A boringly practical option would be to use a savings offset facility with your mortgage? it will give you flexibility to draw down on the funds if you really need to, but you won’t be paying finance costs for the mortgage.

Ask yourself the question, have you got your head screwed on? Because unless you are bleeding useless you wont struggle in todays market. There are plenty of jobs for people with experience as so few have been trained in teh last 7 years and a lot have retired in that time also.

If you cant find permanent work can you do contract work? Might up your earnings and give you extra skills.

Also, id pay off MOST of the mortgage, but not all. You can always release funds if you still have it but paying a big chunk off is the sensible thing to do and it will stop you getting lazy and thinking i dont need to look for work yet. If you do nothing for 3 years you will struggle to get back in.

Great opportunity though, lucky id say. Being made redundant was the worst thing (at the time) and the best thing (a few years later) that could have ever happened to me.

Bad luck… but most of my mates in their 40’s are all wanting to change job/career/chuck it all in anyway.. The reactions so far on this thread ought to tell you something.

With little/no mortgage, you potentially have the option to have a crack at something you’ve always fancied.

Just remember, you don’t have to be a good little consumer and work for ‘the man’ for the rest of your life…

As a wise man once said

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”.

Good luck 🙂

OP seems to have disappeared – coke and hookers?

OP sounds like an excellent opportunity to me – good luck whatever you decide to do

Mudshark, I did consider that :oops:, but the sensible part of my brain dictated I did not pursue.

Most definately I am worrier!

Simply I had some clear ideas about how the future would pan out for myself and my family and as this is now threatened I am finding it difficult to look forward positively – I typically always get to the worst case scenario and anything less is a bonus.

TBH living and working in the ‘oil capital of europe’ has probably meant being in a comfortable but unsustainable bubble for some years now – wake-up call to me! Those of you up here will know that costs and operations are being assessed and there are certainly impacts along the way.

You also find out that networks, whilst beneficial, can sometimes mean that whilst you are in a certain position within a certain organisation you are attractive but when you are no longer ‘in’ folks don’t view you so attractively.

Regardless, many of you are right – I need to see it as an opportunity and deal with it!

OP you might not realise it now, but many of us would probably do some obscene and degrading things to get a 2 year pay off from our dreary and uninspiring jobs 🙂 Make the most of it and get out on the bike! Good luck with it all.

benz – large american co near the marathon building ? dont take it personally the big companys just see numbers and want to reduce them. It happened here a while back and alot of colleagues got lost in the trimmings – management more than anyone else.

honestly your in aberdeen , you work in oil .

if you wish to remain in oil and know your onions you will have no issues finding a job – no one i know whos been made redundant has struggled – if anything they have flourished and got major wage increases.

Mean while if you wish to retrain – heating engineer. Aberdeens a real struggle to find a heating engineer 😀

fingers crossed for you.

Oh Aberdeen – about the only place where there are sizable projects recruiting contractors like me at the moment – Oracle EBS developers. So far put off making the trip as sounds so far away from home! And don’t fancy being up there in the winter much 🙂 My contract ends soon so will soon have to forget about being picky.

I’m on the outside as regards the actual practicalities of working in the oil capital, but my outside perspective is that while things are getting slimmed and made more efficient, there’s still a ton of work out there; more often assets get swapped around to new players and they will need experienced folk to run them just the same.

I say outside as I was in software development, mostly multimedia, in Edinburgh and since redundancy there, have moved to the NE (outside Aberdeen though) and ended up working in O&G improvement and efficiency software, which has been eye-opening and definitely a hot topic I’d say.

There are – as you’ll see – a fair few NE folk on here as well to provide support – which is important. And take some time for your own interests, then maybe not re-train but take chance to improve qualifications (does your package allow for that as well?)

Good luck, again.

How about going to university and getting a degree in something you are interested in that might help gaining future employment

Should get some funding and depending on what happens probably never need to pay all the loan back.

Benz – You should be OK working in Aberdeen. There’s still way more activity here in the jobs market than most places. If you let us know what you do then we can keep an eye out. Look at contracting too as it may be the best route to a new permy role or you may come to like it.
View the whole experience as an opportunity…seriously!

Been there a couple of times. Takes a while to get over the shock and get used to the idea, but you will do soon I promise!

All part of life’s rich tapestry. Best of luck, you’re already aware that you’ve got a better situation that the vast majority of people who lose their jobs.

🙂

I worked for the 1st 15 years of my career in this sector but in London. Sadly both companies I worked for have disappeared in the subsequent mergers activity, I narrowly missed out on 2 decent redundandancy packages…bah still bitter…

Anyway, what shocked me the first move (early 30s) was when I looked for a job outside the sector I got nowhere, in the rare interviews I got I was asked why on earth was I looking at something different/new company etc. I then applied for a job in the same sector & got it (1st time), good money/easy commute etc.

This job was ok but I was so bored, I just met all the same people from the old job but I was at a different company.

I stuck at this new role for 7 years & left to set my own thing up, never looked back & love it. The big shock now is being self employed I have no-one to blame for messing things up, I miss the mpnthly pay cheque, holiday pay, free pension, office banter…but love the freedom.

Count yourself lucky you have a few years money in the bag, a lot of people get nothing when their employer goes bust. You have the chance to do anything you want so go for it.

I’d suggest you don’t dally in looking for another role. Get onto all the companies in your field that you compete with and get your CV out there.
You could be looking at various scanarios you may have in demand, transferable skills that other companies are willing to pay for or it could be that your experience in a single company and their way of working may mean it could be slightly more difficult to find a comparable position. Bear in mind other people from your firm who will also be looking could be cheaper and easily trained etc. When I worked in recruitment I met many people who took short “sabbaticals” after redundancy and found it hard to find work after being out of the work market for only a few months.

If you have other plans for your career ignore me but if you plan to go back into it I’d strongly advise you get cracking with the job hunt.

Shame this has happened in winter – less daylight hours for riding.

Joolsburger has a good point.

If there’s a big group of you getting the chop, the early bird might get the worm – so to speak.

When I was in a similar scenario, the people who decided to kick back and relax for a good while were the ones who struggled to find work later.

(Can’t comment as to whether they may have been the less motivated ones anyway though)

Worth listening to this?

Radio 4 – Last Day. Redundancy

I just wrote a load of blurb about by redundancy experience this time last year but decided all I need say is that I’ve now be contracting / consulting for 7 months and it’s the best thing I’e ever done work wise.
You’ll be amazed what can be achieved through a little networking.