Hubby may be made redundant in January - if youve experienced this please give me your top ten helpful tips how to get through this

[frenchmumma]

It may happen or it may not but Im petrified. I only work 16 hours so cant even cover bills/mortgage.

How did you cope with this if it happened to you?

Well it did happen to me and I have to say, long term it was a good thing because it forced me to change my life and do things differently but I would say in the short term:

(1) Have a list of all your expenses so you know where you can cut back
(2) Be prepared (and prepare your DH) to take temp work which is tedious, lowly paid and a bit crap just to make ends meet and hold onto the fact that it's a short term thing
(3) Be prepared also to move sideways in your career, do something completely different and go positively - give anything a go, you never know how much you'll enjoy something until you've tried it for a while and in the interim it's money in the bank.
(4) Avoid obviously taking on extra debt. Check out sites like moneysavingexpert.com and take debt tests and learn about finances, you can quite often save money by having a bit of knowledge.

I hope you never need to know these things.

thank you for your advice

Some advice on the legal side of things see this page

Get him to get his CV up to date. Look around now to see what other opportunities are out there, consider changing your mortgage to interest only in the short term - before you get into debt. Could you increase yourhours? I hope it doesn't happen to him but worrying will not make not happen though so try not to waste too much energy on doing that.

Definitely get cv up to date - show it to a few friends to take a look at it and get their comments. (For most management, office jobs, it should be maximum of 2 pages long.)

Get in touch with network of people - large number of jobs are as a result of knowing someone rather than advertised - if you aren't networking these jobs are not available to you, so by networking you increase your chances. Many jobs never even get advertised, so network is really important to find those "hidden" jobs, or just to get useful information about what's coming up, or about a new industry. Start with his own and your network - friends, family etc, and then get them to refer you on to other people. You are not contacting them "for a job" but say something like - "looking for their advice and any comments on your cv." Have a meeting with them or a coffee and get any advice they have and get them to read cv and give comments. (It's a good way of making sure they read your cv and it might spark a thought!) Ask them if they know anyone else you should speak to - many people will refer you on.
The most important thing is to be clear about what you want, so while I agree that it's great to be flexibile, it's also important to be clear about your skills and the kind of job you are looking for.

Keep busy - action (of virtually any kind) is better than sitting and worrying. So getting up, dressed relatively smartly (not in scruffy sweat pants!), and spending a few hours calling people, having meetings, following up, researching, applying for jobs is the way to go. Then take a few hours off and go for a walk, dig in the garden, take kids to park or something - it gives you energy and helps you stay positive.

If during networking you hear of a company that is hiring, then see if someone will refer you to someone in that organisation to speak to rather than just applying on spec.

My dh went to work on Nov 28th and the whole company was liquidated there and then. No pay, no redundancy package, just given number of job centre!

We are knee deep in paper work!
1 - Call in any bills outstanding, if you own anyone anything you need to know so you can prioritise.
2 - Tell everyone, creditcards, mortgage people, fuel. It's taken us ages to churn through them all, we say 'we plan on keeping up to date but you have been warned, we may need help with some payments'. Utilities can often allow a reduced monthly payment - but they will want it in the end so....it can help but there is always a cost!
3 - Get a file, put in payslips, mortgage details, insurance policies you may have, etc etc pack of envelopes and a dozen pens. Keep it all together. photocopy anything you send anywhere.
4 - Get a note book and make a brief resume of each call to each company, date and who you spoke to. Name and dept.
5 - Look into possibility of taking a mortgage payement holiday [what does 3 more months matter at the end of it when this is happening now!] or moving to interest only temporarily. That way you can breathe a bit and maybe sve funds for very lean times should a job not arrive.

I really hope you never have to swing into 'this is war' like we have had too. I too work 16 hours - have increased to 23 - but am 37 weeks in a fortnight and can't do much more. Janu and Feb are going to be hell with no job and materninty leave etc - so we are taking morgage help, friends help and all sorts to just tick over till something good happens. I really really sympathise. x

So sorry to hear this may be happening, really hope it doesn't. My advice, for what it's worth, is...

Definitely copy everything you send out - the amount of times the Job Centre have asked us to fill in the same forms AGAIN is just daft.

Even though you work, DH should still register for Jobseekers Allowance, he may be entitled to contributions based which will give a little extra for the first 6 months.

Tell the Tax Credit people immediately - their payments have been a lifesaver to us!

Thankfully we have mortgage insurance which will cover us for the first year of unemployment (fingers crossed DH'll be back in work by then). If you don't have any it might be a good time to take some out although check the small print in case you have to have been paying for x amount of time before they will pay out.

And finally... find something for your DH to do so he doesn't drive you up the wall get under your feet

It is terrifying but you need to learn to take each day as it comes, there's not much else you can do unfortunately.

Thank you so much for your advice - I didnt know about not paying your mortgage for 3 months but would this go against you in the future? Also that you could revert back to interest only (Ive only just moved it to a repayment the last few years due to failing endownments!). I am at a fixed rate until March 09.

Tax credits - a joke we are still paying back overpayments until 2010 however if the worse happens we will be entitled to more so will speed things up I suppose.

Ive just done a long list of our outgoings - We dont have any debts however just everyday living such as mortgage, utility bills, poll tax and water rates etc... is a killer. Would the poll tax reduce if only one is working???

Im pretty sure I could increase my hours.

So my hubby would only get job seekers? Im so out of touch with this all - would we not get any help at all?

If you are paying back tax credits overpayment then tell them you can not cope with that level of overpayment due to new circumstances and they have to relook at it. In some cases they can write it off so whilst they won't pay you anything you don't have to pay them anything.

If you are working then he can still sign on and can get up to 6 months dole.

If you aren't working then dole will pay your council tax.

Remember council tax is your most important bill after mortgage as you can go to prison for not paying it. Don't want to scare you but that should be top of list.

Go to cab and they will let you know every benefit you are entitled to.

Tell everyone you pay a bill to what has happened and they may be able to help. You don't know if you don't ask

Good luck

Well you could check on the entitledto website or go to CAB and check what help you might be entitled to. It looks as if the qualifying period for help with mortgage interest will be cut to 13 weeks in January so defintiely get dh to sign on for JSA as soon as it happens. You may also get help via council tax benefit depending on how much you get paid. And tell Tax credits asap.

If it happens be ready for it - and tell EVERYONE asap.

We are getting nothing except jobseekers an possibly and extra £10 week tax credits. Annual income gone from £39k to £16, then lower due to mat leave.

Entitled to no help with council tax etc - as I have the misfortune to work and a, paid over whatever amount, but your circumstances mey be very different so wait and see.

Sometimes wish he'd/I'd never worked! We miss the surestart grant/veg tokens/milk tokens as we are 50p a year too rich.

Good tip pfrom Ladymuck - will persue that today!

My sympathies really go out to any one in this situation. Two weeks ago DH was sent home without any warning saying he was being made redundant, pending his week of consultation. He immediately went to job centre who gave him a number to phone to register all his details for any benefits he would be entitled to. For us a christmas miracle happened. His company ( due to extreme pressure from his manager) decided not to make him redundant after all. We went through absolute hell for a week, spending all day every day applying for jobs on line. Now 2 weeks later he is being called for interviews as a result, so there are jobs about, it's just a matter of knocking on enough doors til one opens.
I will never forget how it felt when he almost lost his job. Any one who thinks their jobs are safe are completely deluded. It can happen to any of us at any time at the moment.
We will never take anything for granted again. his work is only gauranteed til April, but since he went back to work he has heard of so many opportunities in his industry which aren't advertised, definately atrue that it is much easier to find a new job if you are already working

treedelivery
That happened to us as well - on THE DAY we moved in to our first house. We were so deflated walking around our house -we should have been on air. I was 6 months pregnant too.
But, dh was a super star, and found a job quite quickly.

Frenchmumma
Do you have insurance on your mortgage? Sometimes there is a Mortgage Protection on some policies.

Good Luck - crap timing, but try not to get too defeated by it.

Mine was made redundant in November and tbh it's been a good thing, we've pent some time together without the children, got some jobs done, he's been to all the Christmas play's.
You just have to do your best not to worry and not to stress.
I'm not spending a penny more than I have to on anything, have cut out all the non essentials including my car.
DH will take anything come January but for the moment he's enjoying his first break in 16 years [grins]

Re switching the mortgage back to interest only - the lender does have to agree and there is usually an admin fee around £50-£75 but it should not effect your fixed rate and it is worth doing sooner rather than later if your dh does loose his job - doing this for six months is not the end of the world on a 15 or 20 year commitment, I would rather have the extra in my pocket right from the start before you get into money trouble and tby then the difference between IO and repayment may not be enough to make a difference to the financial pressure.

Agree totally with KatieDD - it's not all bad and you need to look at the plusses too - my DH also has got to see the Christmas plays this year and we have spent some time together just us, which is lovely. He has also been around a lot during our baby DD's first year so has a really close bond with her as a result.

You should get council tax benefit, we don't get all of ours paid as I work around 10 hours a week but we get most of it paid which is a great help.

For the first 6 months of his unemployment DH has got contributions based JSA which has worked out around £60 a week, not loads but it does help. It will now go down to income based (as 6 months is fast approaching) so they basically take everything I earn OFF of the basic allowance for couples (around £95 per week) which will leave us with very little .

As for the Tax Credit people, you should still let them know if your circumstances change as they may end up owing you money or be able to halt the repayments of what you owe for the time being at least. DH's unemployment has put us from £10 per week to £140 - as I said before, a lifesaver!

Hopefully it won't come to this but you are lucky that you have some warning so find out as much as you can beforehand just in case and you will be well prepared.

my boyfriend has insured his salary... like he pays roughly £30 a month so in case he loses his job we get around £1600 each month for a year to go towards our mortgage

Not sure exactly about the numbers - i leave him deal with all the finances!

but i think you have to have suscribe this insurance at least a couple of months b4 being made redondant.. obviously..

tbh we are waiting for him to get the sack so we can rent the flat and go on hols for the remaining of my mat leave!!

good luck!

If it hasn't been offically announced buy redundancy cover on the mortgage and if you can income protection insurance asap. That's my only regret we didn't act soon enough. Once it's been announced it's too late even if your DH isn't one of the first to go.
In fact everybody should get it with the economy going down the pan.

While he's still at work, get him to make a note of the contact details of suppliers, customers and any other contacts that might be useful in finding another job.

Don't keep it a secret from your social circle, either. The more people know that he's looking for a new job, the more likely something will come up!

Enjoy Christmas! Remember the best things in life are free!!!

Thank you all sooo much for your advice and best wishes. Im alot clearer now. Just wait and see

When my Dh was made redundant it turned out to be for the best. He was lucky enough to get another job through contacts. He had had no luck through applying to adverts. So "networking" may be helpful. It was mega scary though. The place where he used to work has now closed completely and he feels glad to have left when he did. The place he works now is much smaller and his boss is lovely, really cares for his staff. Good Luck. xxx

My DH has looked into income insurance and can not get it at the mo as he works in Construction. HE has been in his job nearly 2 years and they are doing OK, but his previous company has been liquidated.

There are usually clauses in income insurance - don't pay out if made redundant in the first 3/6 months so you need to check. IMO I don't think for most people they are good value for money - better to put money aside each month for a redundancy fund in a cash ISA etc...

My dh lost his job in October and although we were sure he would get something fairly fast (he works in insolvency ffs - there is loads of work in that area at the moment surely?) we are still waiting.
The first thing you need to do is ring your mortgage provider - ours switched us immediately to interest only, and then the interest rates dropped so that saved us loads (our mortgage is huge and luckily we were on a tracker mortgage). The bank were happy for us to take a payment holiday (and it doesn't effect you in the future apart from extending the life of the mortgage by however many months holiday you have) but we decided to just stick with the interest only and see how it went.
It took me 6 weeks to persuade dh to claim JSA (some stupid pride thing) so we missed out on £360 so send him to the jobcentre immediately.
Good luck!