No work for a year in London

[Winterlit]

I’ve name-changed for this post.

My husband and I have found ourselves without work for a year while raising two kids in London. We’ve had a string of unpredictable events that depleted our savings in the 3 years before. So, we only had savings for 3 months plus I had made some small investments that I could liquidate. Since then we’ve used credit cards and taken out 2 loans.

We thought it may take us 6 months at the most to find work! We work in tech as freelance contractors (for over 15 years) and all contract work has dried up. A couple of small freelance jobs almost went through but got cancelled last minute. We’re very proactive people and as such have applied to permanent jobs as well as working on a tech product for which we are applying for investment for.

We have had so many contract jobs, permanent jobs and investment rejections - in the hundreds! - over the last 12 months. Moving to a cheaper city is a last resort option I’ve thought about but changing the kids schools + home is not something I want to do. Especially as one of them is in secondary.

I have this feeling that perhaps we’re too experienced to be hired?! Perhaps most of the tech hiring is happening at junior levels. I say this as we know many others in their mid 40s also out of work for 6 months + in London.

I’m not sure why I am posting! Maybe to hear a hopeful story or ideas on how to get out of this mini crisis for our little family.

As a side I had a fairly emotionally and possibly physically traumatic childhood and have been working / self-sufficient since I was 16. My partner has also been working since a young age. We worked many jobs to pay our way through uni. We got together young and supported each other a lot in our careers.

I feel bad complaining as we have our health, our two lovely children and live in a fairly stable country. Apart from the recent riots! We’re both UK born ethnic minorities so it’s close to home. Anyway, that’s a digressions. Essentially, financially this last year has been a lot!

We’ve cut back on many expenses and are living quite frugally with a small mortgage on our tiny London flat. Our biggest expenses are school fees and we’ve given ourselves another academic year to see if we need to change to state school.

My husband and I feel even stronger as a unit through all of this which has taken me by surprise as it’s quite a testing time. We’ve had some issues in the past and had couples therapy a while back which was very helpful. We’ve also always actively worked on our relationship since the beginning which I feel is helping us now.

A bit of long winey post but I guess I am so ready for some tailwind! 🤞 🍀

If it's me you're referring to, I specifically referred to application security.
Roles this like for example :
https://www.cybersecurityjobsite.com/job/5309711/application-security-engineer?utm_campaign=googlejobsapply&utmsource=googlejobsapply&utmmedium=organic

Unlike generic 'software development' roles which a) have a lot of competition from newer entrants and b) value permanent, operational experience. Security roles require build and design experience across a variety of projects, it's difficult for someone inexperienced to know what they don't know.

Especially after Crowdstrike...the error was caused by a programming flaw.

@Savoury you are probably referring to 'pure' cybersecurity roles like penetration testing, threat intelligence, SOC analysts etc. I'm not suggesting OP's husband essentially retrain.
These roles are a natural extension for an experienced application developer.

I agree with your sentiment and certainly on the point that they need to do something PDQ, and I'm not sure why at least one of them hasn't!

£489.23 x 12 months = £5870.76

That's the amount you could have got as a couple for the last year, if you'd claimed. That could have paid eg your car insurance and petrol, gas, water, electric and some basic food.

You can also get council tax benefit which has to be claimed separately.

You should do these things today. Tomorrow you should look at how to go about getting out of your private school before you have to pay more fees. And possibly get your house up for sale if you can't pay the mortgage. Then sign your kids up for state schools. 4 tasks, get cracking OP. By the end of next week you need to have completed the tasks and got a new CV ready to send it everywhere the week after.

I don't know how you're not shitting a brick over your financial situation to be honest. Unless maybe you're someone who just always sounds calm even if you're not.

They've probably never been poor and have no idea how to deal with it or how quickly things can go very very bad.

If UC looked like paltry small change that wasn't worth claiming 🤦 then they were probably quite well off before and used to throwing money at any situation that crops up, so they've done the same this time using credit (clueless about how disastrous that is and how much harder they've just made things for themselves).

They need to wake up. Hopefully this thread helps them.

That amount I wrote was for the basic jobseeker universal credit amount for a couple with no income or savings. So what you could have got might have been different (more) because of DC. Plus you did have savings at the start. So don't take my calculations as absolute. It was just an example of how you turned down free money that could have gone a long way.

I think that hits the nail on the head, and they are now deep into the credit spiral and the only hope of getting out of that is to be on the same high wages they were and start servicing the debt.

Alas that is pie in the sky most likely and living on credit can only work for so long, eventually the creditors won't give you any more money and want their loan back, then comes CCJ's followed by charging orders etc.. sadly seen it before.

Hope the OPs see sense and do something and stop borrowing!

OP you have maybe stepped away from this thread, but just in case you haven't I wanted to add this in.

I was busy this afternoon so didn't have a chance to read this properly, so am just sat down now reading through all your posts.

It comes across quite oddly because you refer to DH and yourself as we all the time, as in we got some job interviews, we got to the final stage etc. etc.

I think you need to separate yourself into the two separate people you actually are and the two separate job searches as some others have said. That way you can analyse properly what's working and what's not.

I would really recommend avoiding any we language, except maybe a couple of sentences about the project in any interviews.

@rookiemere I see.

So the job applications / interviews are individual but I may have used ‘we’ as I am applying and so is my husband to lots of jobs.

The freelance consulting gigs are joint as we can offer more value consulting as a pair and charge accordingly for the value.

The investment interviews are joint as we are equal partners in the project. Investors normally want to meet / interview the entire founding team.

I appreciate it’s probably confusing as ‘we’ aka my partner and I are both looking for work jointly and separately.

I’ll be more mindful of my language.

@Snowflake2 thanks for the calculations. What I calculated was considerably less as we had income up until and including August so our annual income was over the threshold. That will change this month and I will check to see what we are eligible for.

Can you claim JSA if you're earning £1500 per month though?

Also for highly-paid freelancers/contractors I don't think a couple of months "off" is that unusual. You do a big job, live off the proceeds then find the next big job. Especially if it's been very intense long hours over a short-medium timeframe.

Obviously it stretching to a year for both is bad, but I don't think 3 months of not working if that's your general pattern is as scary as if you're used to being salaried.

(I do think though a salary + a freelancer is a much safer bet than two freelancers.)

OP I literally just googled jobseeker UC for a couple, assumed no income or savings. The Entitled To calculator will give you a better idea once you put in your personal circumstances.

Claim council tax benefit too.

I also missed the part where you're earning £1500 a month. Kindly OP, this amount is lots of people's only income. You can live on it, you just need to learn how to be poor.

Admittedly it isn't always much fun and won't include private schools, but it's doable and isn't the end of the world. Especially when you're getting that for only one day work per month so you've 30 other a available days to job search to improve your prospects.

You don't need to panic and hurriedly find a new job, you need to panic and hurriedly cut back your expenses. Then once you're living within your means you can breathe a sigh of relief and calmly look at improving your situation. It is a pity you made things worse taking out debts though. It makes living within your means so much harder.

Don't forget to ask the utility companies for low income discount too.

@DwightDFlysenhower correct 1 - 3 months off is quite common in-between work. We used to have 6 months savings as a back up but then increased it to 9 months. However a series of unfortunate events depleted it down to 3 months this time. And yes 1 year is a lot! It’s never happened before so we now realised 2 years would be better. FWIW I do know many people in tech who got made redundant from permanent jobs too. It seems to be taking people up to a year to find their next role.

I couldn’t sleep last night which is why I posted here this morning.

I now feel incredibly stupid for being in my situation. I am also very tired of working so hard and so many hours for such a long time. I have worked so much these last 12 months to get move the needle. But as someone said here I clearly lack any entrepreneurial thinking if I haven’t earnt a penny since August.

You're not stupid. Nobody is born knowing things. You learn what you learn based on your upbringing, your social circle, your life's experiences.

Lots of people aren't cut out to be anything other than an employee, is totally normal.

You're not stupid for ending up where you have, nobody is perfect or makes the right decision each and every time. It's good you asked for help. But you are where you are and there's no wishing your way out of it.

The thing now is to face it, work out what to do about it and make the best choices to fix this going forwards. You're not destitute, you've got £1500/pcm for one day's work. Lots of people would be throwing a party over that! Even if all attendees have to bring their own booze because the hosts can't afford to supply any.

I agree. You’re not stupid and in response to those who have said that you need to get a job in Tesco’s asap, I can totally see why you’ve waited for the tide to turn which working very hard indeed.

Honestly OP this could and has happened to a lot of people in tech. Several less responsible than you…

The reality is I worked with a tonne of people who (were more senior and paid more!) but had for example…15k net coming in per month and 14.5k going out the door…and it was on all kinds of things… kids in prep schools, David Lloyd, soho house membership, lions meal prep, Rolexes and designer gear, ikos holidays and mortgage of the big fancy house and repayments on the big fancy cars…

in the good times I did wonder why I didn’t do the same but I am an ULTRA conservative person due to financial insecurity when growing up.

There but for the grace of god go I etc…

the getting creative / entrepreneurial comments have a point. You and your husband sound like bright people hopefully the thread has given you some inspo (& not just a kicking when you are down)

Can you claim JSA if you're earning £1500 per month though?

No, @Snowflake2 just hasn’t read the thread.

If OPs husband is the one earning 1500/ month OP could claim contribution based JSA. Or vice versa if she is. Either way, the one not earning can claim. Contribution based jsa isn't dependent on partners earnings

OP don’t beat yourself up. Times are hard right now with Covid and CoL - this is the reality for many people right now. A friend of mine has run a successful high end business for 30 years but it never picked up again after Covid and she’s had to regroup completely.

Madness to keep your kids in private school. London has the best and most diverse schools in the country. Depending on what borough you live in, private school will be a huge waste of money, especially when VAT kicks in

If I was in your shoes this would be my strategy

Sell up and move to cheaper area of UK
Use money from house sale to live on
Find part time job to tide you over (in any sector)
Continue with your business (start up) - throw all your energy and time at it
Keep upskilling
Get kids into state school
Reduce time spent searching for contract or perm roles to minimum for the time being

Keep at this until your finances, savings and the market recover

Then reassess

Hopefully your biz goes good

What is your product? Is it open for users yet?

@PattyDuckface the only thing I would say about that is they may struggle if needing a mortgage or renting due to lack of income in last year

@Crikeyalmighty I didn't read the whole thread. Was assuming they wouldn't need a mortgage if they sell London place and buy outright for around 180k

Probably a massive drop in lifestyle but preferable in the short term

I'll say the contracting market has changed in the last week immensely.

I've been called for jobs left right and centre today, did an interview, have another tomorrow, and one more Thursday.

Op you are going to get through this!

Yay @App13

Love to hear it! Hopefully everything is turning around now. Hope you get a great gig.