Joanne Hunt

Joanne Hunt

Contributor

Joanne Hunt, a contributor to The Irish Times, writes about homes and property, lifestyle, and personal finance.

Is overpaying your mortgage and reducing the term a good idea?

First-time buyers can focus on reducing the mortgage burden but there should be other priorities for any spare cash

Buy, eat, bin, repeat - we are locked in a never-ending flow of waste

Our homes have become a cog, another processing centre, in the ever-turning wheel of waste

Is it worth borrowing to improve the energy efficiency of your home?

Payback periods can be long but you have the immediate benefit of lower bills and a warm home that has increased in value

How Gen Z is taking a different approach to money - and what others can learn from it

Gen Z and younger Millennials no longer consider life’s traditional milestones as appropriate for their lives

The environmental cost of that debs dress

Some schools are taking a stand against the cost and the waste of the debs treadmill

Is it sensible to buy a house together in Ireland if you’re not married?

Sharing a home is a significant way to commit to someone, but mixing property and finances when you’re not married can get tricky

How to save water: The average Irish person uses 133 litres a day

Water isn’t an unlimited resource, and getting clean, safe water to our taps has its costs

Death Cafes: ‘It’s a privilege to talk about death and dying with people, because you learn a lot about living’

A network of Death Cafes have sprung up around the country, offering people a place to talk about life and death over tea and cake

Ten first-time buyer tips: From mortgage interest savings of €35,000 to funds for a doer-upper

Getting the wrong mortgage can be costly for first-time buyers. Here’s how to avoid the common pitfalls

The recycling scheme hitting the right note: how hundreds of instruments are being rehomed

About 370 instruments have been put back into tune under a council initiative

How to buy your home from your landlord

With new rules for landlords coming next year, tenants interested in buying should get their ducks in a row

Calling all ladybird spotters: help fill in the picture on these charismatic little bugs

Data on the species in the Republic is spotty, but that’s about to change

Does it make financial sense to buy a holiday home?

Staycationing is not cheap, especially in high season, but there are also significant costs to investing in a holiday hideout of your own

Music festivals and children: ‘The kids were still going strong at 11pm. I’m on anti-inflammatories’

Is it ever a good idea to go camping at a music festival with your children?

How to move to a remote Irish island, to live a ‘better way of life’

There are tens of thousands of euro in grants available to renovate an island home, but life there might not suit everyone

Common Ground

How does a post-Brexit world shape the identity and relationship of these islands