Husband made redundant and facing £1200 monthly shortfall, any advice?

[Tappings]

I'm probably going to get flamed in this thread judging by how others have gone.

DH has been made redundant, he was the main earner.

We're lucky that he'll get a decent payout, equivalent to 6 months take home salary.

I work 30 hours per week. I got a promotion in February and have a decent take home, above national average.

DH will be entitled to contributions based JSA and we'll get child benefit back, but even with those and cutting back our bills we'll be £1200 short per month. And that doesn't account for any personal spends, kids clothes/ uniform, adult clothes, birthdays etc.

Due to my recent promotion, me getting a better paying job is extremely unlikely, even if I went full time. I'm close to the ceiling of my profession. There's no option to go full time where I am either.

DH is (was) a well paid professional in a competitive field and was quite senior in that field. He's already looking for jobs, has sorted his CV, spoken with several recruiters and has an interview lined up for next week.

Any suggestions on what we can do? Advice/ support?

Without a TV licence you can't watch live TV or BBCIplayer. But you can watch any other channel non live TV

I try to budget £300 for food and household for my family of 3, I started a thread a few weeks ago for some ideas as I was getting bored of the same food. Maybe have a look, it is possible to manage on less, although I appreciate when you are used to more it’s a shock. I hope your DH finds a new job soon.

My husband has been made redundant several times & it’s tough but you can get through it. He went from MD to taking anything going; bar work, wedding chauffeur & telesales working Australian hours. I think it’s always toughest when you’ve been top of the tree & have to start again. Not because of a lack of willingness to work but because employers either think you’ll refuse to toe the line or are worried you’ll try & pinch their job. There’s always plenty of warehouse work going in my area. It’s not glamorous but pays the bills.

I wouldn’t cut the pet insurance unless there was no choice, our dog damaged his tail…. It wouldn’t heal and had to be amputated from start to finish it cost us £1400, he certainly doesn’t care that his tail is now docked… his insurance is £32 a month I would have struggled to find the money if we hadn’t had the insurance. A consultation alone in our area is £52, costs can mount up pretty quickly for quite insignificant problems.

Well it depends. My last quote was for £350 per month plus a 20% contribution and a hefty excess. For many people, cancelling the insurance is the best option.

Been here so many times. Ignore anyone saying but you've got six months. You haven't, you need to maximise that money (which tbf sounds like you know already).
Essentials:
Mortgage holiday? Yep. Loads of times. DH was made redundant FIVE times whilst the DC were small - and I was on maternity leave and/or had other caring responsibilities. Admittedly this was between 10-15 years ago so maybe the rules were more friendly then, no idea. But anyway, it is possible that the bank were more amenable because when we were earning we never paid late, and actually overpaid. No idea if that's something you've ever done, but I'd definitely consider it when you're back on track, regardless. And we ended up paying off the mortgage before term despite having had payment holidays.
Secondly, debt payments, don't just go to the minimum - call them and explain the situation and see if they will accept even below that whilst freezing interest (or ask Stepchange to negotiate for you, you won't be able to get any other credit whilst that is ongoing but it helps in the short term).
Council Tax - is that on a 10 month plan? Only asking because I never realised ours was and we could change to 12 months to bring it down enough to pay for a but more food.
Necessary but could possibly improve:
Supermarket shop - cheaper supermarket - and the most bog standard cheapest ranges, more batch cooking from scratch (assuming you don't already) and presuming your DH can get involved in that whilst he's at home. If you've never been in a position where cutting back on the weekly shop was imperative, you'll be amazed how much you can shave off.
Elderly cats insurance - how elderly? What could happen that means that you would choose to medicate rather than the alternative at the age they are now? I've had so many animals (all insured) and would never want to choose a path forward based solely on finances, however, if your cats are (say) 18 (as, weirdly, all mine were when they finally succumbed, then have a good think if it is still worth paying for. On the contrary I'd be very wary of getting rid of dog insurance especially if it's a fairly young dog and it's lifetime insurance cover (based on experience).
Childcare - you already know that you can improve this if DH is at home (can you easily go back to it though if he starts earning again?)
Petrol - DH doesn't have a commute, so presumably that's lower already.
School lunches - is that paid for hot dinners - can you improve on that with packed lunches?
Things we'd ideally not cut but will do;
Yep, all of that has to go - again if DH isn't working can he take them swimming (assuming that would be cheaper). And tutoring - again DH could step up here if he's at home.
Things that can be cut:
Yes, obviously all of that goes.

Further things to consider
(Not including DH finding any kind of job to plug the gap, like evening work when you're able to look after the children etc.)
Literally sell everything and anything you can - I did this more than once - even a £50 on eBay helps when you're down to the wire. And if there are things you really don't want to sell, but have, sell them anyway. Poor DH sold a few, much loved, guitars when we were desperate (yes, I know not everyone has guitars to start with, but you take my point), we agreed as soon as we were back on our feet he could buy himself a replacement.

Adding - sorry haven't RTFT in it's entirety and as was called away in the middle of this it might all have been mentioned.

You sound eminently sensible. You will get through this. And it might not actually be as awful as it feels right now. You'll discover that you can do it, and so can do it again, if it ever happens.

We have the spreadsheet but not the emergency plan. Good thinking.

Use Tesco clubcard points to get Disney+ of you shop there.
Netflix 5.99 per month lower definition & with adverts.

Some of your outgoings are very high. I don’t know how big your house is but the energy dd seems very high, the pet insurance is high, and your food shop is excessive. Also the horse riding costs are very high, could you get a pony on loan? That would be cheaper

Your monthly fuel bills seem high to me. Are you in Scotland? Do you all have daily baths you can switch to showers? What setting do you normally have your heating on in winter?

Food bill also seems high - assume there is alcohol in there you can cut out as well as cutting out the beer subscription. How much food waste do you have - think about how you can cut that out. Eat more vegetables, meat is very expensive. If you use many herbs plant some.

Weekend bar work until he finds a new job.

Doing 20 hours, depending on where you are in the country and the pub / brewery, over a weekend should see him take home £250. That’s not too shy of your £1200 pm and he’d only need to use a bit of the redundancy pay a month to top it up.

I think you don't need to worry too much. A £42,800 redundancy is enough to soak up a £1200 deficit per month for 2 years+

Months 1-6
Take the 1200 deficit per month from redundancy Let your husband concentrate on finding work

Months 6-12
Axe the childcare, school lunches and reduce food bill by £100 a month plus reduce the time you have the heating/hot water on. which will give you a £400 deficit a month. Then the redundancy will last you 7 years if you really need it.

Months 12 onwards
Personally after a year I'd start to think about selling the house as being an expense you can't afford.

BTW - he may also get a tax rebate of £7.5k

Festival/event staff jobs might be an adhoc job he could do in the interim. Depends if you have big venues/events near you or within commutable distance. Likely mostly weekends so could fit in around your work if you are Mon to Fri. Summer is also a good time.

Vinted has great second hand and new bargains for clothes, kids and adults. You can sell any surplus you have there too.

Good luck OP. I think you’re right to plan ahead now and put contingencies in place where you can.

He's only just lost his job !

The tech market is horrible at the moment. So many redundancies since last year and very few jobs opening up where you have to compete with all the people made redundant by the big tech firms. The 5/6 stage interviews with take home tests that take 3 hours to complete are soul crashing. Sending your family all the good luck and hope you are able to make adjustments to make the money last longer.

This was me and DH 30 odd years ago. We were already on a tight budget but we cut even further back ( heating off, second hand clothes for DC, toy library, many, many, many meals based on pulses etc) and worked out ways we could make his 6 month payout last 9 months. He made finding a new job his full time job and worked very hard at it. I also took an extra pt job at weekends when he could do childcare. It was tough doing all that with toddlers but we managed.

He eventually found a job after 4 months, not quite as much money as his previous job but not far short. We still had most of his redundancy pay so we could pay off a good chunk of our mortgage which really set us up for the future.

it worked out brilliantly in the end. He did really well in his new role (which he would never have looked for if he hadn't been made redundant), has made more money than we could have dreamed of before and is still in the same company now - but now thinking about retirement.

So chin up @Tappings I hope this works out for you and your DH.

If he is a higher rate tax payer then he might not be for this year if he doesn't work for 6 months of it. That means that he'd be due a tax refund as well, having been taxed through PAYE presuming the same pattern of pay through the year. When similar happened to me the tax rebate covered another month's wage equivalent. It's worth you working it out.

Okay. He has six months to train as a security guard SIA or a bayliff (civil enforcement officer) . Round here we always need, phlebotomists, care assistants, supermarket delivery drivers, bus drivers and traffic wardens. Register now for the Christmas post. Your husband sounds competent and if he gets a better job he will give up these filler jobs and move on.
When DH was made redundant he drove a tourist land train one summer before moving back into his real field of work. He loved it actually and DS still thinks it was the best job he ever had!

For those saying our utilities bill is high - it used to be much higher. We have installed some insulation (a work in progress), a new boiler and better radiators. It's a drafty Victorian end terrace.

Also interest rates are higher than they were. You could put the £50k (redundancy + tax rebate) into an account paying 4.5% and you could have an extra £185 a month or so from that.

Good point
So
£450 from op working full time
£150 from cutting running costs (clothes/bills etc)
£200 from reducing childcare costs somewhat
£150 /mth income from redundancy money being saved

You're already at £950 with minimal belt tightening @Tappings

It's not easy to secure that job, no.

That's why a lot of people live on less money than you are used to - and so can you.
It's annoying yes but most people do.

Tescos and the like always seem to want delivery drivers round here. That may be an option...(I always think it would be quite a nice job too).

any theme parks near you wanting summer staff?

However it's very unlikely I'll be able to go full time.