Redundancy & Savings

Lil_Dee_2

Hi All,

It's looking very much like I may be "asked" to take VS in the not too distant future, and I wanted to check if anyone can point me in the right direction regarding my financial situation.

Over the last few years, my husband and I have been lucky enough to be gifted (at Xmas and birthdays) money from his folks, and combined with our saving strategy, and we have a substantial amount of money in the bank - ready to pay off a lump sum from our £70k mortgage. (We have been on a capped mortgage plan, which has just ended, so we can now pay lumps sums with no penalty)

Reading up on redundancy and benefits etc. and I notice that there seems to be an issue with people using savings to pay off debts etc. and then trying to claim JSA (or similar) at a later date.

Do I understand this correctly ? The money that my husband and I have worked so hard to save, to pay off a chunk of our mortgage, could now be used to prove I am not deserving of JSA (or similar) if I was to be made redundant ?

My initial idea was to use the savings and my VS money to pay of all but a small amount of our mortgage, as my current salary is not something I will be able to match in the future (I've been with the same large company for nearly 24 years) This would then allow me to take a lower paying job (if I can find one), and still stay in the house we've worked so hard to buy.

If anyone has any advice on where I need to start looking (I've read a few bits and pieces, but none give any definite do's and don'ts, or specific monetary values) to check what my situation is, I would be very grateful for you help.

Thanks for reading this far if you made it - and good luck to you all our there at this horrible, horrible time. LD

getmore4less

You will be able to claim contributions JSA for 6 months.

If the OH works then it will be unlikely there will be any benifits beyond that even before you look at the savings so check that first. no point in worrying about the savings if the income will stop the benifits.

If the plan was to pay off some of the mortgage with the savings and you were waiting to be earlly repayment penalties to stop and this has just happened AND you have not yet been told officialy you might be made redundant then you probably could use the savings and be able to justify it, leave it too long and it would look like a deliberate deprivation.

Not much you can do with the redundancy pay other than use it to keep afloat till ne income is found.

try
http://www.turn2us.org.uk/benefits_search.aspx

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/benefits-check


If the paout is likely to be very big nd over the £30k and put you into 40% tax for the year it might be worth looking at you pension situation.

anoneemouse

My view is that you need to pay off as much mortgage as you possibly can before you get officially told you are redundant.