Short answers to the questions Irish households actually ask, each one paired with the tool that works it out on your own numbers. No filler, and no article that ends without telling you what to do next.
Income tax at 20% up to the standard rate cut-off point and 40% above it, plus USC across four bands and PRSI, with tax credits reducing the income tax due. Above the cut-off point the marginal rate on the next euro typically exceeds 48%, which is why a raise is worth about half what it sounds like.
Calculate your take-home payConvert the income you want in retirement into the pot that supports it, subtract what the State Pension will provide, and project your current pot forward. Doing it at three growth rates rather than one is the only honest version, because two percentage points either way changes the answer enormously.
Check your pension gapMost households can name their rent and their car payment and are vague about everything else, and the vague part is usually where the money is. Twelve months of a €65 mobile bill is €780, and nobody thinks of it that way until it is written down beside everything else.
Find your money leaksEarly in a mortgage term most of each payment is interest, so a euro overpaid removes interest from every remaining month. The saving is a guaranteed, tax-free return equal to your mortgage rate — which is more than an Irish deposit account pays after DIRT.
Calculate the savingA full strip-and-retile on a standard pitched roof is typically priced per square metre, with scaffolding, skips and any structural repairs itemised separately. The range is wide because access and condition drive it more than area does, so a quote well outside the normal band is a reason to ask what is behind it rather than proof of anything.
Check your roofing quoteThe Central Bank caps mortgage lending at four times gross income for first-time buyers and three and a half times for everyone else, with a loan-to-value ceiling of 90%. Whichever of those two limits binds first is the one to act on — more deposit does nothing if income is the constraint.
Calculate your affordabilityIn a Rent Pressure Zone both the size of an increase and how often one can be served are restricted by law, and the notice has to be in a prescribed form with a minimum notice period. An increase that breaches any of those can be disputed through the RTB, whose service is free.
Check your rent increaseHow long you stay decides it more than any other factor, because buying carries large one-off costs at the start that are recovered slowly. Under about five years renting usually wins on the arithmetic; over fifteen, buying usually does.
Compare buying and rentingThe monthly payment is almost always lower; the total cost usually is not. Interest on a PCP is charged on the whole amount financed including the deferred balloon, and handing the car back at the end means the deposit and every payment bought nothing you keep.
Compare PCP, HP and cashDepreciation is usually the largest line and the only one that never sends a bill, which is why it goes unnoticed until the trade-in. Add insurance, motor tax, servicing and tyres and the full figure for a typical Irish family car lands well above what most owners assume.
Calculate your true costBought online and changed your mind, you generally have 14 days to cancel for any reason. Bought in a shop and changed your mind, you have no statutory right at all and the shop policy decides it. If the goods are faulty, where you bought them stops mattering and a 30-day right to reject applies.
Check your refund rightsA well-oriented Irish roof generates roughly 850 kilowatt-hours per kilowatt-peak a year, which is well below the figures used in most marketing material. The return then depends on how much of that you use in the house rather than export, because an exported unit earns roughly half what an avoided one saves.
Work out your paybackIt depends almost entirely on the seasonal efficiency the system achieves in your house. At a good SCOP in an insulated house it beats an oil boiler comfortably; at a poor one in an unimproved house, at Irish electricity prices, it can cost more to run than the boiler it replaced.
Compare heating costsOut-of-contract customers on a standard tariff usually have the most to gain from switching, and the discounts available to new customers are real and repeatable. Compare on net first-year cost rather than the headline unit rate, which ignores standing charges and introductory discounts.
Compare tariffsThe National Childcare Scheme pays a universal subsidy regardless of income for children under a certain age, and an income-assessed subsidy on top for households below the threshold. Both are claimed at rates below the number of households that qualify.
Check your subsidyCompare the cost per remaining year of service rather than the repair price against the replacement price. A €180 repair buying three more years costs €60 a year; a €650 replacement lasting ten costs €65 — which makes the repair the better value, and is the opposite of what the usual rule of thumb says.
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An article can tell you that Irish stamp duty is 1% on the first million, or that a Rent Pressure Zone caps increases, or that a heat pump’s efficiency decides whether it saves money. None of that answers the question you actually had, which was about your house, your rent or your heating bill.
So the rule here is that a guide gives the general answer in two sentences and then hands you the calculator. The full tool catalogue has money, home & property, cars & transport and the rest, and every one of them runs in your browser with nothing stored.