Every month on Money Talks, we step away from in-depth how-tos and entrepreneurial journeys to delve into the personal side of finance with host Katie Byrne, financial expert Cian Carolan and you, the audience.

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Each person we speak to for the purposes of a case study is offered an unfiltered and nonjudgmental money makeover.

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In this episode, Katie and Cian assess the balance sheet of a 36-year-old woman who is making €82,000 a year yet feels she isn’t earning enough for her age.

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Although she started her pension at the age of 23, she believes she "doesn't have a good relationship with money".

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Her short-term goal is to buy a house in Dublin – the location is non-negotiable – while her medium- and long-term goals are emergency fund-focused.

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What advice do Katie and Cian have this time around?

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Money Talks is part of the Trust Project. You can see our ethics policies at independent.ie/ourjournalism

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The content of this podcast is for information purposes and does not constitute investment advice or recommendation of any investment product.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From next year, it will be possible for a couple to take home almost €80,000 a year without paying any income tax.

Sounds great on paper, but what about in practice?

There are lucrative tax incentives on the table – and not just for couples – but the varying methodologies are likely to appeal to some more than others.

Chartered accountant and tax adviser Alan Purcell of CloudAccounts returns to the Money Talks studio this week to map it all out and to answer the question: Is it worth working less to ultimately earn more?

“It can be,” Purcell said. “It takes a bit of planning. It’ll take a bit of work. It wouldn’t be for absolutely everybody, but if you have the right infrastructure in place, it can pay to work less.

“You could also have some knock-on effects of maybe not even having to pay for childcare, which is actually a huge saving, as we all know, in this day and age.”

Host: Katie Byrne

Guest: Alan Purcell

Money Talks is part of the Trust Project. You can see our ethics policies at independent.ie/ourjournalism

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Simon Harris’s much-hyped investment scheme is official, though there’s still some way to go before you can avail of it. But we’re not going to wait until next summer to analyse and scrutinise it.

Cian Carolan, managing director at DNG Financial Services, returns to the Money Talks studio to tease out the forthcoming Personal Investment Account and discuss what you need to know ahead of time.

“There’s a couple of things that tell me that they overcomplicated it, overthought it and probably missed out on the simplicity of it,” says Carolan.

“The biggest missed opportunity of all is the July start date. We’ve been waiting around all year. We’ve had a lot of clients ourselves who’ve been deferring starting investing in anticipation of this.

“They’ve missed out on a really good year so far, at least in terms of investment returns. That’s something that needs to be called out."

The negatives and the positives – because there are some of those, too – go under the microscope on this week's episode.

Host: Katie Byrne

Guest: Cian Carolan

The content of this podcast is for information purposes and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation of any investment product.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.