New Job and annual leave help me decide

[appls]

Please help me decide what is reasonable.

I worked in a job (job A) which I hated for 20,500 a year (frontline and dangerous job with rubbish management). I was headhunted and seconded to a role in the same company for a year which I loved and paid 22,300 and was able to mostly WFH.

Secondment is now ending and I do not want to return to job A.

I have now been offered a new job (Job B) in a different company with a salary of 26500. To start mid august. It is a more senior position and has more job progression. Less flexibility as no WFH. I have accepted this job.

However. I realised today.

Annual leave in my current job runs from 1 April - 31 March. I get 35 days. I have used 30 already due to child illness and a family bereavement as well as normal time off for things such as in the school holidays.

Therefore when I leave on 12 August I will actually owe the company money and not get paid. The new job won't pay me til end September as I miss their payroll date when I start.

So my choice is this:

Return to job A until early next year so that I don't owe them anything. This means losing almost 2k a year and I will struggle to pay my bills each month. There is a small chance of other teams in the company recruiting and I may be able to switch roles but it will be the same or very similar salary.

Take the new job and have no money at all in august and potentially owe hundreds to my old employer. I will ultimately end up better off once this is repaid as the salary is 6k higher than what I'd get by staying.

There's no option of a loan or credit of any kind as my credit score is in the bin (husband was mentally unwell. Took out a lot of debt and then ended his life, the debt was in his name but some in mine and some in ours, all defaulted etc)

No family or friends who can loan me money. Nothing to sell. No chance of working extra as I'd be paying childcare (I don't have family. Friends live too far away)

So essentially no money until end sept apart from tax credits which is £400 a month (low due to overpayment that I disputed but that's another story) This wouldn't even cover the mortgage.

Any advice?

I would find anyway to take the new job, much better for you long term.

Kinda surprised they let you take quite so much as basically you’ve already taken 6 weeks off since April? What about asking to defer the new job by 2 months or something to accrue more holiday. Not sure if that would work.

Just talk to them and make an arrangement maybe? Ask new company for an mid payment, not sure they’d do that but might if you explain dates don’t work out for you or something.

Can you ask your new employer if you could be paid half you salary end of August? I don’t think this would be weird

Stick with job B. Ask them if it would be possible to be paid an advance due to payroll date issue.
Ask current job if you can pay back owed holiday pay in three instalments starting September, rather than having it deducted.
If you explain re hardship I would hope that both employers would try and assist.

Stuck with B. Ask for an advance.

Could you ask the current job to pay you, and set up a payment arrangement with them to repay what you will owe them?

Pay advances are not uncommon for new starters. And certainly not viewed weirdly.

I would ask your new employer now what they might be able to do.

If they offer nothing then that might tell you something about how they treat staff

So if you've taken 30 days holiday and don't take any more, by the end of August you'd have 5/12 months accrued. Did you carry any over? Assuming not, that's 14.58 days, so you'd owe them 15.4 days. That sounds like less than a month's pay (20 days) to me, so why would you get nothing?

100% go for the new job.

Cleary job B

Suggestions as above, @Augend23 has asked a good question, what is the answer to that?

Does job B get paid at the end of the month, the cut off is early, maybe there's some flexibility

Your current employer seems very understanding. It’s not normal
to allow someone to use up so much leave (appreciate you have extenuating circumstances) but any idea on new employer B will be the same? Worth considering - if you have goodwill from employer A that can be worth lots of £££.

You may not be able to get credit per se but if you call your mortgage lender and ask for a payment holiday, it would not be uncommon for them to allow 1-3 months break in payments added to the mortgage value. Call and explain - they would likely rather this than for you to be unable to pay in an unplanned way.

Check your contract and company handbook etc to see whether there is a specific clause in writing allowing them to claw back and holiday pay when you leave - they can only take most of it off your final pay if it is in writing.

if they can take it back then ask if you can pay them back in instalments and ask new employer for an advance on pay in august.

Are there no other opportunities in the first company? You'd be amazed what turns up when you say you have an offer elsewhere, so worth asking if you have a good reputation where you are.

Have you taken tax and ni into account working out the difference between the new and old job? Put the gross amount into an online calculator to get the take-home. The increase might not be as big as it looks, but the job progression opportunities are worth something, but so is flexibility. Tough call, I hope you can make it work for you.

Occasionally, if you’re new company really want you, you may be able to negotiate a “hello” package to pay off what you owe.

if you express the situation to the hiring manager that you may have to decline the offer, and they really really want you, they should do something to ease the situation, be that pay for the holiday you’ve overtaken, or previous poster said, do an additional BACS run and pay you early.

Ask the question and then make a decision. I would personally always go for the higher paid job, but word of advice for the future, never accept the first offer - negotiate negotiate negotiate - salary, holiday, benefits, hours etc.

Ouch. Just a quick question, how much better off are you actually going to be with the higher paid job? You’re going to have to pay some sort of childcare I assume/your tax credits will reduce/fuel or train/bus to get to work. If the numbers work then go for the higher paid job. If you aren’t any better off, or only better off by a couple of quid a month, I’d stay put until the kids are older.

What is your plan regarding the less flexibility of job B?

I would be a little wary of highlighting the amount of holiday time over-taken and poor credit history to a potential employer. Good first imprssions and all that

The salaries involved suggest that the OP isn't applying for a high level management position where negotiation is expected

Take new job. Ask for mortgage holiday of one month.

Oh dear, you've had a hard time up to now

Take job B. Ask for an advance of some money to tide you over for essentials until you get paid. That's very standard, don't worry about that and don't over explain.

Make an arrangement to pay back what you owe with job A over as long a period as possible. Short of with holding what pay they do owe you, they probably can't do much to recover money you owe them, short of taking you to court, and they probably wouldn't do that.

Cancel any non essential direct debits you can get away with not paying, ie not mortgage or council tax. I don't suppose you are in credit in your energy account and can ask for the money to be returned?

No Nectar points or similar floating around that you can use to buy food?
As an aside, have you had help dealing with the debt, from an independent non profit organisation like Stepchange or Christians Against Poverty? Is it all currently still defaulted, ie not settled?

But have you managed to keep up with the mortgage throughout all this? Did he have life insurance? Have you done a new benefit check as a widowed parent and did you claim widowed parents allowance? Sorry, so many questions, but it's one of those things where there's lots to consider and things that might be able to be done to make things easier for you.

How will you manage the new job if its less flexible? Alreadyyou have needed to take ( i would say) an extreme ammount of time off in 4 months.

This.

I'd keep the request quite vague rather than saying you've used 6 weeks holiday in 15/16 weeks.

I agree with pp that you should do a double pronged approach - ask your current employer for time to pay back.

I would ask new company if they can organise a one off payment at the end of August. Presuming you start on 15th August you must only just miss their payroll cut off date and will still work more days in the month than not. I would also try and negotiate the used holiday entitlement at current company down and repay over several months.

Agree with ring mortgage company and ask for a couple of months payment holiday. Ring utilities too and ask for the same, especially if in credit anyway. Go through cupboards, fridge and freezer, work out as many meals as you can with the food you already have in. Do you have a slow cooker? I've made a veg soup using two bags of frozen veg, it's done 10 meals for about 2 quid so potentially you could do a couple of things like that to really push you through the few weeks of being skint?

Job B, and I'd make it work.

How often do opportunities come up and how much would you regret not going for it?