To take a 40k pay cut

[lul37]

We have been living in ME for almost 6 years now and wanting to move back to our home in London since last year.

DH has finally been offered a job back, BUT it's on a much lower pay than what he's on now, basically 40k less than what he's currently on. Not to mention the tax to be paid on top of what once we are back.

He also just got promoted in his current role which pays well but requires a lot of travel and is also unstable (lots of redundancy happening due to Covid, etc).

I'm just unsure if it's the right time now to move back, due to Covid situation and also with pay cut, i feel it would be such a downgrade. We would probably manage on the lower pay in London if I could find a part time job if we move back. Don't know if that going to be possible under the current lockdown.

I haven't been able to work while abroad due to DH's constant travel schedule.

On the other hand, we really want to move back to be closer to our family as many friends here have left and we we feel so isolated, I'm also worried about the hassle of moving schools for my two DS (12 yrs and 9yrs) right now.

But I'm also worried we might not get another offer in the next year or this is the best offer under the Covid circumstances.

AIBU to want him to turn it down now, and hope he gets a better offer in a few months?? I feel he is disappointed but torn as well.

Is that a haiku? I love it!

No, @Onjnmoeiejducwoapy, it has more than 17 syllables.

I’d stay for now.

90k is £5000 per month take home in the uk against £11,000 where you are.

Thats a big difference.

You have paid of debt etc and are now in a position to save with his promotion. Personally I would stay a few years to save up and then move back. But each to their own.

Let us know what your DH decides

It is a hard decision. Pre-DC me and DH lived in another part of the world. Salaries were pretty ridiculous at the time and we knew we got lucky going there when we did and once we left we'd never have the opportunity to earn that much money again. However I missed my family and knew I didn't want my future DC to grow up there. We made a two year plan to save as much as we could and no matter how much money we were earning at that point/had saved, we would put greed aside and go home which we did.

It was a hard adjustment initially and we still get wistful for those days, but the saving grace was we saved enough in those two years to build our house outright so with no mortgage our quality of life here isn't a million miles removed from our old life. Could you do something similar?

It's not always easy moving back but it's worth it for the relationships with family and my children knowing their grandparents etc. you can't buy that!

@Keratinsmooth

You will pay tax in the rental but only 20% on profit.,

This is completely inaccurate. Tax arrangements for BTLs have changed significantly over the last few years

Well £90k is an excellent salary.

It's not like you'd struggle on that. So if you want to move back, do it.

You need to be pragmatic about which roles will be global post CV19

IT, call centres, banking etc can all be outsourced to SE Asia at a fraction of the price and those jobs may no longer exist in the UK in a few years. Anything that can be does remotely probably will be.

IT salaries have been dropping for some time- what was once a nice skill is now much more mainstream. (depends on what he actually does)

I'd stay put and save for another year. But I'd make a timeline of him starting to look for a new job in 10 months because it'll likely take him 4 - 6 months to get one. By the time you're ready to move, you would've been there 1.5 years and hopefully saved up some cushion. And congratulations for paying down all your debt @lul37!

I’d move back in an instant. Money isn’t worth more than happiness and doesn’t always create happiness.

Couldn’t imagine being somewhere I didn’t want to be just for the sake of money. £40k or £400k isn’t worth feeling like you want to come home.

I live in zone 3 London and am astonished that someone would think £90k not enough to live off. I earn £40k DH just £25k (made redundant but was only on £32 anyway). £90K plus your potential earnings is an incredible salary imo. How could you not live very comfortably on that??

Now that you’ve said you’re coming back to a 2 bed flat or letting that out and renting, the drop in your income will be even higher. As has just been said, tax on rental properties has completely changed. You’re really going to be making a massive step down. Far more than dh and I did and I really struggled for a long time and I’m from the U.K., albeit not the area I live in. I felt like a foreigner for a long time. So really ask yourselves how much you want to return to the U.K. And to talk to your kids.

@Stinginthetail everybody's lives and household budgets are different. Some people can't live on that amount for whatever reason and that's totally fine.

We are making the same decision atm, been in Dubai 13 yrs. Between us we’ll probably earn more than 100k less in the UK. But we’ve achieved the goals we set out to in terms of savings. That lessens the blown and it’s just time to come home.

I think it's more accurate to say that some many people can spend whatever they have, however much it is.

@Aweebawbee

I don't really understand the comments about life in the ME not being 'real', particularly considering the OP is from that region and her family is not in the UK either. Not everyone subscribes to British weather, salaries, housing and lifestyle as the only definition of 'real' .

Have you lived there? It’s hard to describe if you haven’t, but it’s a very fluid, transient lifestyle where people come and go very quickly. You also live a very different lifestyle on the packages they offer and in a very artificial environment (glossy hotels, children’s parties at palaces, parks with fake birdsong and carpet like grass you are discouraged from playing on) It’s like a little a bizarre little bubble. That’s not a “British” perspective either, almost everyone I met there of innumerable nationalities felt it was very different to anything they had ever encountered before. And I don’t mean it in a derogatory way - I hugely enjoyed my time there, but I do think ‘unreal’ is an accurate and appropriate way to describe the lifestyle.

Everyone is isolated at the moment, OP! I'd stick with the higher paying role and save like a demon whilst in the ME. Give yourself more time to think about the life you really want back in the UK - a flat in London, or more space further out (especially if WFH is going to be a settled feature of future working life); the kind of job you might be able to do; maybe some retraining for potential new roles? But I'm unclear how much choice your husband has got in this regard - is he able to stay put on the higher salary with security, or is he likely to be made redundant?

The going rate is £10-30k more than they are offering. Herein lies the problem.

@Tightwad2020 unfortunately being made redundant is always a possibility in the ME, more so now in the current climate. As someone said above you can find yourself forced to leave the country within 30 days at any point. And we have seen this happen to many friends. That is one of the main appeals of moving back, the stability and rights the UK offers. If my DH was made redundant in UK in the future, at least we wouldn't be forced to move schools and countries.

Why not stay put, maximise his promotion - at least get it on his CV - and make sure you save to come back in the meantime? Frankly the job market is dicey here in many sectors so just because he lands something it doesn't mean he'll keep it. Sorry if this isn't what you want to hear.

I wouldn't move at the moment as there are so many thing that can go wrong . Your husband has worked hard for his promotion and if things go wrong there he should have enough tenure for some redundancy packet.

Where is the job? Canary Wharf? How much commuting? Are you hoping to live in Wimbledon? Or Weybridge?

What school do you want dc to go to? Are you looking for a 4 bedroom house in a nice area?

@Oblomov21 exactly, DH is saying that they have come back now with a final offer of £95k, he doubts they will offer any more. He is swaying towards accepting the promotion with his current employer and staying put for another year.

@Oblomov21 if we were to move back, no not a 4 bed, a 3 bed in zone 6 next to decent state schools in North west london would suffice.

I'd say moving with a 12 year old now is better than a 13 year old next year, and definitely than a 14 year old in 2023.

As for Covid, whilst the government here has been awful, vaccination is progressing so it may not be more of an issue in the Uk than elsewhere for too much longer.

If he has only just been promoted I agree to hold that new position for a year, and have that experience in his cv is good.

But. When will you move back? Getting dc into good schools at least the year before GCSE's start, is tricky.