Category: Ireland Posts

One of the best places to achieve positive financial health or wellbeing is to start with a budget. You can read our beginners guide to managing your money blog as a good starting point.  

Once you set up a budget, you will be able to ask yourself such questions as: 

• Can I increase my savings?  
• Am I able to reduce my outgoings or what I’m spending?  
• What certain costs or things can I cut?   

MABS have pulled together 7 helpful tips to help you get started on answering those questions and how best to save money – SEE FULL FEATURE:  https://mabs.ie/blogs/7-tips-to-save-money-reduce-costs/

The rising cost of living is a cause for concern for all, no matter your income. MABS can help you manage your money and stay on track financially or help you tackle debt, if managing money has become a problem.

How We Help
The MABS money advice process is based on creating a realistic and sustainable budget. This can be for an individual or family in order to help them manage their money. Learning how to budget is a life skill, and MABS will support you to create your own budget unique to your lifestyle and financial commitments.

SEE FULL FEATURE –> https://mabs.ie/blogs/how-mabs-help-you-manage-your-money/

 

We know there is no quick fix to make it easier and everyone’s situation is different. It will take a holistic approach so we’re continuing our series of tips to help you tackle the rising costs and take control.

In Tips to Tackle the Cost of Living Part One, we covered general tips from how to save on occasions to reminders to unplug unattended and in Tips to Tackle the Cost of Living Part Two, we covered kitchen hacks. In part three we will cover tips to help reduce fuel costs if running a car or vehicle.

This post will be particularly helpful for people living in rural Ireland where public transport is less common – CLICK LINK TO VIEW –> https://mabs.ie/blogs/my-car-my-fuel-and-my-wallet/

Were you temporarily laid off from work during COVID-19?

If so, and if you are also made redundant between 13 March 2020 and 31 January 2025, you may qualify for a special redundancy payment of up to €2,268 (tax-free).

If you lost out on reckonable service while temporarily laid off during COVID-19 and you are made redundant, you may be able to get a special payment up to €2,268 (tax-free). You can apply for the payment from 19 April 2022 – See More: https://enterprise.gov.ie/en/News-And-Events/Department-News/2022/April/2022_04_19.html

A Fuel Allowance is a payment to help with the cost of heating your home during the winter months.

You can get the Fuel Allowance, if you are getting a long-term social welfare payment and you are unable to provide for your heating needs from your own resources. See ‘How to qualify for Fuel Allowance’ below.

Only one Fuel Allowance is paid to a household.
Fuel Allowance is generally paid with your social welfare payment on the same day. You can choose to get Fuel Allowance paid weekly or paid in 2 lump sums.
The 2021-2022 Fuel Allowance season started Monday, 27 September 2021, and is expected to run for 28 weeks.

Additional lump sum payment 2022
An extra payment of €125 was paid to people getting Fuel Allowance in the week beginning 14 March 2022.

In May 2022, an extra payment of €100 will paid to people getting Fuel Allowance.

FIND OUT MORE: https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/social_welfare/social_welfare_payments/extra_social_welfare_benefits/fuel_allowance.html

Finding it hard to pay the rent, but don’t qualify for social housing?

You may qualify for a cost rental home. Rents in cost rental homes are cheaper than standard rents. This is because they are based on the cost of the building and maintaining the home and do not include a profit.

Cost rental housing provides affordable rented accommodation to people on middle incomes. It is aimed at people who are above the threshold for social housing but have difficulty affording private rented accommodation. It is called ‘cost rental’ because the rent you pay is based on the cost of building, managing and maintaining the homes. It does not include any profit for a developer. This makes the rent cheaper than standard rents. The rent for cost rental homes must be at least 25% below regular market rents in an area.

Find out about cost rental schemes in your area and see if you qualify: https://bit.ly/3uYSf2X

Thinking about a Working Holiday abroad?
If you’re an Irish citizen aged between 18 and 35, there are lots of different countries you can travel to.

Ireland has working holiday agreements with a number of different countries. These allow young people to travel to another country for longer than a tourist visa and to work while you are there to support your travel expenses.

The criteria vary from country to country but generally the programmes are open to young people between the ages of 18 and 30 or 35, who hold private health insurance and can provide proof of funds to support themselves.

In most cases you can find casual or temporary work once you arrive in the country and can also study while you are there. The main purpose of your trip should be to holiday and the work or studying should be supplemental. If you are traveling primarily to work or to study you should look into other visas.

SEE FULL FEATURE: https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/moving_country/moving_abroad/working_abroad/working_holidays_for_irish_citizens.html

A hotelier has said that providing accommodation for refugees will become “unsustainable” as summer season hits unless more support comes from the Government., as the room rates currently paid by Government may not be enough to justify passing up tourist trade. The Danby Hotel is currently hosting over 40 Ukrainian people across 27 rooms, catering to refugees who have arrived into Rosslare Europort nearby.

But manager Ocean Song said bar and restaurant sales are down 40 percent over the past fortnight, which he said won’t be possible to maintain past its current contract with the Department of Children into July.
“We’re happy to provide the space here but we have a decision to make once we hit June. We’re trying to do our best to support them. We’ve refused a lot of bookings and this is stopping our business when we’re usually flat out.”

The hotel is paid the winter rate for a guest by the department for each person it hosts, roughly €25-€35 less than the summer rate.
“Lots of Irish people and English people would pass by here normally and stay with us and that’s not happening now. It will be very difficult [if the rate isn’t increased].”

SEE FULL  STORY: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/hotel-hosting-ukrainian-refugees-faces-dilemma-as-summer-looms-1.4853877

The former president of Ireland Mary McAleese has accused the major Churches in Ireland of being ‘conduits for homophobia’ following the deaths of two men in Co Sligo.

Ms McAleese said when her gay son got married, she was grateful to live in a country where he and his partner can be together in relative safety, however, she added she is conscious that is not the case in other parts of the world. Ms McAleese said there is “always homophobia, there is always the hatred” that can crop up, adding that there are parts of the world her son “simply cannot visit”.

SEE FULL STORY: https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/mcaleese-accuses-churches-of-being-conduits-for-homophobia-following-sligo-deaths-1291120.html

Turf contractor Mick Maher thought long and hard before making an offer on the new digger he had found on Done Deal, part of a sell-off by an engineering firm that was closing down.

At €100,000, it was a significant investment – but he was heading into prime turf-cutting season when they would be working flat out from first light for the next eight weeks solid, and he was afraid his old, unreliable machine might let them down. It was available right then, with no lead-in time, and Mick decided that the digger was too good a deal to turn down. And though the 72-year-old contractor had no plans to drive it himself – he “didn’t want to be greedy” – it was set to become an invaluable addition.

The new bog excavator arrived on the back of a truck at Maher’s yard in the picturesquely named townland of Wood-Of-O (coming from the old word for yew trees) outside Tullamore, Co Offaly, late on Friday evening last. Within three days, clear plastic wrap still enrobed its seat as Mick’s livelihood, and that of every turf contractor in the country, lay perilously suspended on a cliff-edge amid news that the sale and distribution of sod peat was to be prohibited from September…

SEE FULL STORY: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/therell-be-a-lot-of-cold-homes-next-winter-if-this-turf-ban-goes-ahead-41558059.html