Stick situation regarding long term sick & buying a house/keeping up with payments

BarrelScraper

mountainofdebt wrote: »

No its not a tough decision at all

The way I see it yes you can potentially earn £20K but for goodness sake are the injuries you've been getting, whether they are work related / agravated or not, could mean that you are earning zilch if they decide your sickness record is unacceptable....which was the whole point of the thread in the first place before we went off on a tangent.

I'm afraid it is a tough decision, regardless of your opinion. It may not be a tough one for you, as you're not having to make it, but it is for me.

Right now i'm in a job. I can give that job up & instead of getting £20k i'm then getting £0 as i'm on a course for [insert course name here]. Or if i'm not on £0 then i'm likely on not a lot.

I then finish the course, but every man & his dog are now re-training & i'm having to battle many others for the position i'm going for - more than there were before the world collapsed a few years ago (if you don't know what i mean by world collapsed then i can talk 'literal' if we need to, but i hope you get the jist).

I then may get lucky & get the job i'm trained for, but then i very well may not.

A relative of mine spent 4 years on a uni course to do just this. At the end of the 4 years, she had her qualifications. Could she get a job though? No. Nothing going.

She then had to go and train yet again, but IIRC the costs were higher due to this being her 2nd course (i'm not sure of the ins & outs). This course was something like a 2 or 3 year course IIRC. Thankfully & luckily for her - she got a job at the end of this one.

The difference between us both is that she was at the start of her 20s when the first course finished, living at home with no view of moving out & no ties (no partner).
I'm at the back end of my 20s, have a partner & am planning on moving out next year & buying a house (not renting).

So i can't just make willy-nilly decisions, i simply can't afford to. It's all well & good chasing things & you may be one of the lucky ones & land that job, and i know you can't live on "what ifs" but at the same time you can't ignore them either - and "what if" you leave that job for 3-4 years & get nothing at the end of it. It's not a case of tough luck - it impacts on the other in the relationship too.

If i was single it would be a slightly different kettle of fish - as i'd only have to think about myself. I'd still be looking at moving out - so there'd still be that concern regarding bills & such, but at least i'd only have to worry about myself.


I could go around all the threads where people are in similar positions & tell them "stop worrying, just do it as the decision is so easy" ... just because i'm not in THEIR position & it's easy to throw the words on a computer screen. Fact is, the decision is not so simple.

Savvy_Sue

If the course you want to do is a degree, it's fairly easy to work out what your financial situation would be though, plus you might well be able to earn alongside.

I'm not saying it's easy, but if a job is damaging your health then deciding to move on is a heck of a lot easier than if you love it. Also bear in mind that your sick record could quite easily lead to a dismissal, because you just haven't been there enough. That also makes looking for another job or deciding to train for something else a much 'easier' decision.

mountainofdebt

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

If the course you want to do is a degree, it's fairly easy to work out what your financial situation would be though, plus you might well be able to earn alongside.

I'm not saying it's easy, but if a job is damaging your health then deciding to move on is a heck of a lot easier than if you love it. Also bear in mind that your sick record could quite easily lead to a dismissal, because you just haven't been there enough. That also makes looking for another job or deciding to train for something else a much 'easier' decision.

Thanks Savvy - you've completely understood what I was saying

Barrel - Yes you're right I don't have to live with the consequences of any actions you take but, in your shoes, I couldn't ignore the fact that for whatever reason my health is not what it could be and that maybe its being made worse by the work I was doing. No amount of overtime is worth that.

In fact no where in my post did I say jack your job in, go to Uni and perhaps after 4 years you may get a job that pays you what you are earning now / more. What I was getting at was even a lower paid job, where you're not putting your health at risk but money is coming in has to be better than having a job that pays masses of overtime, but damages / agravates your medical issues.

What does your partner think.?

BarrelScraper

My partner is concerned if either of us are to take much of a drop in wage. Before overtime our combined wage is a midge over £30k. With my overtime, which isn't guaranteed, it bumps it to about £34k-£35k.

I do understand what you're saying - in that my health could be suffering due to the job (i should point out, especially as MSE likes things factual, that there's no proof either way), but let's say i leave & go to a job with worse pay....

Instead of being here discussing how i am injured & unable to do a £20k pa job, i will be here discussing with you how i am constantly worried day-to-day that we simply cannot afford to get by. We don't want to go down the renting avenue. We don't want a terrace house in a crappy area which is home to the city's drug dealers.

In a few years it's highly likely that we'll be looking to start a family - so the need to at least maintain is there. Going backwards is going to make a) running the house and b) starting a family even more difficult (or even impossible) than what it already is). Once we have a kid, my partner will likely have to give up her job which means running the house on my wage & if i'm to take a fair drop, it'll make things very difficult or impossible with an extra mouth to feed. I can't afford to NOT think about that possibility.

What i'm saying to you is that the choice isn't as easy as you're saying. What goes around my head is - do i continue as i am, do i take a drop, but then day-to-day like will likely become very difficult & i'll just end up really miserable, or then there's the risk of dropping out & going back to school which we've discussed.

The way it is, as i'm not actually qualified in anything, i'm either going to have to go back to school, or get lucky & not many people get lucky.A co worker left years ago & walked into a £25k pa job with no qualifications & all he does all day is sit at a machine pressing a button & then changing rollers on a machine. Yes it may be boring, but that's good money for very little work involved - he got lucky as he didn't have to train to earn a reasonable wage.

zzzLazyDaisy

BarrelScraper wrote: »

T

Just to say that if we were in the position where we've bought a house before i was to require a long time off to recover, it's likely (depending on how much of a deposit we put down) that we would have very little savings.
It'd probably be wise to keep 6 months or so of bill payments back for me due to my record, but as we're not a couple who live the big life, the 6 months worth of bills will literally be essential bills & not unnecessary ones such as alcohol etc.

Unfortunately you are completely caught as far as state financial assistance is concerned as the main possibility for help would be help with rent (which you are excluded from because of your savings). Once you have bought a house your savings will have diminished, but there is no assistance with mortgage payments unless you are also eligible for income support / income related JSA (which you wouldn't be owing to your partner's income).

So it is extremely unlikely that you will qualify for any form of state assistance other than ssp during your recovery.