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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask how big your financial "safety net" is?

104 replies

PageStillNotFound404 · 19/07/2016 08:10

Having been made redundant twice and being in private rental, this is something that I worry about at 3am think about from time to time. We have roughly the equivalent of three months' salary in savings. If my job went tits up the small amount of redundancy I'd get means we could, with some strenuous belt-tightening, eke it out to four, possibly even five months. We are trying to save more but can only afford to put a tiny amount away each month - it will take about 18 months to save another month's salary.

It's certainly better than nothing - and I have been in the position where I had literally no savings or safety net at all - but it's not much either, in today's world of 200+ applications for a single job. AIBU to ask how you'd fare if the plug was pulled on your regular income?

OP posts:
redhat · 19/07/2016 10:40

Anyone who has income of more than £50k as pensioners will be doing amazingly well.

redhat · 19/07/2016 10:41

But remember that an income of £50k per month will also be taxed at higher rate.

redhat · 19/07/2016 10:41

per annum not per month!

PaulDacresMicroPenis · 19/07/2016 10:44

We have just over 100k in savings and are debt & mortgage free, also have critial illness/redundancy cover so we could probably last 5+ years on no income at all but it would be highly unlikely that we would both be unemployed for that long. DH has just inherited 200k which will be used to put DCs through uni debt free. I appreciate we are very very fortunate, I come from a low waged working class family, I don't think dh & I have worked much harder than my parents did, we were just luckier.

JapanNextYear · 19/07/2016 10:44

If got made redundant would get 3 months salary. Am an accidental landlord and have a house with no mortgage that I could sell (for not much) and does provide a small income.

Actual savings - about £5K.

Husband no savings, big outgoings on kids at Uni, ex wife - plans to start saving in a few years time when youngest through uni.

RueDeWakening · 19/07/2016 10:44

We have enough income from ISA investments to cover mortgage, bills and extras for as long as we need. Not enough to live lavishly, but enough to be comfortable. If interest rates and inflation go mad we'd need to reassess though.

ConkersDontScareSpiders · 19/07/2016 10:50

I've got two grand in my bank account as a figure I don't like to go below month my month.so not very big.that would two months mortgage.

notinagreatplace · 19/07/2016 10:55

It’s complicated. We have just under 3 months’ income saved in easily accessed savings. In fact, because we overpay the mortgage quite substantially and there is a lot of leisure/discretionary spend that we have, this would probably last us more like 6 months if it really had to. I own a flat that I rent out which we could, if we needed to, sell and that would give us enough to live on for about two years. In reality, it’s rather unlikely that both of us would lose our jobs and we earn about the same so I don’t really think of it as “3 months’” worth that we have saved in easy access savings, if you see what I mean.

MotherFuckingChainsaw · 19/07/2016 10:57

Whatever I find down the back of the sofa...

WeAllHaveWings · 19/07/2016 10:58

I have insurance for unemployment due to any reason (illness or redundancy) which will payout £650/month for 12 months and cover mortgage and council tax. Then I have around £18k savings (left from previous redundancy after 24 yrs service) and around £8k in shares from current employer.

Not been in current job long enough for a redundancy payout so need a strong safety net.

ShotsFired · 19/07/2016 11:00

Somewhere between 1-2 years of living expenses, based on a "war footing" and no job-related costs.

However that is also the same pot as the boiler blowing up or roof falling in fund. Would not even dream of using this type of saving (or new borrowing) for holidays or house extension or similar. Would just make do till I had the money separately. I am a natural worrier and usually plan for worst case scenarios.

AMomentaryLapseOfReason · 19/07/2016 11:03

Not enough. maybe a couple of months worth if you factored in statutory redundancy payments. But then, outgoings would plummet because we wouldn't be needing childcare any more, and that is our single biggest expense (3 young children). That's how things worked when I was on mat leave anyway

MoonStar07 · 19/07/2016 11:12

Where do you find insurance?

panegyricS1 · 19/07/2016 11:16

Everyone can get their state pension forecast here.

www.gov.uk/personal-tax-account

It's very useful. You can check gaps in your national insurance contributions too. It also links to your tax credits account and tax code, if applicable.

Babyroobs · 19/07/2016 11:36

If one of us lost our job things would be tight but we would manage especially if we could claim tax credits. This is only because we have recently paid off our mortgage though. My dh has some savings, not alot. He is more likely to lose his job than me , but if this happenned I would almost immediately be able to go full time to keep us afloat.

WhyCantIuseTheNameIWant · 19/07/2016 11:44

I think I have £1:30 in change in the pot in the car.

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 19/07/2016 12:00

It would depend on the circumstances. In savings, zilch. But DH and I would get a combined payment of about £16k if we were both made redundant (on the current terms published by our employer), and the amount goes up with every year of service. If one of us dies in service we get a big pay out of more like £80k. We have pensions and I think we can cash them in if we absolutely had to. If we got sacked we would be screwed, but neither of us is going to do anything like gross misconduct, so I think we're safe enough there (public sector, very hard to sack people unless you do something very very silly).

Failing that, it would be the bank of mum and dad for us. I have tried and failed to write that without sounding extremely spoilt and entitled, but the truth is that if we both lost our jobs and couldn't find others immediately, either PIL or my parents would help out. I also don't think we would remain unemployed for very long - we might not be able to secure jobs with the same salaries, but we would find something. We're both degree educated with experience in our fields and transferable skills and in those circumstances, we would go for anything at all.

Propertyquandry · 19/07/2016 12:03

We have about 22k in savings which would be 3mths worth of keeping us afloat. Our outgoings are fairly high I guess.

Propertyquandry · 19/07/2016 12:04

Or we could see the house I guess. We have about 40% equity st the moment so not ideal.

mirime · 19/07/2016 16:27

No idea about my husband, but if I was made redundant I'd get a bit under £2,000. We have about £4,000 in savings altogether I think - though some of that is for yearly bills - TV licence, buildings/content insurance and water, and we have insurance for our mortgage payments that would kick in after 3 months.

Big issue for us is that we have negative equity.

Greyhorses · 19/07/2016 16:30

Another with zero here Sad

EwanWhosearmy · 19/07/2016 16:59

If one of us died, the other would be sitting pretty. Made redundant we'd get a pay out.

Otherwise we'd be stuffed. I suppose we could sell up, so it's not that drastic. House sale would cover the mortgage and all debts, but no idea what we'd do after that.

Gymboree567 · 19/07/2016 17:05

I have a years worth of my wages in the bank, hubby (main earner) has around 6 months of wages
We have insurance to cover our mortgage if dh lost his job plus he's worked there over 10 years so redundancy pay would be decent
We have around 170k equity in our house, so could downsize and be mortgage free
We are relatively low earners (combined income under 28k) but careful with our money

Tabsicle · 19/07/2016 17:13

Two months wages in savings and we've partially disaster proofed our life - we make sure that we don't take on any financial commitments which can't be covered in the event that only one of us is working.

Piemernator · 19/07/2016 17:16

We have no mortgage and many years of living expenses.What is weird is that there are so few people in our fortunate position that collective chats about money issues means though I can empathise I can never actually join in.

Pensions are fine if we were going to get them right now it would be around the 50k mark per annum but who knows what will happen.