Sympathy tends to run thin from your friends and family when you have been used to earning an excellent salary and benefits package once your ‘dream job’ no longer exists.
They tend to just see the headline figures – forgetting that a fair chunk of this salary disappears to the taxman.
Recent rounds of redundancies have hit higher earners just as much as lower earners – and there is the age old adage that one tends to spend all of what one earns!
So when redundancies kick in, there isn’t always the large pot of reserves that others might imagine.
It’s quite easy to do, that headline rate of £100k is reduced to somewhere closer to £60k after taxes and National Insurance is paid. This still leaves a healthy £5k per month to spend, but by the time that the mortgage and bills are paid on the £ ½ million house there isn’t really a lot left… particularly after the wife has been out shopping as well!
When you initially broke the news about the job, whilst you had expected a rough ride from friends, there was the hope that your beloved might be a little more understanding, but sadly this was the latest in a long line of ‘mistakes’ that you had been responsible for (shouldn’t you have guessed?), so now the pressure is on to find a replacement job to keep the family in the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed.
Now unlike families who live on a more ‘modest’ budget, when your outgoings total £4,000 each month, the savings pot you had been building up disappears at an alarming rate. Sure, you had intended to save more but what with the cost of private school and extra curricular activities it just did not happen.
Looking for a £100k job can take a little while as, unsurprisingly, they tend not to grow on trees. In times of recession there also tends to be less movement in the senior management sector so you are looking into a difficult market.
Three months after your initial redundancy, you decide that the time has come to look for some slightly less senior roles, but soon realise that you are seen to be over-qualified and are looked over for interviews. With six months passing you decide to get involved with a friends business on a self-employed basis, simply to help cash-flow as the debts are starting to rack up!
- Before you know it, there is little headroom left on the credit cards and you are starting to get some difficult phone calls from creditors regarding unpaid bills. It really shouldn’t have come to this, but there now seems no way out…
- Help, however, is at hand.
At Lewis Alexander, our dedicated debt management specialists are uniquely placed to provide professional advice, guidance and ultimately provide solutions to your debt problems. Our advisors deal with your situation in the strictest of confidence and work out what options may be available to you.
- You can call us free 24 hours a day using 0800 018 6868.
With asset-rich customers there are often more options than you may think, and a couple of well-placed sales of valuable items (that antique painting you never really liked) and potentially a secured loan or debt management plan can help set you on the road to financial recovery. We can talk through your situation, listen to the concerns you have and start working on a solution with your creditors that takes the stress and pressure away from you, meaning you can focus on developing your income and spending time with your family.
As long as you have a regular source of income and the thought of putting in some hard work to turn your situation is something that you are prepared for then we can help!
- Call 0800 018 6868, our advisors usually help people find a route to a more stable financial life.
- Remember our advisors are trained and will deal with your situation in the strictest of confidence.
Call free today!
