Irish Financial Independence & Personal Finance Podcast

Friday 7th March 2025

Life Changes on the way to Semi-Retirement

In February, Ronan Queally from Metis Ireland reached out to me. Metis actually sponsors jerseys for the hockey club I’m involved with, so I was already familiar with the organisation. Ronan offered to review our finances and do a financial health check for us.

It was an interesting experience. I provided Ronan with all our numbers, and my wife and I visited him on a Monday morning. The experience was really positive - it was great to have another person review and provide feedback on our overall progress. I was a little apprehensive, unsure if our numbers would stack up when viewed from a "Do we have enough?" perspective. But I’m pleased to report that Ronan was happy with our financial situation!

Here are the key takeaways from the meeting and our reflections afterward:

We Need to Start Living Our Semi-Retired Life

One thing Ronan pointed out when looking at our numbers was: "What are you going to do with all this extra money?". I’m still working full time and freelancing on the side. It’s like we’ve hit FI, but I haven’t made major changes to my working hours. While I’m working far less than I was at my peak in 2022, that peak was so intense that even half of that workload still feels like too much.

After reflecting on this, I decided to make some changes:

1. Reducing My Main Contracted Work Hours

I informed my main work contract that I plan to shift to part-time work in 2026. Technically, I’m still working full-time, but my schedule is now seasonal - I take summers and school holidays off. From 2026, I want to reduce my hours further, either to 4 hours per day or 3 days per week. The only reason I need to maintain full-time work in 2025 is to fund our New Zealand trip!

2. Phasing Out Freelancing

This will take some time, but I’ve started emailing clients to let them know I’m winding down my freelance work over the next few months. This was a tough decision - some clients have been with me for over 20 years.

I also updated my yearly budget to remove any dependency on freelance income. Interestingly, I hadn’t factored in portfolio withdrawals for 2025 - we plan to start withdrawing €2,500 per month from August, yet I hadn’t even included this in our budget. This ties back to Ronan’s question - What are we doing with all this money? It turns out, I don’t need as much as I thought, and my time freedom is far more valuable. I’ve adjusted my income targets, meaning freelance work is now fully optional and will be phased out over the year.

We Should Sell Our First Investment Property

Our first rental property has been in a rent pressure zone for five years now and produces no positive cash flow. While it has appreciated in value, the tax burden is significant. Because we previously lived in the property, the way our mortgage was restructured means we don’t get full mortgage interest deductions under Irish tax law. We only receive a deduction on 48% of the mortgage interest, which results in a high tax bill despite minimal rental income.

Initially, we planned to keep the property for our children, but post-FI, we’ve realised this isn’t necessary. We already have three other properties and a pension that will continue growing in the background. Our kids likely won’t need to buy homes for another 15 - 20 years, and given our financial position, there’s no real need to hold onto this property just in case.

Our tenant has been looking to buy his own home, so we offered him the chance to purchase the property through a private sale. We’re not sure if he’ll accept, but it’s a nice opportunity for him. If he doesn't accept, we will likely hold off for now, as we know that forcing him to move out will likely put him in a tough situation, but we have a long term plan in place now for this property and I will continue to provide further updates as things progress with this.

We Can Always Scale Work If Needed

I often get criticism from people saying things like, “Have you budgeted for college costs, future housing costs for your kids, or weddings?” But the realisation I’ve come to is that too much work is more of an issue for me than too little. If we ever need additional income in semi-retirement or full retirement, scaling up work is always an option.

For example, making an additional €10,000 annually could be as simple as working an extra 20 days per year within my current contract - hardly a major concern. The big takeaway here is that a little bit of work is a great thing for peace of mind, and there is always the option then to scale the work as needed.

Our New Zealand Trip Budget

We booked our flights in February and have been actively paying for various trip expenses. Surprisingly, our flights cost significantly less than expected. My sister recommended a travel agent, and we secured return tickets to New Zealand for five of us for €7,000. This was far below our initial budget of €8,000 - €12,000.

We also got excellent flight times with a decent airline. Many people assume travel agents are more expensive than booking directly, but I was pleasantly surprised at the deals they could offer. If you’re planning long-haul travel, I highly recommend at least getting a quote from an agent!

Here is our overall NZ trip budget:

* My parents have an extra car, so we only need to hire a car for a week
** Petrol is cheaper in NZ than Ireland!
*** Expecting Groceries are around twice as expensive in NZ than Ireland!

I had originally budgeted €18,000 for our trip, I was pleased to see it has come in at around €15,000.

February 2025 Portfolio Update

Stocks were down in February and it was interesting seeing our portfolio go down from January as a result. It has been a long time since I haven’t seen the portfolio grow on a month by month basis, but now that we are no longer contributing to the portfolio, this is something I need to get used to.

Our cash position is still improving and this is the main metric I am tracking at the moment. We are looking to coast for now to allow our cash savings to grow to between €20,000 - €30,000 before we start making withdrawals. I have budgeted to start making withdrawals in August.

Here are the overall portfolio numbers:

Monthly Portfolio Growth Report

Portfolio Breakdown

The table below shows the breakdown of my portfolio into the various asset classes:

2025 Year to Date Returns

Here is a summary of my year to date returns for 2025.

2025 Year to Date Growth Report
Opening Balance	€705,026.37
New Contributions	€0.00
Equities Capital Gains + Dividends	€982.40
Real Estate Capital Gains + Rental Income	€7,431.58
Interest on Cash Savings	€10.98
Closing Balance	€713,451.33
Portfolio Return	€8,424.96
% Return	1.19%

Lifetime Portfolio Returns

Here are my returns since I started in 2018.

* In 2020, some of the new contributions came in the form of an equity release, as we turned our primary residence into a buy to let and purchased a new home to live.

** In 2018 & 2019 I made several bad investments in peer to peer lending, forex trading and unregulated investments, which resulted in losses overall.

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