Spreadsheet
The Irish Household Budget Planner
A budget built around Irish life — mortgage or rent, childcare, motor tax, health insurance, the lot. Excel and Google Sheets.
€12
Buy
Written for Ireland — not adapted from the US or UK
Stop guessing with your money.
Stop guessing with your money.
Follow the roadmap.
Most money books talk about 401(k)s and ISAs. This one talks about your payslip, your AVCs, My Future Fund and the 38% exit tax on funds — in plain English, in the order you should actually do them.
Six stages, in the order that works
19 worksheets included
Instant download
Sound familiar?
Nobody ever sat you down and explained any of this
You're not bad with money. You were just never taught the Irish version of it.
“I've a pension… I think?”
You tick a box on day one and never look again. You don't know what you're paying, what you're invested in, or whether you're leaving employer money on the table.
“Savings are just sitting there”
Money is parked in a current account earning nothing, quietly losing value to inflation, because the alternative feels risky and complicated.
“Where does it all go?”
A decent salary, and still nothing left at the end of the month. No overspending you can point to — just a slow leak you've never been able to find.
“Should I overpay the mortgage?”
Everyone has an opinion and nobody shows the arithmetic. Overpay, pension, or invest — the right answer depends on your rate, and almost nobody works it out.
“Investing is for other people”
Everyone online is talking about ETFs, but nobody mentions that Irish tax treats them differently — so you freeze, and another year goes by.
“What happens to all this after me?”
No will, or one written before the children. Nominations nobody has checked in a decade. An inheritance tax bill your family will meet without warning.
The idea
Six stages, in the order that actually works
Most money advice is a pile of good ideas with no sequence. This is a sequence. You finish a stage, you move on, and you stop trying to do all of it at once.
1
Take Control
Clarity first. What comes in, what goes out, what you own, what you owe — and whether the household moved forward or backwards this month.
2
Clear Bad Debt
Not all debt is the same. This stage goes after the expensive kind: borrowing that funds short-lived spending and stops you building anything.
3
Build Security
A household with no debt can still be fragile. One illness, one redundancy, one major repair. Enough protection that a normal shock does not undo years of work.
4
Build Wealth
The first three stages are defensive. This is where the same discipline starts buying ownership — pensions, AVCs, employer contributions, investments.
5
Build Freedom
Wealth without a destination becomes an endless target. €500,000 becomes €750,000 becomes a million. This stage works out what enough actually is, for you.
6
Build a Legacy
Not just what you leave. Who depends on you, whether your will is current, whether anyone could find your accounts — and what you pass on while you are alive.
Brian and Aisling — a real-enough Irish household with a mortgage, €28,000 of debt and two pensions neither of them has ever looked at — work through every stage alongside you.
Inside the book
14 chapters, four parts, 464 pages
Read it in order the first time. After that, go straight to the stage you are actually on. Every chapter ends with a summary, your actions, and a plain test for whether you are ready to move on.
Part One: Find Your Direction
Why Most People Never Build Wealth
A good income is not the same as wealth. Why capable, intelligent people still struggle with money, and why Ireland needs its own roadmap rather than an imported one.
The Six Stages
The whole roadmap in one chapter, and why the order matters more than the individual decisions. You also meet Brian and Aisling, who appear in every chapter after this.
Your Relationship with Money
The lessons you absorbed without noticing. Four common money patterns, lifestyle inflation, emotional spending, and what happens when two people in a house have different ones.
Part Two: Build the Foundation
Take Control
Four numbers, a spending audit, and the monthly gap. Annual bills as monthly bills in disguise, the €2,000 starter buffer, and a monthly money meeting that survives real life.
Clear Bad Debt
The monthly-payment trap. Avalanche against snowball on your own figures, car finance, money owed to family, consolidation — and what to do when the payments are genuinely unmanageable.
Build Security: Protect Your Household
From starter buffer to full emergency fund. Income protection, life cover, death-in-service, why mortgage protection is not family income, wills, nominations and the emergency information file.
Part Three: Build Wealth
How Wealth Grows
The three engines: contributions, returns and time. Shares, bonds and funds explained properly, why volatility is not the same as risk, how fees compound, and why boring is a feature.
The Irish Pension Advantage
The three layers of retirement income. Occupational schemes, public-service pensions, My Future Fund, PRSAs and AVCs, how tax relief actually works, charges, and the pensions you left in old jobs.
Investing Outside Your Pension
Dividing money by when you need it. Deposits and State Savings, funds and ETFs, Irish fund taxation, investment trusts, and the bridge fund between finishing work and drawing a pension.
The Mortgage Decision
Fixed, variable and tracker. What an overpayment actually earns you, the investment hurdle it has to clear, and how to choose between the mortgage, the pension and investing.
Accelerating Wealth: Optional Paths
The best accelerator is usually your own income. Side income, property as a business rather than passive income, the real return on a rental, and business ownership.
Part Four: Build Freedom and a Legacy
How Much Is Enough?
Enough is an income, not a number. Security, comfort and freedom spending, the bridge, withdrawal rates as planning tools, sequence risk, and the surviving-partner test.
Make Work Optional
Freedom as a transition rather than a date. Choose three dates, work backwards, track the freedom gap, and build a monthly retirement payslip with a withdrawal order.
Build a Legacy
Wills, executors and guardianship. Nominations that override the will, Capital Acquisitions Tax, estate liquidity, lifetime gifts and the small gift exemption — and talking about the plan.
And at the end
Start Where You Are
Your first twenty-four hours, first seven days and first thirty days — then the monthly money meeting that keeps it going.
Appendix A: Irish Rates and Thresholds
Every figure in the book on one dated page, with the official source beside each. When they change, one page changes.
Appendix B: The Complete Workbook
Nineteen worksheets, from Where You Are Now through to the Annual Review.
Appendix C: Glossary
Plain-English definitions of every term used.
Appendix D: Finding and Paying for Advice
When advice is worth paying for, how to check authorisation, how advisers are paid, and the warning signs.
6
stages, done in order
464
pages, all of them about Ireland
19
worksheets in the complete workbook
Choose your format
Get the roadmap
Digital editions are delivered instantly. Paperback posts anywhere in Ireland.
eBook
PDF & ePub
€14.99
- Read on phone, tablet, Kindle or laptop
- All 19 worksheets from the workbook
- Free updates when the Budget moves a figure
- Instant download
Best value
Book + Toolkit
The complete bundle
€79 everything, bought separately: €188.99
- Paperback and eBook
- All twelve downloadable planners & guides
- The budget spreadsheet (Excel + Google Sheets)
- Lifetime updates to every file
Paperback
Printed edition
€24.99 plus €4.50 postage in Ireland
- Write-in worksheets you'll actually use
- Signed copies on request
- eBook included free
- Posted within 2 working days
Secure checkout. Digital files are yours to keep — see our refund policy.
Free download
The 10-Minute Irish Money Health Check
A two-page PDF that scores where you stand across six areas — emergency fund, debt, pension, protection, tax and investing — and tells you the single thing to fix first.
Your score covers
- Emergency fund depth
- Expensive debt load
- Pension contribution rate
- Income & life protection
- Unclaimed tax reliefs
- Money working vs. money idle
The toolkit
Tools for the stage you’re on
Twelve downloads that turn the reading into doing. Spreadsheets that run the arithmetic for you, checklists you work down and tick off, and deeper dives for particular situations — buying a first home, a public-service pension, working for yourself. Same Irish rules, same figures as the book.
Guide · 18 pages
Pensions in Ireland, Explained
Occupational schemes, PRSAs, AVCs, employer match and tax relief bands — with a worked example of what an extra 2% does over 20 years.
€15
BuyGuide · 16 pages
Investing in a Nutshell
For absolute beginners. What a fund is, how Irish exit tax and deemed disposal work, and how to make your first contribution without panicking.
€15
Buy
Questions
Before you buy
No. Everything here is general educational information about how money, tax and pensions work in Ireland. It doesn't take account of your circumstances and it isn't a personal recommendation. For advice on your own situation, speak to an advisor regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.
Entirely Irish. Every example uses Irish rules: PAYE, USC and PRSI on the payslip; PRSAs, AVCs and My Future Fund for pensions; exit tax and deemed disposal for funds; Capital Acquisitions Tax for what you leave behind. There isn't an ISA or a 401(k) anywhere in it.
It starts at zero. The first three chapters are about why money is hard before they are about money — no jargon, no assumed knowledge. Stage 1 is a clarity exercise, not a budgeting lecture.
The principles don't change; the numbers do. Every figure in the book lives on one dated page — Appendix A, confirmed 30 July 2026 — with the official source beside each. When a figure moves, that page changes and the rest of the book still works. Digital buyers get the updated file free.
Immediately after checkout you'll get a download link on screen and by email. Files are PDF, Excel (.xlsx) and Google Sheets. They're yours to keep and print.
Yes — bulk paperback orders, workplace licences for the toolkit, and in-person or online money workshops are all available. Get in touch and tell us the group size.
The Roadmap
One Irish money decision, every Friday
Short, practical, no hype and nothing to sell you most weeks. Join and get the free health check too.