Learning to walk before I run

South_coast

Oh, it's way tougher than that 🤣! 

Maybe later, not feeling so brave now as I did earlier....!

QueenJess

I have been (and kind of am now) in silly job positions in the past and the only solution is ever to change jobs in the same place (if it’s a manager thing) or find a job externally. Yes it’s rubbish, but they are the only options. I’ve also found having my notice written up and saved on my hard drive and just having and starting to action a plan very helpful to keep going.

Not got anything more useful to say, but I am also busy plotting on this side for my own escape options.

edinburgher

@SouthCoast - that's no fun - I'd already started thinking up my grumpy retorts to your expected comments 

@QueenJess - I hear you - money is the sticking point. With enforced pay rise + overtime I'm now at £50k+ a year. Never dreamed I'd get there and hard to come by in Scotland for many!

Had a nice wee day of nothing much. Haircut, trimmed the honeysuckle, took the weans to the library, charged a lot of batteries and made a roast chicken dinner 🤔

South_coast

🤣 OK, well grump away, but remember this is an outsider's perception based purely on what you have posted and I may be way off the mark….

You are in an emergency situation. 

I know you know this, but I'm not sure how fully you have internalised it. You have a job which is making you ill, your mortgage has jumped up by hundreds of pounds and you have a child in nursery. You cannot afford adult pocket money, mortgage OP's, SIPP payments or Just Eat (even if you use a £5 voucher that only cost you £3). You cannot afford smoked salmon. I know you want to secure a better future and you enjoy the good things in life (nothing wrong with either of those), but your current emergency is only a temporary state of affairs and needs a temporary solution. No emergency lasts forever. You can re-assess once you're out of that workplace, but I think in the meantime you need to only spend on what is absolutely essential and concentrate all your efforts into building up a personal war chest/EF (whatever you want to call it) to give you some peace of mind. Savings rates are outperforming the stock market - you will not be missing out. I suspect a lot of things feel out of your control at the moment. This is something you have 100% control over. 

Christmas is coming. That's an excellent time to make a start. Cut, cut and cut some more. You said you and Mrs E are on the same page about money. That's excellent. Talk to her, agree a plan. I know you struggle with making comparisons to your acquaintances, but mutter to anyone that raises an eyebrow at your lowered spending about how your mortgage has gone up and nursery fees are high, and unless they have been living under a rock for the last 18 months (or are a complete *rsehole - in which case, do you care what they think?), they will understand. 

All said from a place of love, Ed. I just want you to be happy again!

LadyWithAPlan

Go @South_coast you are on fire!

South_coast said:

Cut, cut and cut some more. 

You have inspired me to look  really hard at my own budget/spending./income as an emergency as well (for pulling the trigger to finally buying) Get all gazelle intense as DR would say

Hope work feeling better for you Edinburgher... and south coast hasn't terrified you too much (in a good way).. 

Cheery_Daff

Big hugs ed (((()))))) I would add that once out of that nasty job, and not doing loads of overtime, you'll be far less inclined to spend on things like takeaways etc. Some of your spending will be because you're so tired and worn down. 

So yes, I agree - absolute prioritise emergency fund and new job. Xxx

Cheery_Daff

And I should say, I'm not making any OPs at the minute either. Not in the same emergency situation as you (no kids, for a start) but left with not much in the way of savings after building work, and prioritising building them back up to a level I feel comfortable with. OPs can wait - annoying, but actual mortgage payments, nursery fees, and enough headspace for a new job comes first.

Have you tried playing with the salary calculator? £50k is great, and I know exactly what you mean about not believing you'd ever get there, but it may be that you wouldn't drop THAT much by accepting eg a £45k job. I don't know, not worked it out - I do know that I dropped a day at work and that cuts my salary by about £13k, but only about £500 a month. For me, right now, the extra time is worth it. Not suggesting you accept a £500 a month pay cut, just that a slight drop in salary might give you a LOT more headspace, which might allow you to deal with money in a different way. 

And also shifts your thinking from 'I have to earn more than my current salary including overtime, which is impossible' to 'this job is a slight drop in salary - what options does that give me for extra time?' 

You sound burned out, or very close to it. That's hard, and it can be really hard to see a way out. But there is a way out! You will get there! Think about the run up to Christmas next year - it will have been a hard year, but you'll have a new job, you'll have a decent emergency fund, yes, higher nursery fees and mortgage, but also far more time, less tired, a spring in your step, looking forward to the festivities. You can do it xxx

Cheery_Daff

Oh and (sorry, I'll shut up in a minute!) you make me think of this thread on the MMM forum about burnout:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/feeling-burned-out-anyone-else/

I think you're around the same age as me - and interestingly, so are a lot of people in this thread. Some good stories in there of coming out the other end. 

pavlovs_dog

I earn similar money, so can very much relate to your need for a change of job being tied up with real reluctance to lose a salary that allows (or should allow) a comfortable standard of living with cash left over to save and invest in future goals.  It feels all the more galling when you have worked so hard to get there, and done all the right things financially and yet are still really feeling the squeeze.  The question I keep grappling with is the personal cost of my job to me, my family, my health and sanity, and my ability to enjoy the fruits of my labour in my downtime.  It takes a lot of very uncomfortable personal introspection to unpick just how much self worth you have subconsciously come to attach to your job title and standard of living, and yet more still to ask how much more are you willing to sacrifice before you reach a line that you just will not cross anymore.

If civil service pension contributions are anything like those in teaching, you can probably afford a fair drop in salary before it makes a significant difference to your take home pay.  For me, it's close to £10k a year.  Yes, that has implications for your long term goals, but I think there is a danger of being too future focused, at the cost of enjoying and properly living the here and now, instead of simply trying to survive it.  I think we quickly lose sight of just how far ahead of our peers we are financially, many of whom live pay check to pay check, saddled with consumer debt, with no means, interest in, or understanding of how to save for tomorrow.  Having to hit pause on saving for your future hurts.  When you are working so hard in a well paid job and STILL can't afford to do everything you want, that only adds salt to the wound.  But it isn't forever, and when you finally are in a position when you can afford to return to it, you already have money in the pot and have all the knowledge you need to accelerate your journey to a comfortable financial future.  

I adore teaching but hate how unsustainable working in education has become, and am now giving far more consideration to my escape plan.  Getting bits of my potential exit strategy in place has made a surprisingly positive difference to my mood and resilience, and is a real comfort when work is at its most bleak. For me, my approach is two fold.  I'm doing what can I to make the job more sustainable in the long term so staying put can be an option if I want it to be, and getting my finances to a position whereby, if I had to, I could walk away with nothing concrete to go to and know that we could survive (albeit on a bare bones budget) for a few weeks whilst I sort something out.  If you DO decide to make a move, your next job doesn't have to be the perfect solution or your final move, just a move out of what sounds like a very bleak and toxic situation whilst you regroup and decide what's next.

edinburgher

@South_coast - I'm not really sure that any of that is that surprising TBH. They are the sorts of comments that I expected. Many of the things that you have mentioned are areas that I have been actively addressing since June. Also, a couple of small corrections if I may

I could (and can) afford all of those things that you have mentioned until the 1st of December when the mortgage goes up, albeit often at the price of my own peace of mind. Further to this, any element of "keeping up with the Joneses" is only an internal dialogue with my own fragile ego, or occasionally here or with Mrs E. It doesn't affect how we live or what we spend in any meaningful way. Granted, Mrs E has had to do a little bit of work with her own ego on this front but she has finally "come clean" to her group of pals that she's skint. I don't socialise a whole lot but my expectations are more modest (planning, for example, a movie marathon with beers at home for Christmas with pals).

Many of the things that you have referred to as the "good things of life" have very much become sticking plasters, small tokens of consolation for the struggle that work has become. My waistline can attest to that. There is/was nothing wrong with any of them per se until £500+ fell out of the bottom of our budget.

I have been aware of the issue for some time and we have already done the following:

• Been using YNAB since June
• Got rid of most unsecured debt (one CC with a balance at present)
• Cut Mrs E pension contributions from 20% to 6%
• I no longer make SIPP payments
  
• I've been working overtime since January
  
• We've been budgeting better for expenses that we never did previously (for example, treat food at Christmas). So something that I've mentioned buying and that you have described in a gently scathing manner as something we can't afford is actually a positive development. In the past I'd just have bought it anyway and not mentioned it 

Despite all the things that I have mentioned and more, I am perfectly aware that our 2024 budget will not look like our 2023 budget. I had already planned to cut various things that were nice to have, such as any adult pocket money, Spotify and how much we spend on holidays (trips and seasons).

It won't, however, be enough and if I am to save up a reasonable Emergency Fund any time soon, the cuts are going to have to be brutal. I'm worried about this and it feels like I'm having to throw out the baby, the bathwater and the bath. I am now looking at cutting adult pocket money (already gone bar survey money, cashback and anything we can make from switching offers), multiple insurances that are now costing £££/month, my union membership, Spotify, overpayments, home decoration, textiles/bedding/towels etc., glasses, LISA, investments for kids and holidays. Smoked salmon costs should also fall as well, as I'll be saving them over 12 months, not 4

The insurances rankle most but I agree that I am burned out and there's no point in having insurances to protect work that is making me feel like death warmed up if they are one of the expenses stopping me from being able to build up a cushion to leave said work. Golden handcuffs of a sort...

@Cheery_Daff - My energy levels loss has definitely been Just Eat's gain!

I also agree that my quest to try and not "lose" any money is likely impossible. It will be a case of seeing how low I can push it before things start to feel worrisome. I'll read some of the MMM stuff later, although I wonder how different some of those comments would be in the current (high inflation) environment.

@pavlovs_dog - Thank you for those comments - I'm confident that you understand where I'm coming from.

Re. job title and standard of living, honestly, I just want my kids to be happy and for me to feel anything other than rising panic at the start of the work week

Thanks all, you're a good bunch, even if I feel a little overwhelmed.