Protecting yourself and your family from a job loss is one of the most important steps you can take to providing security within your family unit. But how can you do that, exactly?

Stop and ask yourself: If you got fired tomorrow, how would you cope?

Could you cope? 

The more likely scenario in the current economic climate is rather than being fired, your department may be ‘downsized’ – resulting potentially in your redundancy – or business functions being outsourced or centralised in a location far from where you live.

Preparedness for such events can make the difference between weathering the storm, or drowning in it.

Back in 2009 I wrote about my plan for redundancy when I was deep in debt, and this 2-part post is effectively an update to that. Part 2 will look at the things you need to get rolling after you lose your job.

 

Before You Lose Your Job

There are some actions you can take before you lose your job that can help lighten the burden later on. Providing your financial house is in order, it will be relatively simple to do. If you’re just starting out after years of financial ‘head in the sand’ syndrome, it’d be best to set aside a day to go through everything.

 

1. Know Your Redundancy Rights

As an employee you have rights when it comes to being made redundant. You have a right to be consulted during the redundancy process. If your employer is getting rid of 20 or more staff, it must consult with the union or staff representative before even giving notice and should take place at least 30 days prior to notices being issued. If it is shedding 100 or more, it must take place at least 90 days before.

You should also be consulted individually and not just via your union. If this does not happen you may have a case for unfair dismissal (see next heading).

Further help and guidance can be obtained via Direct.gov:

• Your Redundancy Rights
• Entitlement to Redundancy Pay
• Calculate Your Redundancy Pay
• Redundancy Selection & Notice Periods

 

2. Know What is Unfair Dismissal

Unfair dismissal is exactly as it sounds – you lost your job for unfair reasons. There are endless potential examples, but a ‘for instance’ would be dismissing you for becoming pregnant, or refusing to work when it would be against the working time directive to do so, even when so ordered by your employer.

See Direct.gov for further guidance on unfair dismissal.

 

3. Fix Your Mortgage

Within the next 12 months myself and others are predicting a large-ish rise in mortgage rates. We are already seeing a slow rise in the cost of standard variable rates over the last 6 months, and with the Bank of England widely reckoned to be upping the base rate from 0.5%, a steady rise in mortgage rates is inevitable.

Protect yourself from untimely increases by re-fixing at a competitive rate now. Even if the rate is slightly higher than it is now resulting in a slightly higher cost than normal, when the rates begin to creep higher and higher you’ll be sitting relatively pretty than if you’d just remained on the Standard Variable Rate.

 

4. Fix Your Utilities

Similar to your mortgage, utility prices are on the up as well. If you can, shop around and find a good price-fixed deal. This will save you from untimely price rises at just the wrong moment when you can least afford to absorb them.

Dual-fuel deals are usually more cost effective, but don’t automatically assume that to be the case. See my 6 tips to reduce your electricity costs and 12 Tips to Save Water while you’re at it.

 

5. Pay Off Your Debts

Central to any plan to weather a job loss is to make sure you are debt free, or as near to debt free as possible in your circumstances. If your income is drastically reduced and you are concentrating on trying to find new work the incessant worry about how you will make the minimum credit card, loan and car payments will strangle you.

If you have debt such that you cannot hope to even meet the minimums in such a scenario, the non-stop telephone harassment and postal assault will surely drive you over the edge and severely damage your credit score in the process, potentially making finding a new job even harder.

For tips and advice to paying off your debts, head on over to my Get Out of Debt! series to get started.

 

6. Consider Your Next Job

Do you enjoy your current job, or is it time for a career change? Take the initiative and turn the current situation around into something more positive. Even if you are still gainfully employed now, begin looking around for ideas for your next move. You can write your C.V. to specifically target that market to help you get into it and have it ready to go for when the worst happens.

If you have talked yourself into wanting a change that badly, you could do worse than consider sending it in even while still in the employment of your previous employer.

Remember to balance the situation of your current employment against the potential gains of moving employer voluntarily. If you have been with your current employer for more than 2 years you have redundancy rights. If you move jobs, you would give up those rights for the first 2 years.

 

7. Spruce Up Your C.V.

If you have been in the same job for 10 years, it is quite likely that was the last time you looked at your C.V. Think of all the skills you’ve obtained since then. All the extra challenges you have faced in your work and home life that could add value to you as an employee. Dig it out, add your latest and greatest to it and sell yourself!

See the Top 10 HR secrets that will help get you hired.

 

8. Consider Your Health Insurance

If your employer currently provides you and/or your family with private medical insurance, now might be a good time to take the whole family for a check-up, a dentist’s visit and so on. Coverage will likely cease soon after your employment, so it makes sense to check nothing major needs doing before you lose your coverage.

Along a similar vain, if you are provided with a company car or insurance, consider how your transport may be affected by a job loss. You will need to factor in public transport or private insurance costs. If you own your own car there are still ways you can reduce your fuel costs and generally make your motoring life cheaper.

 

9. Review Your Household Budget

While you’re not panicking and running around like a headless chicken, take stock of your finances. What is your current cashflow situation? Do you know where every penny goes? If not then you need to start working out what you spend and when, to have some idea of how you’ll stand with a reduced income.

1. Complete an Online Statement of Affairs to calculate your monthly expenditure.
2. See what can be adjusted, reduced or disposed of entirely
3. Stick to the new budget and save what you free up

 

10. Look for Side Incomes

Any income is better than none at all, and if you can establish a side income stream while times are good, it can help carry you along when times are not so good. Why not start with my 5 tips for upping your income and then branch out from there. It need not be a huge commitment, perhaps taking a few hours a week at most. The point is to start it while you are not panicking about having no income at all.

Would you add to this list? Come share your experience and tips in the comments!

A Preponderance

If you’ve been reading my blog from the beginning you may recall my continual struggle with the idea of whether to continue renting, or to look to buy a house. I’m still no further forward with that internal argument 2 years later,  but my girlfriend planted the seed again yesterday, opening up the whole can of worms all over again.

Essentially we are looking for somewhere to live together that is close to our respective places of employment (perhaps so we can get rid of one car, then?), that isn’t hugely expensive, that is nice, and is relatively quiet. A tall order in a big metropolitan city. We have been half-heartedly looking around for a couple of months now and we have seen a few places that would tick those boxes. Unfortunately every time we have enquired, the property has already been let.

A Spanner In the Works

Last night my girlfriend mentioned her parents have put away some money for her to use as a deposit (trust fund style) to buy, rather than rent. This has thrown the discussion and plans into disarray somewhat. Do we rent? Do we buy? Do we rent somewhere now together, and look to buy after that?

Looking back (1) at some posts (2) I’ve made before on the subject, I’m coming round to the idea that buying may not be such a bad idea any longer. The economy is faltering once more, and there are some desperate sellers out there. We both have excellent credit ratings, and my pre-approved mortgage offer still exists with my bank – although what value it is now at requires a personal appointment to discover.

Do Your Sums

Hundreds of thousands of people are no doubt in this exact same position. The path to clarity is to do your sums as a couple. What are your outgoings (read ‘Know What You Owe‘ for a good starting point in working this out), and what are your employment prospects like? This is a challenging economy; would a drastic change in one of your income streams cause you pain later on? Even with a mortgage, are you certain you’d still be spending less than you earned – even if interest rates increased? Remember in the 80′s recession interest rates shot up to 15-odd percent, causing pain up and down the country.

If you find you will still be comfortable, then what is to stop you? Ultimately house prices may be over-inflated, but there is nothing to say or evidence particularly that this will ever truly resolve itself to the levels I and others have previously predicted. Even during the recession and the years following it, house prices have remained essentially unchanged (but they haven’t increased much either).

A Watched Pot Never Boils

I’m not suggesting you throw caution to the wind. But with careful planning and the right property, you could escape entirely unscathed. I have previously advocated waiting for the massive market correction I and many others feel is long overdue – but 3 years later, it still shows no sign of coming despite conditions being ripe for it to do so.

Sometimes, despite all financial sense, you just have to go with what ‘feels’ right.

My girlfriend and I will look to buy at some point. For now (for speed more than anything), we will continue to look to rent initially. Are you in a similar position? Or have you recently had a similar discussion with yourself? I’d love to see you in the comments!

 

 

 

 

p.s. on an entirely unrelated note, for anyone who is resident in Sussex and likes photography, you might be interested in the photograph I took a few days ago of Hove’s West Pier during Stormy Tuesday!

Earlier on this month I questioned whether to start saving for the sole purpose of buying a house, or going back to renting and continuing with the freedom to both save and invest, once I’ve paid off my debts.

At the time I didn’t have an answer, but I think I have made up my mind.

I will return to renting. Here’s why.

House prices remain inflated. Despite the credit crunch, house prices have not fallen very much at all compared to their explosive growth over the previous 9 years. While the term doesn’t fit precisely, the fact that property prices are reportedly on the increase again after “slumping” in my view is merely a dead cat bounce.

A mortgage is expensive. My generation has all but been priced out of house-buying, and the current bubble house prices remain in keep this so.  Even an interest only mortgage works out more expensive than the equivalent rental cost, and that’s even before taking into account the maintenance costs of buying rather than renting and other sundry ownership-related expenses.

I want to invest. Virtually all sources I have researched agree that financial freedom cannot be achieved by saving alone. If my desire to retire early is to become a reality, my money will need to work very hard for me and I cannot do this while tied to paying an expensive mortgage for an overpriced property. This therefore means that realistically any purchase of a house needs to be entirely made with cash once the market finally relents and corrects (or Gordon Brown stops shoring up the bubble, whichever happens first).

My inheritance may enable this. I hope not to have to cross this particular bridge for a while yet, but my grandmother left me a sum when she died. This was invested further in property by my parents and now (even post-crash) stands at around three times its original value in today’s money.

My father has a reasonable property portfolio that will one day hopefully pass to me, along with a unique liftetime accumulation of rare collectibles that may fetch anywhere from £5 to £1 million at auction depending on the day.

On my mother’s side I also have a share of their existing property.

If the figures I have are even remotely correct, then I have quite a tidy sum of future wealth to be realised at some stage, although the worth of that will vary greatly depending on when it becomes cashable, thanks to inflation. While I hope for the higher estimate, even the lower will enable the purchase of a nice property, with probably 50% still unused. The more left over the better as it’d be an excellent headstart on my compounding goals and investment plans.

All said however, I’m not in the habit of counting money I don’t have so while these figures are comforting, they may as well be written in monopoly money for the moment. The existance of possible inheritance a decade or more down the road does not change the fact I am still almost £5,000 in debt now and have no cash in savings that isn’t already earmarked for debt elimination.

My revised plan then is continue to work my way out of debt, finish my divorce, save hard for a further 12 months while resident with my parents – taking advantage of the minimal overheads that provides – and then look for a small rental property much closer to work. This will enable me to cut my diesel bill considerably as well as cut the time it takes me to get to work and back home.

Is this a sensible strategy? Would you do different?