Me and DH are in the same uni, both in targeted areas for big cuts, but he's closer to early retirement and managed to get a permanent job younger than I did, whereas I am an 'ECR' inspite of already feeling way too old for this shit.
He's tempted towards VR basically on health grounds and as a way to actually get back to doing academic work rather than slogging through more and more unacknowledged admin and increasingly non-specialist teaching every year (we're at a 'top 10', research-led teaching uni). He'd have a very small pension but liveable for him, not for both of us.
I can't afford to take VR, and will have to wait and see what comes re CR. I'll get no real pay out in spite of working in the sector for over 20 years thanks to the casualisation slog years. I do however seriously consider just resigning at least 2 or 3 times a week at the moment as the intellectual and cultural vandalism we're witnessing is heartbreaking, and the amount of stress and uncertainty placed on staff is genuinly inconceivable at this point. I'd be off sick, but almost everyone else is, and that leaves us vulnerable to our programme being shut down as unsustainable. I'm fed up of seeing my brilliant colleagues in tears.
I don't know whether I'd be up for fighting CR or not. I'm fed up of filling in forms to prove I'm good at my job rather than spending time actually doing my job. I'm fed up of my employer making it harder and harder for me to do my job well and seeing students get a worse 'product' every year inspite of us killing ourselves to offset the impact of cuts etc.
We may be down to one or no income by this July. The uncertainty is awful. As is the complexity of trying to do the best thing when we have so little information.