Redundancy

chirpychick

I have to be careful what I say, so if things don't seem clear that's why.
My husband will be officially out of work 4.30pm 31st October.
It will be the first time in his adult life (he's 52) that he's not worked for this company or not worked at all!
I'm a carer for our son, he's just started school but life is tough for him (and subsequently me).
We will have to survive until hubby gets a job and if he hasn't by Jan I shall also have to start looking to go back to work somehow.
In the meantime we are going to be trying to live as tight as possible.
As we've been in 3 months consultation we knew this was coming. We have no debt (apart from mortgage) and our sons birthday and Christmas are sorted. We concluded other people's Christmas and birthday gifts didn't matter as long as he was taken care of.
I'd really like to have some place to talk to people who understand and keep a log of how I'm doing - a bit like a diary.
Our lives we try to keep quite old style naturally so it will fall in line with this board.
I hope it's ok to do that, perhaps anyone else going through something similar would like to join me in frugal living challenge for a while?

On the plus side hubby does have interviews lined up. So I'm hoping we won't be in a state of panic for too long. But who knows.

If this isn't allowed please let me know and delete.

nannywindow

Hi chirpychick.
Sorry to read about the redundancy, however although things seem scary at present, there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. My DH was made redundant after 33 years and at the age of 49. We also had a mortgage and our daughter was in University at that time too. We didn't know what the future held and we were frightened that we would not be able to manage. However we survived and some times things were very tough but we got through it - together.
I look forward to your "diary" and I offer my support to you and your little family.

maddiemay

Just popping my head around the door to offer virtual support. Both OH and I have been in this situation a few times in our working lives, we were fortunate and after plenty of belt tightening each time it turned out OK, I hope that it will for you too.

LameWolf

Chirpychick I've been pretty much where you are; back in 2002 my DH was out of work; he was at that time a self-employed IT professional, and when the Government brought in IR35, suddenly there was no work for IT contractors. He was 52 at the time; the only real difference was that we have no children; but balancing that, I was (still am) too sick to work.

Anyways, my point in posting is to offer a large chuck of moral support; I don't know what line of work your man does; but mine sat at the computer for 2 hours every day and just trawled all the employment websites for suitable jobs, and applied for every single one he thought remotely do-able.

We also dispensed totally with birthday/Yule present-giving, and have carefully never re-started it (though I appreciate you wanting to still give presents to your son).

chirpychick

Thank you so much for the support, it really means a lot!

One of the only extravagances we allowed ourselves when we came out of our IVA was our gym memberships. For me and pickle it was a great way to do some physio for him in the pool and really helped my mental health.
However today I read our contract and it seems we can end this 3 months early with proof of redundancy and I have to say they have been amazing! They're going to try to waiver the 30 day notice period and get the account closed before the next payment on 1st Nov and still allow us the use of facilities until then also.
I have phoned our broadband a phone line provider and managed to reduce our bill by £4 a month despite being only just in a new contract with them.
I've tried the mobile phone provider to no avail.
The only other thing I could cancel would be our Netflix subscription but I don't feel quite prepared to do that yet, we use it a lot and don't go out so for now I'm keeping it. But that might change.

I've gone through every bill with a fine tooth comb and made phone calls but to be honest we are so used to keeping all our bills low that there's isn't anything else.

The only other thing we will do is sell our second car, it's a 11ish year old beetle and pretty run down anyway. We brought it for a real bargain earlier in the year and as we have done repairs to it we shouldn't make a loss on it at all. Should help top up the bank account and save us about £50 a month on tax and insurance.
We have another car which we do have to keep as it's used to help elderly, very disabled in laws and get our son to hospital appointments and things plus means hubby can take jobs further afield. And the likelihood is he will have to put in some mileage.
I am going to try and manage on my bike! Pickle scooters the 30 seconds to school and for bad days I have the disability buggy.
I've re read all my "economides" books and have my tightwad gazette somewhere as well to get myself in the right frame of mind. I've read lots of books on saving money over the last 7 years and those are permanent fixtures on my bookshelf.
If anyone can recommend any similar I'd love to know, I'll be cycling to the library next week so will give me something to look out for

This week we've also been using up what we have in the house for food. I'm purposefully emptying cupboard, fridge and freezer and not buying anything if I can help it. It's going so well!
This is so that I can put some money aside, make sure nothing is out of date too, then my MIL has offered to use her points for a well known orange supermarket to stock me up for emergencies which is so kind.

I'm thinking things like pasta, baked beans, chopped tomatoes is the way forward.

I've always even during IVA times used Novia roll on deodorant which I stock up on when offer for £1 or less but if anyone has other suggestions I'd appreciate that!

We haven't put our heating on yet and I'm using that as a bit of a challenge right now, see how long I can go, but do have to be mindful of damp and mould which is a problem in our house and as pickle has severe mould allergies and asthma I don't want to push it to a point that puts anybody's health at risk.

We are finding the whole thing very stressful, we have solicitors appointment to attend next week and hubby is having a minor op soon so it's all quite compounded. Im so sorry for those who have been through this before I'm so glad you've come out the other side!

monnagran

Goodness me Chirpychick, have you fallen among friends!

I'm operating on a wing and a prayer at the moment as well. I won't go into details but just now I am trying to live on a State Pension, nearly one third of which disappears in Council Tax. I am trying to sell my house and downsize to a bungalow but that isn't happening quite yet.

There is a great deal of satisfaction in beating shops at their own game. I regard all shops as dark emporiums of evil and I keep away as much as possible. One obligatory visit a month to stock up on basics, and I do mean BASICS,
and one trip a week for fruit and veg and that's it.

You have exactly the right attitude to birthdays and Christmas. Magic for the children and lovely, simple get togethers for family and friends.

It can be fun if you try to view it as a sort of game. You, against all those agencies trying to get your money away from you.

We will have fun playing together.

tessie_bear

may i offer my support to you.....i was made redundant 10 years ago and we have survived you sound as though you are being really proactive which im sure will serve you well

keep posting best of luck xxx

dingdongsaving

Hello Chirpychick

My husband has had 2 different experiences of watching his company get to redundancy point, so we have tightened our belts each time in anticipation, but it didn't ever fall our direction.

Best of luck in everything, it sounds as though you have a lot to juggle at the moment.

There's so much expertise on this board, and from what you've written the support and pointers will suit your lifestyle and careful habits.

Take care, and try to enjoy your family time. There's nothing more valuable than protecting and loving what's precious to you.

tori.k

Sorry to hear of you news, we are pretty much in the same boat, as my husband has just been put on notice and faces redundancy in November if nobody volunteers. Luckily we have some breathing room as I work and my kids have all grown, things will be tight but feel blessed that we cleared our debts when we did.so that's a shed load of stress we don't have.
I'm going to try and focus on the positives if it happens ( which is most likely) there is no excuse for him not to finish the bundle of jobs around the house that he's always to busy to finish
All we can do is suck it up, times have been hard before and we've survived them. Life does like to challenge us at times.

[Deleted User]

Chirpyand ToriK I too am sending you virtual <<Hugs>> and support Redundancy is a scary place to be but luckily you have got you priorities in place and your son is important to you both .Well done for the forward planning and if you want to vent now and again we are all here for you.My late OH came home from his contract in the Sudan in 1983 and couldn't find another job for 14 months and things got very lean for us as both our DDs were still at school and downsizing and moving wasn't an option as they were in the middle of GCSE's and A levels.

There was a recession on and jobs were hard to find I actually ended up working three jobs a week to keep us afloat But luckily we had no debts apart from the mortgage and I have always had a stuffed cupboard and freezer (left over from my days of growing up with rationing ) and my OH used to say I could streetch a shilling until it pinged
This too will pass, and hopefully he will find something else, but having your family around you is more important than anything else .It sounds as though You are quite money savvy already and no doubt lots of folk on here will give you a hand if you get stuck on something.

That's the really nice thing about this site ,we all ,at some time have been in a position similar to you and we all have come through older,wiser and pretty creative when it comes to managing cash. We wouldn't be on here if we hadn't
So chin up chicken and onwards and upwards

we are all rooting for you honey

Take care

JackieO

P.S I have Pm'd you xx

NewShadow

chirpychick wrote: »

I've read lots of books on saving money over the last 7 years and those are permanent fixtures on my bookshelf...I'm thinking things like pasta, baked beans, chopped tomatoes is the way forward.

I was made redundant about 6 years ago - it was in the September (right before my birthday) and I was lucky enough to have a bit of savings so, while looking for work, I could also take some time to reflect on my life and do some of those things I'd never had the time or energy for before.

I got a job about 6 months later (March-ish) and that was the first and only year my (then)OH and I actually enjoyed a proper 'old style' christmas - all home cooked food, home made gifts, going around the christmas fairs in town - all the things I never have time to do when working.

It could be that you find - with your OH around more for the next few months and Pickle going to school - this difficult time gives you opportunities as well?

A great thing about this time of year is that people tend to naturally move from light 'fresh' meals to heavier more comforting food.

I don't know if you - as a family - enjoy them but stews, casseroles, chillis, lasagnes, pies, etc are all traditional winter food for a reason - and they're cheap

Combine this with one of you now (possibly) having time to pop around any local markets in the middle of the day and you might find seasonal root veg based staples the way to go?

If you don't have a slow cooker, it might be worth looking at picking up a cheap one - it can be cheaper than using an oven. Home made bread rolls with a chunky soup and piece of sharp cheese can't be beat on a cold winters day.

And not turning the heating on/up as high as normal is great - if it's an excuse for the whole family to cwtch up under a blanket in the lounge with hot chocolate to watch a movie. Snuggles are never a bad thing