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Could you afford to stop working tomorrow?

Most successful business owners have a clear view of how their business is performing. They know their turnover, margins and costs. They have targets for the year ahead and a sense of where they want the business to be in three, five or ten years.

The same level of planning does not always extend to their personal finances. Many business owners will have a pension, savings, investments and, of course, the business itself. The individual pieces may be in place, but it is not always clear whether they add up to the level of financial security they will need later in life.

A useful starting point is a simple question: If you had to stop working tomorrow, could you afford to?

Martin Glennon

Martin Glennon, Head of Financial Planning

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The story first appeared in our 2026 Food & Agribusiness Report

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Retirement does not always happen when planned

Most people have an age in mind when they think about retirement. It might be 60, 65 or later. In practice, circumstances can change. Health can become an issue. Family priorities can shift. A business may receive an unexpected approach from a buyer. Or an owner may simply decide that they no longer want to work at the same pace.

For that reason, it can be more useful to think about the point at which work becomes optional. Someone may reach 60 and decide they want to continue working for another five or ten years. That is very different from having to continue working because they cannot afford to stop. A good personal financial plan should aim to create that choice.

A business plan for your personal finances

A personal financial plan should do much the same job as a business plan. It should establish where you are today, where you want to get to and what needs to happen in between. That starts with understanding your current position. What assets do you own? What borrowings do you have? How much income do you need to maintain your lifestyle? What are you saving each year? What pension provision have you made? What investments do you hold outside the business?

The next step is to look at what you want from the years ahead. You may want to retire earlier, reduce your working week, travel more, help your children financially or simply know that you have the option to step away from the business if circumstances change. Once those objectives are clear, you can work back from them and assess whether your current level of saving, pension funding and investment is likely to get you there.

Illustration of a person standing beside a large purple calculator with a display showing the number 3, next to an upward trending arrow on a blue background.

Put numbers around the plan

Cashflow planning can be particularly useful for business owners because it allows different scenarios to be tested. Take a business owner aged 52 who expects to retire at 65. They have a pension, some savings and investments and a successful business. At first glance, the position may look comfortable.But the picture may change if retirement moves from 65 to 60, the business is eventually worth €500,000 less than expected, investment returns are weaker or the business passes to the next generation rather than being sold.

The same modelling can look at the financial impact of serious illness or the death of either spouse. Bringing these assumptions together gives a clearer picture of whether the person's current assets and future income are likely to support the lifestyle they want. In some cases, the exercise confirms that they are already well positioned. In others, it identifies a gap. Finding that gap at 52 gives you time to do something about it. Discovering it at 64 gives you far fewer options.

A person in blue observes a maze with a red target symbol at the end, contemplating the path to reach it.

Build wealth outside the business

For many business owners, one of the key priorities should be building personal assets outside the company. Pensions will usually form an important part of that. For company directors, employer pension contributions can provide a tax-efficient way of moving money from the company into an asset being built specifically for retirement. A pension does not, however, have to be the only source of personal wealth.

Savings and investments held outside the pension can provide additional flexibility, particularly for someone who wants to reduce their working hours or stop working before they access their retirement benefits. The right balance will depend on the individual. A business owner in their 40s with strong surplus income and a long investment horizon will have different priorities from someone aged 61 who hopes to step away from the business within three years. It is common to see someone with a pension with one provider, investments elsewhere, cash sitting in the company and perhaps several old pension policies from previous employment. Each decision may have made sense individually, but the overall position may never have been reviewed as one plan. That is where proper financial planning adds value.

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Protect what you are building

A financial plan also needs to consider what happens if circumstances do not go as expected. If you are central to the business, an extended period of illness could affect both your personal income and the performance of the company. Borrowings may still need to be serviced. Your family may still need the same level of income. Where there are other shareholders, death or serious illness can also create questions around ownership and the future of your share in the business.

Protection planning can help address some of those risks. Income protection, life assurance, specified illness cover, key person insurance and shareholder or partnership protection can all have a role, depending on the circumstances. The starting point should be the financial risk rather than the insurance product. If something happened to you tomorrow, what would the financial impact be on your family and on the business? Which risks could you absorb yourself and which would cause a significant problem? Insurance should then be used where appropriate to protect the wider financial plan.

Illustration of a person with a clipboard next to charts and graphs, including a bar chart, pie chart, and line graph, on a blue background.

Give yourself options

For most business owners, good financial planning is not about building the largest possible pension fund or investment portfolio. It is about creating options. That might mean retiring at 60 rather than 65, reducing your working week, transferring the business without requiring the next generation to fund a large buyout, helping children or grandchildren financially, or coping with an unexpected change in health or family circumstances without putting everything else under pressure.

No financial plan can predict exactly what will happen over the next 20 or 30 years. What it can do is show whether the assets, pensions, investments and business value you have today are likely to support the choices you want later. Business owners routinely plan ahead for turnover, margin, investment and cashflow. Their personal finances deserve the same discipline.

Martin Glennon

Talk to Martin Glennon

Head of Financial Planning01 4277400martinglennon@ifac.ieLinkedin