Investing Series Ep 1: Ireland’s Investing Problem

170 billion, it's a lot of money.

Just before COVID started, just before our first lockdown, we had about 100 billion.

So in the last five years, in one of the most inflationary times we've ever experienced, we have gone from 100 billion to 170 billion.

And just to clarify that, that's just in bank accounts.

I'm not talking about credit union, An Post here.

I'm talking about bank accounts here.

That's all I'm talking about.

In fact, the research shows that between '23, '24, and '25, we started to increase how much we're saving, and we're saving for every eight euro we make, we're saving about one euro on average is what we save.

So we are good savers.

We're just not good investors.

And what's the difference? Saving is putting your money into a bank account, credit union, or An Post account.

I'm sure if you've heard anything me talk about this in any way in the past, you've heard me mention the five-year rule.

The five-year rule says, if you've got money that you need in the next five years, leave it in the credit union, An Post, or bank account.

Let it have a crap interest rate.

But if you don't need the money in the next five years, get it out of there and get it invested.

And it's that word, invested.

It's those words like shares and bonds that I think are the biggest problem we have in Ireland, is that we don't actually understand what that means, or the vast majority of people, and certainly the people who talk to me on Q&A on a Saturday, don't have a true understanding of what it means to be invested and what shares are and what bonds are.

But you know what we do understand? We understand bank accounts.

You put your money in.

You log into it every day if you want to, want to.

You can take money out whenever you want to, and it goes up a little bit.

And you know what? Going up a little bit makes us feel good.

But the reality is, being that kinda...

The inertia kicks in.

The, the idea that, you know what? The status quo is grand, and I'll just leave it, and I'm not really sure what to do over here, so I'll just stick with what I'm used to.