting investment year so far, and I want to share some brief investment observations and comparisons of the year. Also, I'll share a few acknowledgements of those that helped me and Informed Decisions during the year. Thanks,  Paddy.

In this week's podcast - Your Essential Pre-Retirement Checklist Retirement starts long before you hand back the laptop or walk out of the office for the last time! The real work happens in the final decade, when you bring everything together; pensions, savings, tax, debts, lifestyle, and the practical bits that make life run smoothly. This pre-retirement checklist Ireland will hopefully give you...