To consider redundancy with an unemployed husband

[Anon46]

Background: I've been offered voluntary redundancy from my job working for the Government. I earn £40k with a rise every year. My payout would be in the region of £50-55k after tax. I'm currently on maternity leave. I rent privately in London (£1300pcm) and have approx £260k in my savings account.

Pros of leaving:
£50-55k is a lot of money.
I would need to get childcare if I returned to work (and my husband found a job) instead so a large chunk of my take home pay would be spent on that. Not to mention being knackered from running around doing the nursery drop offs.
I don't really enjoy the job. It's a low skilled job that I fell into about 20 years ago and it made sense to stay as it paid the bills. I was looking forward to going on maternity leave for a long time.
I only have to wait 6 months before returning to a Government job if I want to avoid repaying the redundancy compensation. It's worth noting that it's much harder to get a job nowadays and the majority of jobs tend to get filled by internal candidates.
A HUGE pro IMO: I run the risk of returning from maternity leave and realising that I either don't like what my job has become whilst I was away or childcare costs make going to work a bit pointless therefore leaving at a later date with no payout i.e. I would be better off leaving now and getting a large amount of money instead of returning to work for six months and leaving empty handed.

Cons of leaving:
I have a relatively easy job which is well paid for what I actually do and I WFH for part of the week. I could get a job elsewhere doing the same work as it's non specialised however I doubt I would earn the same. The Government tends to pay quite well for my kind of work.
I have a defined benefit pension, 33 days annual leave plus bank holidays. You get the jist. It's a pretty family friendly & flexible place to work.
I have a laid back manager who doesn't micro manage me. Although she could leave at any moment of course.
My husband is unemployed. He used to have a very well paid job but lost it several years ago. He has spent the past year applying for jobs in his field without success. He's now applying for supermarket jobs to get some money coming in. He's reliant on me financially as he's spent his savings. Ideally he would get another well paid job meaning that he wouldn't be available for childcare anymore. But I have a week to decide on redundancy and who knows how long it will take him to find a job.
Making myself unemployed means even less chance of getting a mortgage.
My aforementioned savings rule me out of claiming any benefits (my husband is also ineligible because of this too).

Keep the job. AI is going to decimate the number of jobs like that in no time. Suspect that a skeleton staff will be left behind, amped up by AI tools.

Everyone I know in any kind of non "frontline" job is being offered voluntary redundancy.

Seriously, if its not killing you, hang in there as long as you can and get saving up. Hard times are coming.

Omg where? I'm on my way!!!

I am baffled- he lost his job SEVERAL years ago, what on earth has he been doing all this time?

is the 260k savings “yours” or joint? I ask as you refer to him not having any now… how are you keeping an entire family afloat on 40k in London and managed a 260k buffer? Amazing.

in answer to Q, I don’t think that payout is worth the difficulty of trying to get back into govt job.

I’m also curious what happened with the husband, he lost his job several years ago but only spent the last year looking, is he maybe unwell? As said i think the likely hood of your husband now finding anything well paid is incredibly low as he’s been out thr work force several years, it will be back to the start, and if he needs to do supermarket work so he brings money in, then you need the money between you and your expenses will go up with a child, they get more expensive as they get older.

one of you needs to bring the money in. 260k is not enough for you both to be unemployed and you could end up in the same situation as him.

I think sadly as your husband is not gainfully employed you need to keep working;

I assume the 260k is probably from an inheritance and that your plan is to buy at somepoint with that? In your position I'd return to your job, just having a decent boss who doesn't micromanage and family friendly when you are returning from mat leave is a massive pro. If course 50k is a decent amount after tax but if you end up returning to work in a much lower paid job you've not only taken that year off or whatever unpaid you are now bringing home less too, it will also impact how much you can borrow if you do plan to buy.

Id keep the job, protect the savings for a house and hope your husband can get back into his decent paid field of work.

I would take the redundancy package because there is no guarantee that there won't be more redundancies coming with a less generous package. Basically even if you stay for now there is no guarantee your job won't be at risk in the near future.

You have enough money saved as well.

You also have the choice of moving out of London for somewhere more affordable where you could use your savings to buy something.

I think your main issue here is your husband though. Why hasn't he found a job? With a baby on the way he shoukd be taking any work he can find...

Move out of London (up north) and buy a modest house or flat outright with your savings. Get DH doing some research into areas to move to.

I would wonder if it’s time to get out of London, buy a house outright and consider self employment.

This.
Or not necessarily up north .. there are places on Welsh borders or even in Wales for instance. You could buy easily and with a small or no mortgage. This would free you up to not need such a big income.
Getting away and starting to look for jobs further afield might unlock your OH's unemployment situation.

I just don’t get answers like this, no thought to family, friends, social network, support network. Just up and move to wales.

🙄

The OP's priority is to build a financially sustainable future for herself and her child.

Staying in London and paying ridiculously high rent is not a great position to be in.

So people are perfectly right to suggest alternative ideas.

You can make new friends and moving to the North of England or Wales is hardly moving to the other side of the world when it comes to visiting relatives.

I'd keep you job as your husband has been put of work for years, depleted his savings and on his way to working through yours.

He shows no meaningful signs of getting a job and if you stay with him then chances are he can be a sahp and you can keep working.

Basically you don't have anything better lined up and you're solely responsible for your family.

Imo 250k is for investing in the future, not propping up your husband and both sliding into years out of work.

And consider for a moment that your husband doest step up as a good dad.

If he's been living on your savings, I think you'll have a harder time proving that it isn't a shared marital asset.

you currently have a man at home full time and you're on maternity. If you wanted a more challenging job then you'd be applying. Youll struggle to find something easier, more family friendly and better paid so maybe look around and find a few via alternatives to give yourself a reality check before taking whst looks like easy money. It's barely more than a years salary and if you want more kids you'll struggle to find and qualify for a better mat package any time soon.

Part of me wonders if your dh is pushing for this and seeing 💲💲

And FYI OP, parasites don't always look like pimps and junkies, they also look like nice academics who won't take jobs that they consider beneath them while presenting as trying really hard and making you a nice dinner.

It's raising a red flag for me that you'd consider walking away from a job to release money for you both to share when he hasn't had a job in years and is now only considering supermarket work as if to somehow prove he is trying and therefore continue to milk you for money.

And you're on maternity and st your most vulnerable. You need flexible work, not money, and to keep your wider circle and options open, not go further into a smaller world with dh.

if you work from home consider keeping the job and doimg a move further north where it’s cheaper and buy a house. that’ll mean youve no savings as they’ve become a home, so dp can apply for benefits while he job seeks in the new area. you can go into the office one day a week or whatever.

meanwhile youve still got a job and if you want you can go for a job move to somewhere else nearer where you live as an internal candidate. even scotland.

Pre-pandemic (and maybe as it bounced back) I would have jumped at that, but looking at the current labour market I'd keep it. Particularly as your husband isn't bringing good money in.

Please do take this seriously OP, I think this is very good advice.

It sounds like you want to take the redundancy and if you do, just take it. People worry far too much about 'what ifs' when it comes to money and it really holds them back from trying new things. So many people are stuck in a rut because they are afraid to leave their stable jobs. I do get it, but you have such a huge buffer that the risk is tiny. If you don't want to then that's another story, but I'm inclined to say go for it, enjoy the time with your baby and look for something else in the meantime.

Clearly she is not going to just up and move without doing her research and taking all these things into consideration. My point is that there are other options out there that might ease their finances and improve their quality of life. Once your life is waning you can't go back and make the moves that make life better. Carpe Diem and all that .......

If you owned your house & the 260k could be sitting as a buffer to pay the mortgage for the next few years I'd be more inclined to take it. But you are renting, if you piddle away all that savings pot on rent you'll have nothing at all to show for it.

Plus it sounds like your husband has really struggled to get back into work. The job market is not great. I also would not rush away from a public sector pension scheme right now if you are in one.

I really wouldn’t. As you’ve seen with your husband it’s really hard to get another job at the moment, so you run a real risk of burning through those savings and being left with nothing. A flexible job with a good manager is gold dust.

I’d try to buy if you can. If you put the savings towards a shared ownership flat which are very common in London I think you’d then be eligible for benefits including on the rental portion (but do check!)

And if the £240k is from an inheritance and you’re the only breadwinner I’d definitely be buying the flat in just your name.

Mad as it might seem people in London do. The OP almost certainly rents something nicer than they can afford to buy.

I’m not so sure about that if the monthly rent is £1300 - that’s very cheap for London, and she’s said it’s a private rental.

I’d probably keep the job, as the job market isn’t great at the moment, but also look to buy.