How long could you manage if you were fired tomorrow?

lippy1923

If I lost my job I could survive about 3 years without altering my current lifestyle.

If both me and OH lost our jobs at the same time we could last about a year, maybe more if we cut back.

tara747

About 9 years.

Purplesky_2

We have reserves that could last us for 9 months or so. We have stuff we could sell to spin it out.
We also don't have a mortgage now and we can reduce our outgoings, I suppose, although we don't have lot to reduce.

We have some income protection on my Partner's wage, because of my ill health, so his wage needs protecting because it's the one we count on. We never count on my wage. We live a little better and save a lot more when I have one, but we never count on it for bills.

We're saving a lot more now that we don't have a mortgage. We're saving about two months household expenses every month at the minute. We're going to build up a little more cash and spend some of it on some work to make the house warmer and easier/cheaper to heat. Once we've built up a buffer we're happy with, we can look more long term. We should be able to accomplish this within the year. Not bad for a couple with more than 30 years left before 'retirement' each.

engineer_amy

I have a pot that is the total of 3 months worth of current spending and bills, but realistically if I lost my job tomorrow, it would probably last me longer as I would cut all spending to the bone, only pay bills and essential costs, as you couldn't always predict how long you would be out of work.

InsideInsurance

Similarly do you mean continuing you everything (car finance, PMI, pension contributions outside of work) as it was before or not? Do you mean living just on cash or include building up debts. How about accruals for taxes if you are self employed/ company director?

On a pure own free cash basis, not raiding the tax money, with no changes we have 4 months of money and going to be concentrating on growing it as its too small really.

atush

gadgetmind wrote: »

Ditto, but I can't drraw down pensions for another three years, and eating into cash and ISAs now would be suboptimal.

This is what I meant when I said a couple of years. Because we dont want to draw pensions yet. And he is old enough.

However with the spending plans I have (ie 2 new cars, law school and refurb on t he house) I'd prefer to get those done before drawing anything. But if the worst happened we could put them on hold.

Mrs_Z

colsten wrote: »

How would you draw the immediate cash you would need to survive?

Immediate cash reserves would cater for about 5 yrs - longer if OH keeps his job

sendan

If i continue how I do currently, I would last probably until January, however that's not including birthdays and Christmas so realistically would be less.

I do currently have a car on finance that if I were to sell I would get an extra £2000 over finance costs + losing a few expenses so could last maybe till summer 2016 if I got rid of that.

If i was told i was losing my job tomorrow I would have no problems taking my car round to webuyanycar and selling it to relieve some pressure as the public transport in my area is more than adequate.


This thread however has got me thinking. I am currently not enjoying my job at the moment so I may think about packing it in now and use the time saved to look for something I do enjoy.
Thanks OP, you have giving me something to really think over

colsten

Mrs_Z wrote: »

Immediate cash reserves would cater for about 5 yrs - longer if OH keeps his job

Sorry, didn't see you had cash reserves and a working partner - you just mentioned bricks and mortar.

Pincher

Year 2000. I read the redundancy offer, which had a £3,000 re-training budget. So I found this MSc course in Scotland for £5,500 course fee. The Hall of residence was about £60 a week, plus about £5 electricity. Since I was living up north, I rented my room in London out for £100 a week. Quite a cheap year.


Year 1990, I had £5000 after a redundancy, no mortgage. Went travelling. Trans-Siberian Moscow to Beijing was £350, including one night in Moscow with a guided tour, three meals a day on the train. Two months in China cost £1000, including all the travelling around. You only get two months visa at a time, so what some people did was to fly to Hong Kong every two months. A bunk in a Hong Kong hostel just off Nathan Road was like £5 a night, maybe even less. In smaller towns in China, you could have got a room for about £2.


People told me they could get a shack on a beach for £1 a night in Thailand, on the lesser islands. Somebody claims he had a friend who leased "a mountain" in Thailand for £5,000 , I don't know for how many years.