Irish Financial Independence & Personal Finance Podcast

Sunday 7th June 2026

It’s OK to Say No

When I was grinding in 2022, I gave up my time. I was working 12+ hours per day to put ourselves in a stronger financial position, but I sacrificed my time. I was exhausted and was in a constant state of burn out.

As I slowly reduced my work hours, I had bought myself time freedom. I went from being in a constant working state, to suddenly having time to think. It was a great place to be. However, as human’s, we find that we tend to fill time as quickly as we gain it.

Back in 2024, I was asked by another hockey club in Limerick to help work their division one Men’s team. The team was young, but had massive potential and were competing to join a national hockey league. They were coached by a very good head coach, and this was an opportunity for me to learn under him, but also learn more about the game at a much higher level.

So I joined the coaching panel, attending the odd training session every week or two, and helping out at the odd home game where I could. There was no real commitment required initially, I helped out where I could, and that was that.

The team ended up qualifying for the national league and I mentioned over the off season that I could commit again very much on a casual basis like I had the season before.

It was now August 2025, and the preseason had begun. We had picked up a couple of new players in the off season, and the team was now incredibly strong. Numbers were huge and managing the squad was now more of a challenge than ever.

But things were in a good place. The training was of a high standard and the season got off to a good start. I was no longer just helping out causally anymore however, I had found myself turning up to most training sessions and coming to more games. Come early November, the head coach had found that life had gotten in the way, and he was having trouble at work. He had found himself unable to commit to the club as he had expected, and decided to step down for a few weeks in order to balance his life a bit more. Keep in mind, coaching a team at this level involved training twice a week and at least one game a week, often travelling long distances across Munster and sometimes as far as Dublin and Belfast. This was all on top of my own kids hockey commitments - all up I was finding myself on a hockey pitch 5 days a week!

With the head coach stepping down, I found myself stepping up. Filling in for him in his absence. Now preparing lesson plans, on top of everything else. I expected he would be back within 3 weeks, so it was only temporary - however, it soon became clear this wasn’t the case - the three weeks passed and he was no closer to coming back - I had suddenly found myself at the helm of a hockey team in a national league.

You can only imagine, with three kids at home, this created huge pressure at home. My weeks were now planned around hockey, a Saturday might involve a 14 hour round trip to Belfast, with me coaching my own kids on a Sunday then. Entire weeks and weekends would be lost to hockey.

I suspect most people would have walked away. But I am a club man at heart, and value the notion of seeing something through. The season ended up dragging on, and finally, come the 2nd week in May, the season finally came to an end. I let the club know I wouldn’t be staying on next season and had completed my time as head coach of a high performance team in a national league.

Here is the kicker. I enjoyed it. Don’t get me wrong, it was tough, a huge commitment, but I enjoyed it. I did my best - I was under qualified for what I needed to do, but I enjoyed it.

The challenge was the opportunity cost. The impact this commitment had on my family life was tough. I would say ironically, this was harder than me working two jobs in 2022. At least with two jobs, it was all remote work - I was at home. I could come down from my home office and break up a fight, or take a break while my wife took a shower or ate dinner. This was me away from home, and it had the kids missing me, my wife wondering what all this talk of early retirement really meant and me coming in tired after a long training session or long day out in Belfast somewhere.

At some point during the season, I wrote the following on a piece of paper and stuck it to my wall:

“It’s OK to say no”

And

“Say no to long term commitments”

I realised along the way, that the best thing I can do with my time, is be at home. Is to be a father and husband. And as much as I tend to go from one thing to another and find myself filling time, I need to stop and reflect before I commit to something.

I’ve struggled during my life to be a people pleaser. I have found it easier to say yes, than say no. And the trouble was, being “FI” has given me less of an excuse to say no. “sure, why not, I have the time” would be my thought pattern, but not realising all I was doing was giving that free time up then to something else.

And that free time is precious. The holiday home has been one of our greatest purchases because it is an excuse to get away. It is a great reason to say no. “Sorry we are away this weekend”. Out on an acre site, with the wind blowing against my face, I light a small bomb fire to burn some overgrown trees. The kids come out and poke the fire with a stick, my wife brings out marshmallows and biscuits. We make smores - I see how big I can make the fire until my youngest gets scared and threatens to get the hose. We take before and after pictures of the land, watching it transform.

A neighbour calls past, I ask if he knows anyone with a bit of top soil. 30 minutes later, a truck pulls up with 5 tonnes of top soil - no one wants any money for it after I offer several times. There is a different pace of life here - a more gentle pace - and more controlled pace - where time is the most precious commodity. Time is understood - the kids are only young once, our health is wealth, time with aging parents becomes more precious. These are things to protect. This is what FIRE has allowed me to reflect on. This is what it was all for - a few years of grinding, to see compounding eventually take over, and for me to reflect on what really matters…. Time, freedom, family and calmness - things that we can’t buy in a store, but are well worth working towards.

‘Sale Agreed’ on property number 8

I have been busy looking for a new buy to let property since early February and was getting frustrated by the number of times I was coming second in the bidding wars. I knew that positioning myself as a solid bidding strategy, and I was happy coming second, knowing that there was every chance the other bidder would pull out and I would pick up a deal.

But I wasn’t having much luck, and I while I had an ‘approval in principle’ from ICS, I didn’t have any written approval for my equity release. I wanted to use an easy refinance option that ICS offer, called a mortgage top up. It is a much cheaper way to refinance, as the fees are much lower and I don’t need to engage the services of my own solicitor. However, this process was slow, and ICS were playing hard ball and I wasn’t sure it was going to be possible for me. I got to the stage where I was ready to give up and stop looking for a while, when one Monday morning, a big letter arrived in my letter box and sure enough, it was an approval for our mortgage top up.

This would give us another €87,000 from our Shannon property, and with a bit of cash, give us the 30% deposit we needed to complete another purchase.

A three bedroom end of terrace property came up in a great location in Limerick, with three bedrooms, fresh paint and a well-maintained interior.

When I arrived for my viewing, I was the only person there, so I had a good chance to look around properly. A one-to-one viewing is always a bonus, because it gives you time to ask questions - not just about the property itself, but about the dynamic around the sale.

I am always trying to find out if there are any other bidders on the property. If there are, I want to know whether they are cash buyers, first-time buyers or investors - whatever information I can gather. This is not always easy, as auctioneers often do not want to give too much away.

But I am usually even more interested in the vendor. Are their expectations reasonable? Are they looking to close a sale quickly, or are they happy to wait it out until they get the right price?

In this case, I asked the auctioneer directly what the vendors’ expectations were. He was able to tell me roughly what they were looking for.

I called the auctioneer later that day and told him I was going to make an offer, but with a seven-day time limit. This offer was €20,000 above the asking price, but I wanted to try to avoid a situation where I would have to bid against other buyers.

A week went by, and I received an email back from the auctioneer. They needed some further documentation from me to show proof of funds, which I sent straight away (and thankfully had arrived in the letterbox from ICS earlier in the week). We went ‘sale agreed’ the next day.

In regards to my property strategy, I am very much looking to leverage our existing properties where I can. I need to be a bit careful not to over leverage myself, and I am well aware that property investments have found themselves in this situation in the past. In saying that, we have built good equity in our properties, and even with refinancing we are still working out at a 50:50 mortgage to equity split.

To put some numbers on this, we currently have a combined market valuations on all seven properties we own (5 buy to let properties, our own primary home in Limerick and a holiday home) of €2,225,000. We have combined mortgages on these seven properties of €982,000. So while nearly a million euro in mortgages is scary, there is around €11,500 gross rent coming in each month to cover this and still plenty of equity build up overall.

The point I am trying to get across is that all of this refinancing might sound scary, but when looking at the wider picture, it is still conservative.

A final point as well - you will note that we are millionaires on paper! If you subtract our total valuations from the mortgage balances, there is more than a millionaire euro in equity there! Pretty neat right! Our ‘FI Portfolio’ below, excludes the equity in our own primary house and holiday home, and I also account for capital gains tax if we were to sell the properties with the valuations, so the numbers are more conservative that what they would show on paper.

May 2026 Portfolio Update

I don’t typically follow the day to day changes in the stock market, but my word, the last couple of months have been dramatic - and in a good way. Equities are crushing it this year, and we saw another big jump in May. Since we started becoming property investors in late 2020, our property has outperformed our index funds every year - but at the moment 2026 is shaping up to be the year that stocks win. Let’s see if the numbers hold by the end of the year.

I was a busy boy in May. We got investment property number five ready for our new tenant, and they moved in in late May. We paid for several improvements, including a new boiler, new stove, change of paint colours, and many repairs. These improvements have been capitalised rather than expensed, as they will all have directly resulted in improvements to the overall property valuation.

We also painted the outside of our first investment property, which was well overdue. I fully expensed this, so our rental profit was down during May, but I expect it will bounce back up in June, all going well.

Overall, the portfolio is in a strong place. We are due to revalue our investment properties next month (we do this every six months). I haven’t sat down and gone through our numbers yet, but I expect we will see a further rise to the portfolio next month after we factor in our latest valuations.

My 9 year old also has his communion, and followed in his older brother's steps and put €500 into our portfolio - I will track his performance separately in excel - but this is why there was a €500 contribution in May!

Let’s break down the numbers:

Monthly Portfolio Growth Report

Portfolio Breakdown

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

2026 Year to Date Returns

Here is a summary of my year to date returns for 2026.

2025 Year to Date Growth Report
Opening Balance	€846,030.49
New Contributions	€640.00
Equities Capital Gains + Dividends	€24,445.11
Real Estate Rental Income	€15,364.01
Interest on Cash Savings	€16.32
Closing Balance	€886,495.93
Portfolio Return	€39,825.44
% Return	4.7%

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