Unum Income Protection Challenge feedback thread

[AnnMumsnet]

This thread is for the 50 or so families taking part in the Unum Challenge.
For more information on Unum please visit the Unum pages on Mumsnet.

The families taking part in this challenge have been asked to see how they can cope if one wage earner in the household had their income dropped down to the level they would be entitled to if they became unable to work due to illness or injury and were receiving Statutory Sick Pay (SSP). We have a range of families taking part - those with only one income, those with 2 incomes, and a range of family sizes and income levels.

We'd like challengers to give feedback across the week. We'd like to see feedback at least 3 times (diary-style) plus a roundup of your thoughts at the end of the week.

The aim of the challenge is two fold:
~ to show how families cope with living on this amount - the challenges faced and to explore what families see as priority expenditure and what can be dropped. Those taking part also need to consider other resources they may have access to including savings, benefits, loans and family support. Obviously this varies from family to family so they will need to have a think about what would apply.

~ Unum say "above all we want you to think about how you and your family would cope if this was real life situation and it wasn't just for a week, but for a prolonged period of time. Does the challenge motivate you to put plans in place (if you don't already have plans)? Does it make you more likely to consider asking your employer about the sick pay policy and whether they offer Income Protection?"

Of course Unum know that every family is different and that circumstances will vary. They're asking folks to do this for a week just to get a snapshot of what their initial thoughts and actions are when faced with this challenge.

They want you to think about the following when adding your feedback...
~ What cost or expenses are easy to change and what's hard? What's impossible?
~ What sort of benefits do you currently get from the state / your employer?
~ What do you think you'd be entitled to (and when would they kick in) if this happened to you in real life?
~ What fixed costs do you have? Housing, childcare, utility bills - how would you cope with these in the short term and in the longer term if you had to live on SSP?
~ How are children affected by cutting costs? What do they think about the challenge?
~ What sort of family support do you think you could get?
~ Any other issues/ comments?

As a thank you for taking part there will be a prize draw of £100 of Amazon vouchers to 10 lucky challengers who add feedback as required

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

Total spent this weekend: £40
Total spent over the qualifying week: £98.85
We have failed

Well we went over. :( DH put diesel in the car and that cost £30. We have spent another £10 on incedentals such as bread, milk and fresh fruit. I was hoping to eek out my fresh supplies but if the DCs want fresh fruit I will not limit them.

Having spoken with DH about an income protection insurance we are unsure about this. As with any insurance you need to understand exactly what you will get should you need to claim. As stated though his work offers amazing benefits and are often asking "what else" the employee might like so he is going to suggest this to them.

I haven't enjoyed this challenge. It has reminded me of home when I was younger. I have promised myself that I would never let my kids experience that but reading many of the comments and living it myself has made me realise just how drastically things could unexpectedly change. :( I'm reminded of something my Grandad used to say "It's called the poverty TRAP for a reason."

Summary of the week (sixth and final post):

I have assumed for the purpose of this challenge that it would be DH in receipt of SSP as he is the higher income earner; the mortgage and other bills, paid by direct debit have been paid as normal this week (although if you counted our expenditure on these we would probably have failed on day 1).

~ What cost or expenses are easy to change and what's hard? What's impossible?
It's been impossible to change our fixed costs - mortgage, council tax, utilities etc, however, the challenge has made me question every direct puchase this week and our use of electricity. I did undertake a review or our utility provides on money supermarket.com and confused.com. I could not better our electricity tariff; no gas here as our boiler runs on oil, I always ring round the oil companies when it needs refilling to get the best deal (fortunately it didn't need filling this week as that would have been £750); our broadband and calls tariff can be improved and we are out of contract in August so will switch then. I always shop around when car and house insurances need reviewing.

~ What sort of benefits do you currently get from the state / your employer?
As stated in my opening post we receive child benefit from the state. My employer offers very little in the way of benefits (meets statutory requirements), however, DH's employer provides 100 days full pay and 100 days half pay for sick leave.

~ What do you think you'd be entitled to (and when would they kick in) if this happened to you in real life?
I have struggled to ascertain this, I don't think we would receive any state benefit until DH was actually in receipt of SSP and then it would be in addition to child benefit, child tax credit and working tax credit (against my earnings).

~ What fixed costs do you have? Housing, childcare, utility bills - how would you cope with these in the short term and in the longer term if you had to live on SSP?
We would struggle enormously to meet out fixed costs, my MiL suggested earlier in the week (after discussing this challenge with her) that they would help us financially, however, I would be very reluctant to take anymore than an emergency loan from them. Longer term we would need to sell the house and one of the cars. Fortunately we have quite a bit of equity in the house so could probably buy somewhere smaller and cheaper without a mortgage, however, day to day expenditure and utility bills would need to be carefully monitored.

~ How are children affected by cutting costs? What do they think about the challenge?
The children have been unaffected by the challenge as they are quite used to me saying 'no' to treats and extra curricular activities (swimming and brownies/rainbows is all we can afford). As stated previously they are happy with camping holidays, trips to the library and playing in the field behind the house all weekend

~ What sort of family support do you think you could get?
As stated earlier in my post my MiL has offered and I am sure my parents would help too, however, this would not be sustainable, rather emergency support for a month or two.

~ Has doing the challenge changed your attitude towards protecting your finances?
Yes, I really need to put some money into our savings account each month. We renovated and extended the house last year and drained our savings. If something did happen we have nothing to fall back on. Unfortunately with three small children (two in childcare) there is little money left at the end of the month.

~ Do you think you are now more likely to put a plan in place to safeguard your income?
As above only that we need to start saving a regular sum of money.

~ Are you now motivated to ask your employer or ask your partner to ask their employer about income protection as part of their employee benefits package?
As DH has an excellent sick pay policy I think we would be ok in the short term however we need to save to ensure that we can support ourselves if the worst happened. DH is a teacher so we are unlikely to be able to persuade the government to change the teacher's benefit package.......I am reluctant to purchase an income protection policy as they are very expensive (I had a quick look online yesterday and was shocked by the estimates I received) hence I think we would prefer to make contributions to a savings account.

Hope this is what you are looking for..........

Oops forgot to add total week's spend was £132 (excluding fixed costs as detailed above). I think it would be incredibly hard to live in this way and we were in this position we would have to make drastic changes to our lives. I really do feel for anyone in this situation.

DW went over budget by £16 due to socialising. I haven't but might do by £2.00 if I buy the Daily Mail today. She did say that if she'd had a week's notice that we'd been picked for this challenge she would have rescheduled the meet-up (to next week) and wouldn't have arranged for me to have a dental appt in the same week. Also, she commented that really she should have had the whole budget and dished out the money for my dental appt and incidentals like milk/newspaper/ on a needs-must basis. As she rightly commented I shouldn't have been off to the pub at the beginning of the week - maybe at the end if there was still cash in pocket (which there isn't). It did throw up issues about us 'frittering' money away on food/drink eaten/drunk out which is a luxury and one we shouldn't really be indulging in in this economic climate (and with £25 direct debit monthly to start in September for DS's secondary school).

I did however feel that we had noticeably reigned in our spending and DW said that when she went to the supermarket she stuck to her list rather than being 'seduced' by special but unnecessary offers! Our cat is moaning though because she is not keen on the Nutricare cat food we currently have in plentiful supply and wants some luxury Gourmet stuff - but she's only had two pouches this week because they are expensive! A lot of the top-up shopping was children focused and I really feel that it would be much easier to do this challenge as a couple than as a family, simply because DW and I would happily eat a bowl of cheesy mash or a simple dhaal and rice. DW did make sure that we used up all left-overs in the fridge and made a considerable dent in the freezer reserves but didn't need to buy any 'main meal items' which was positive.

However this would be no way to live. How on earth could one afford to buy things like decent quality school shoes etc...? As I've said, DW needs to buy some new loafer shoes but couldn't even contemplate heading out to shoe shops because she knew that she would end up blowing the whole budget. DCs wear Clarks shoes for fit and quality (they have both had their pairs for the entirety of the school year) so we consider it to be £35 per pair well spent (given that they do 3 miles school walk round trip on a daily basis) but you wouldn't be able to invest in that quality to start with if on SSP. Similarly Sales time is the time to buy new basic items for the wardrobe but the same thing would apply - you wouldn't be able to afford to take advantage of reduced price clothes or toys to put away for birthdays and Christmas.

Anyway, feel suitably chastened by this and wholeheartedly agree with that newsworthy item this week suggesting that a baseline income of £37,500 gives one a reasonable standard of living. Any less and really you have to be watching every penny.

Another terrible day for spending . Drove from London to Wales to collect ds from a holiday, filled up the car - £90 on diesel for the 300 mile round trip.
And then went to dd's school fair, spent £10 on rides/tombola and assorted rubbish.

This type of expenditure would simply have to stop if we were on £85 a week, and I think it is this ad hoc spending that the children would miss the most.
They are old enough to understand money and costs rising, so if I had to cancel their activities, I think they would have a bit of a gripe at the time but then forget about it. It is not having money to do the small things that we take for granted, that would upset them and me. I imagine the relentlessness of living off £85 a week would be unbearable.
I have never been in the position of having to rely on SSP and if we were in this position, we would probably have to move in with my family as our house would be repossessed.
I am hoping against hope that I manage to have today as a non spend day even though I have failed the challenge in the most spectacular style. Going off to find a caclulator with enough decimal places to add up my my overspend for a round up post tomorrow.

Last post as today's the last day.
We are moving on Tuesday, so I have to take a few car-loads to the new house today. I have no choice but to put £10 of petrol in the car. I know people don't move every week, but we just hit it unlucky. At least the challenge wasn't next week, the week of the actual move. So I end the week £53 over budget.

Has doing the challenge changed your attitude towards protecting your finances?
Yes I hadn't really appreciated how much we spend not on direct debits, ie on petrol, food and general spending. That is the spending we would miss.
Do you think you are now more likely to put a plan in place to safeguard your income?
DH is lucky that he has full sick pay but previously as self employed he had nothing and refused to pay for any insurances as he thought they were a waste of money
Are you now motivated to ask your employer or ask your partner to ask their employer about income protection as part of their employee benefits package?
I have found out what benefits dh gets and will be aware of benefits for me when I go back to work.

Weekly roundup: I began this challenge thinking it wouldn't be too bad....our weekly grocery bill is under 75.00 normally so I naively thought that if I made some economies and substitutions we would be alright. What I failed to take into account is the incidentals that you don't plan on.

The unexpected trip to the doctor and prescription charge, car parking, the Friday night bottle of wine etc. All of these things would have to go. The car would be classed as a luxury and one to do without. No impulse buys of a magazine or popping into a shop because they've got a sale on.

This week we had no after school clubs or birthdays to consider. They would take a huge strain on the budget and as for Christmas!?!

My biggest lesson learnt is better planning, sticking to the list and staying determined to say no and forego treats and extras. All in all a very sobering lesson to learn.

Day 7: well today is a no spend day. We got some whoops fruit punnets last night and spent £1.83 so fruit salad for pudding today and soup. We have just stayed within the budget as I was quite keen to spend only what we would have had available had we been on SSP. We wouldn't have had the option to go over budget if we simply did not have the money, and I really wanted to try and complete the challenge. However we only counted food and fuel costs. Our weekly bill outgoing are £400 for clubs, gas, electricity, mortgage, insurance, council tax etc. so our essential needs have been paid as we could not default o these for the challenge. If we had £85 a week I can only guess, we would have our mortgage protected for a year, we would most likely then be entitled to CTC etc.

I will be doing a full weeks shop this afternoon. DS and dd are back to clubs this week, so this would have sent us over budget for the challenge too. I am certainly more aware of our spending habits after this and will be looking at the details of our insurance and mortgage to see what exactly we have, in the way of protection.

Day 7 Final day

We will not spend anything today, so finish the task at £83.25 and just under budget.

Has doing the challenge changed your attitude towards protecting your finances?
Yes definitely. I di not realise how much I spend on food/daily extras and this would obviously have to change if the situation was real.

Do you think you are now more likely to put a plan in place to safeguard your income?
DH is the sole earner in our family, and I had not realised how much our lives would have to change if he was unable to work! Before having my DCs we both worked full-time and it took me a while to adjust to not having my own wage.

Are you now motivated to ask your employer or ask your partner to ask their employer about income protection as part of their employee benefits package?
Have spoken to DH about this and sadly his employer does not offer any benefits package.

My final thoughts are that I have loved this challenge and it has been an eye-opener and I honestly didnt realise what/how much extra I actually spend daily
I really hope that we are never in a situation like this and there would need to be BIG changes in our lives.

Thanks for the experience

A top up shop yesterday was £18.60 so I am over budget by £2. I spotted some pjs for my DD 2 pairs for £13.50, nearly bought them then realised it would take me way over budget do put them back. I guess no impulse buys allowed!
Instead of buying them I made an effort to find all her pjs and put them back in pairs and found she does have 5 pairs. I did the same with her socks and realised she probably has enough now I've found them all. Normally I would have bought more.
Still I am £2 over budget and probably need to buy more veg before Monday.

Fifth post

Has doing the challenge changed your attitude towards protecting your finances?

Most definitely. We dont have any available cash at the end of the month but thats due to luxury direct debits, i would happily go to freeview but DH is very rigid on the cable tv saying the kids shouldnt have to lose out, he feels sameabout the games consoles etc - he doessnt want to ask them to use them less. I think we would have major family arguments anyway

Do you think you are now more likely to put a plan in place to safeguard your income?

Yes i definitely would but DH doesnt agree its necessary and i just keep getting 'we'll manage' from him. Very frustrating.

Are you now motivated to ask your employer or ask your partner to ask their employer about income protection as part of their employee benefits package?

I have asked my DH to ask but we will have to see, i just got the look. He doesnt take this seriously at all and i cannot understand why. I am definitely asking.

Final income protection thoughts -

If I couldn't work due to illness we would be OK with DH's salary. If DH couldn't work and it was likely to be a long-term thing we would have a year's lead in to change our outgoings/me to generate more work, as his work benefits package is 6 mths full pay, 6 mths half.

TBH we are, like many others have said, not in a position to add more outgoings to our budget for a 'what-if' scenario. And that is what income protection insurance is. What-if?

I would spend money on writing a will - much more essential.

So last day today. Went to church this morning which I always thought of as 'free' but the collection plate went round so a few quid went in there. Also bought chocolates for a gift as we are going to a friends for dinner today.
Added up my total spend for the week has been £90.67 so failed the challenge

This has definitely made me think about our finances more. I am planning on putting more away each month as well as reducing out outgoings. My other half is self employed so any income protection we would have to arrange ourselves.

Overall the biggest thing that this week has made me realise is the mental strain of having to watch every penny. Others on here have put it more eloquently than me but it is existing not living. Small treats like a new book, coffee with friends etc make life nice and to know that even those little things are not an option is very depressing.

Also gifts to friends, donations in church etc all these things would be reduced or have to go completely which would make me feel miserly and mean when the fact is I just couldn't afford it.

Overall a depressing experiment but a necessary one.

Round up post. Started the week well, being really strict about every penny and spent between zero and twelve pounds a day. Things deteriorated towards the weekend and yesterday DD spent £60 in Aldi for the week's groceries and I spent £23 today in M &S. Our expenditure didn't really take into account utility bills etc and I managed to get through the week without putting diesel in the car. I think as someone else has said it is the little things that are treats or extras that would have to go and I can anticipate life becoming a depressing slog fairly quickly. I have however found the challenge really interesting and it has made me look at our spending habits carefully. We're on a tight budget anyway but there is a fair bit of unnecessary spending there.

Will come back and answer the round-up questions later.

Well, was doing ok-ish had mostly stayed within budget until yesterday - we had a wedding and the reception was 15 miles away so we had to get a taxi there and back (not on a bus route and dont drive) so that was £50, then drinks (about £25) and then got home late and couldnt be botherd cooking so got a take-away (another £25) so we are well and truly over budget!

I guess if we really were on SSP, we'd make changes like save-up a bit each week/not buy drinks/cook dinner when we got in...

Got a friend coming for dinner tonight as well so few last minute bits cost more than I budgeted per day although friend doesnt drink so at least I didnt have to buy alcohol as well...must be harder 'hosting' on a tight budget

Since Friday I have spent :
£9.91 DD on Pet insurance
£6.00 for a round of drinks while DD was at Guides
£18.00 in Iceland for Potatoes, Juice Cartons, Squash, Cooked Meats for packed lunches, Rice Cakes, Fruit and 2 bottles of wine.
£1.99 in the local convenience store for paper plates for DD to take to school for a teachers leaving party.
£5 for two front door keys
Total left : £10.56
We are lucky in that we live very close to town so that if DD wants to meet her friends she can walk or if I need to go to the shops I can walk. DD also walks to school. I know that some of the children who live further away have to pay approx. £12 per week to get to school.
Having done this challenge for a week it wasn't too bad but then alot of the usual weekly costs had already been paid out earlier in the month. If this would have been a long term thing then I would struggle on SSP of £85.00 per week.
I feel that I am lucky that my employers offer a good sickness benefit programme which would cover me in the event of a certain amount of long term sickness.

We have failed. Lst time I checked in one here we were on £74.55 I think. We have since had to spend £5 at school, spent £15 in a cafe because ds needed to eat so dh ate too, £28 in the supermarket today on school stuff for September, and £2 on snacks because I didnt make them a big enough packed lunch.....

Last Post

Failed terribly, don't even want to think how badly.
Had to drive to Scotland this weekend to see my family (mother has dementia, so its necessary to keep my dad sane). Petrol £98.00.
If we had to live on SSSP we could manage but it would be a hard and in the long term soul destroying. The far reaching things like the visit to help my dad would have to stop so it wouldn't only affect my own kids but my father as well. I really didn't realise how much I spend in a week. I am going to try again next week and the week after that until I have managed.
Thanks for making me consider my spending.

Unum have asked me to add these final questions for you to think about in your round up.
Has doing the challenge changed your attitude towards protecting your finances?
We already pay a vast amount into our small morgatage while the interest rates are low as we see this as the best way of saving money.

Do you think you are now more likely to put a plan in place to safeguard your income?
For the first time in 24 years as a worker I am inclined to look into income protection.

Are you now motivated to ask your employer or ask your partner to ask their employer about income protection as part of their employee benefits package? That's a no starter, as this can be taken out privately I doubt any company of the size I work for would be interested.

Final post:

Has doing the challenge changed your attitude towards protecting your finances?
yes. I think i have an Income Protection plan in place that I took out through my Union a few years ago. It wasn't an active choice, they cold-called me and I agreed. I've always been a bit unsure what is was actually for but now I know. I intend to look out the policy and see what the details are.

Do you think you are now more likely to put a plan in place to safeguard your income?

yes see above especially as I am the only wage-earner.

Are you now motivated to ask your employer or ask your partner to ask their employer about income protection as part of their employee benefits package? I think there may be something in place, but I'm pretty sure I'd get full pay for 6 months, not sure after that (public sector).

A real eye-opener.

So, the end if the week.
Due to difficult circumstances this week we have failed to live on £ 85.85 as predicted. Notwithstanding it being a trying week I doubt we could ever have done it if we continued to live the way we do.

The exercise has been an excellent opportunity to compare what we spend in a week to what we bring home.
I have downloaded a budgeting app and am working to repair the leakage in our battered little family boat.

So to the final questions:

Has doing the challenge changed your attitude towards protecting your finances?
Yes and no. It would be a joint decision,with dh but I certainly would like to be a more careful with what little we've got. It's so hard not to compare yourself with others. We have a small house and a big fat mortgage. Id like a bigger house, but also want my dd to go to university in 2 years time. I am only able to work part time due to health issues.dh works so hard , but made a decision to stay in a local job so he could be around more for dd and me.this means he could be earning a great deal more in another part of the UK.
There are always compromises to be made I think.

Do you think you are now more likely to put a plan in place to safeguard your income?
Yes I think we should look into it, certainly for dh's job.
Are you now motivated to ask your employer or ask your partner to ask their employer about income protection as part of their employee benefits package?
Yes, I would like to look into this.

Finally it has been interesting to find out about others and how you have all coped especially this people for whom
This is a reality. I have enormous respect for you.

Took ds1 surfing today. Lunch afterwards cost a tenner.

I blew most of the budget in one day. (Not the first day). I would find it very very difficult to live on that amount of money per week. Anything unexpected (such as washing machine dying on me) would blow the budget. And we'd have to stop all activities - these mean more to me than material items and I would find life without them pretty hard.

We have critical illness cover (recently reviewed - because we took it out nearly 20 years ago it can't be bettered). We decided when we did the review we're fairly well covered - having done this I'm pleased we are.

Like cremola - I'm impressed with anyone who has to do this. It must be very difficult.

Sunday no money left took Dcs to local museum and beach today, walked there and back so no cost.
During the week we just about managed, but there was nothing left to put aside for bills. Also we were fortunate enough to have food in the cupboards to help with meals. If we were to have to manage on this all the time we would struggle. Things which we had to give up were the social outings and after school classes. The Dcs didn't mind giving up these things for one week but they would be missed.
Dhs work pay 2/3 salary sick pay for as long as it's needed so we would be able to manage if this happened to us.

Friday: Bought more bread and milk but otherwise didn't spend anything. Until DH came home after work with more wine. Argh!

Saturday: DS went to his granny's (free childcare :) ) so DH and I went to lunch as we often do when DS is out for the day. £17 or thereabouts. This is one thing that would have to go... We didn't even splurge, just cheap meals in a cheap cafe, with one drink. Ouch.

Sunday: Church in the morning (£5 in collection), then lunch with MiL (free). A free day, but we've run out of milk again, and are running low on bread. Overall we've done pretty badly this week!

So total this week is £144.69 including the £80 on clothes etc...! Without those we'd have only just made it, and of course that doesn't include bills etc.

So to answer the questions:

What cost or expenses are easy to change and what's hard? What's impossible?

We already buy the cheapest we can of lots of things; don't buy much meat; buy in bulk to reduce costs; and so on, so reducing these is quite difficult. We could cut down things like lunch out together - in fact it's only recently we've started doing these anyway!

What sort of benefits do you currently get from the state / your employer?

We get child benefit, child tax credit and working tax credit. This makes our total earnings go up by about £8k a year, which helps us immensely. I presume we wouldn't get the working tax credit if DH was off work, although I don't know.

What do you think you'd be entitled to (and when would they kick in) if this happened to you in real life?

I don't know the entitlements DH would get I'm afraid. But I don't think it's all that much, and doesn't kick in straight away.

What fixed costs do you have? Housing, childcare, utility bills - how would you cope with these in the short term and in the longer term if you had to live on SSP?

We have a mortgage, electricity, gas, council tax, phone, internet... if we were on SSP I would find out how to pay things over long term to help with costs. I would consider dropping internet to lower our bills, but I don't know what else we could do. We would probably stop DS going to creche for the 2 hours a week and I know for toddler groups and house group we could request free entry.

How are children affected by cutting costs? What do they think about the challenge?

My babies are too young and my DS wasn't really aware of the challenge either. I had to refuse him a couple of things I wouldn't normally (e.g. a magazine) but otherwise it didn't affect him this week really. We tried to play in the park/garden more than going to the shops which I think he actually enjoyed - but we'd find it a lot harder if the weather had been really bad (somehow managed to avoid the rain most of the time!)

What sort of family support do you think you could get?

My parents and PiL would probably help us with money (paying bills I mean) and I expect my mum would be researching the best way to earn money/get benefits while on SSP!

Any other issues/ comments?

I think like all these things you can never know what it's like 'til you're there, but it has reminded me of what it's like to have very little money, and made me realise that putting money aside as backup is very important now that we have 3 kids! When we were last on very little money we had no kids and so if we couldn't pay our way it never seemed so bad because we could survive on very little and could live off almost nothing, whereas now we can't avoid buying certain things, e.g. nappies. It would be an incentive to potty train DS though, I do say! But it also reminded me how depressing it was to be just slightly short all the time, as Charles Dickens so rightly expresses in David Copperfield - 6p gain per year = happiness, 6p loss = misery.