If you losy your job.... (savings)

[PinkGin24]

How long could your savings last you? I have £6k in savings (goes up £500 each month) but I am FOREVER worrying about how long I could survive if I lost my job. It would be 2 and a bit months for me on the £6k savings. I want to get to £10k savings before I even consider using any to spend on holidays or home improvements.

Sorry to hear you can't stand your manager pinkgin. I left my role for the very same reason! I was supposed to be in a professional 40k consultancy role and when I started I was treated like a trainee/minion/assistant and not given any autonomy or interesting work to do.

I have to say, there are days I wish I'd stayed as it has been immensely stressful to leave and jump into 'the abyss' of unemployment but at least I can take time to go fo r interviews now without having to do it on the sly which is always a problem when you're brand new in.

You have to weigh up which is the greater stress: staying in a shit job until you get a new one, or quitting.

I didn't factor in how much it would affect me mentally, I worry some days that I'll never get a job doing exactly what I want to do again and I have to go through the whole rollercoaster of interviews and rejection again (although I suppose I'd still have had that if I had stayed and tried to find a new role whilst still in employment).
However, I have an interview for a perm job pending so I live in hope that it will all be ok again one day.

So your house monthly essential outgoings/ bills is 4K a month?

2.5 years if I eek it out.

I earn around £2,500 pcm. From that I can save £500. The rest goes on household bills, travel, food, car, mortgage etc. Then I have a £400 expense for family care that can't be cut.

We have no savings and are in quite a bit of debt so we pay for redundancy cover just incase that pays out for a year.

My accessible savings should last me at least a year but I currently have very low outgoings. I'm planning to buy my first home in the next couple of months and trying to work out how much of my savings to use as a deposit. I feel quite nervous about using it all towards the deposit

@clutterfreeintraining we have just bought a house too. I could have survived for 2 years if I hadn't put all my savings to that which is partly why i think i feel so anxious!

About 6 months currently but our savings are earmarked for a lump sum off the mortgage so after that, 0 months. We have steady jobs and redundancy insurance which would pay our mortgage plus £300pm. (It costs us £45pm). Also we can manage on one of our wages should the worst happen. We've been through redundancy before.

PinkGin - that's quite a difference, isn't it.
I currently have 25% deposit (house price very low). If I reduced that to 20% I'd have a more comfortable buffer. I really need to phone a mortgage broker and get it sorted out.

@pinkgin my income is around the same and costs £58 a month from British Insurance it also includes critical illness for me and if I need to be a carer for another member of the household. I pay a little more for it to become active from day 1 rather than after 30 days. Was the best deal my financial advisor could find.

God 3/4 months?

I used to have about £100k in savings which I could have lived off for years... then I bought a house...

We have 8 months of current take home salary saved. But we could probably survive a year on that if living a bit more carefully, no holiday or saving each month.

My aim is to save an average of £300 a month to top that up. Had to pay out £2,000 on an unexpected bill last year so I'm very aware that our savings could get used up quite quickly.

A year if we were frugal. This is because we have a chunk in an account waiting to pay off the mortgage when the fixed rate is up at the end of the year. Usually we'd have 3 months of net pay in savings.

If I was made redundant and I got an ok payout then longer - we could get shot of the mortgage and our outgoings aren't high. If I was sacked then different story.

We could survive without my income, I don't earn much. It would just mean cancelling all the kids activities, being extra frugal about spending, no treats etc. If my OH lost his job we would be screwed. I've enough saved for perhaps 4 months, 5 if we're incredibly careful.

I don’t think all you wise savers are typical. My Dd is unemployed after being made redundant. She’s a lone parent with two children, no savings, lots of debt. I’m paying her rent and helping where I can but her situation is dire, with no prospect of another job soon.

4 years at today’s expenditure, bit would cut back somewhat to make it last longer. Have always been a saver.