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Sorry, that came out worse than it should have done;-(
Sober again and back in the office. Thanks for the advice/slagging. Both valid.
Appears to be some jealousy on here from people who don't like the fact you earned £100k.
However you need to change your habbits, or you could soon end up bankrupt, and that will sure teach you how to live off peanuts. I agree with what you say about the salary not being relevant, your right it isn't you spend what you get in regardless. However, you DO need to realise you are not earning £100k, and potentially will not do again. To do so at this stage is stupid.
IMO ditch the nice cars eat some humble pie and get a cheap car, and get out of as many regular payments as you can, but keep the one asset you have, your home. To sell now would be stupid.
As to jobs, be grateful your working, many people can not get jobs at the moment and money coming in is better than no money at all.
I currently work a 2hr drive from where I now live, I hate the travelling and I'm not too keen on the job, but to just jack it in at this stage would be stupid, its always better to be earning and looking for a job than to be sat at home doing nothing.
Oh I didn't actually answer the Q..
No money doesn't make you happy. It makes life easier, more comfortable and slightly less stressful, but overall it doesn't make you happy, your friends, family, you make you happy.
Sometimes you just have to think about the pay cheque - some people have no choice.
When my manager was changed last year I thought my job, which I liked a fair bit and was paid well, for would become a lot worse. New manager was someone I knew very well and she's difficult to work with. So I thought about leaving and things did get pretty bad for a while and I'm annoyed about that as I get on well with the other people I work with and enjoy what I do. Trouble is not quite sure where else I'd work - quite happy to take a pay cut to move from IT consultancy to an end-user company if close to home as would love more free time but hardly anyone's recruiting in what I do. Unlike BBB it seems I have always planned for a lower income future and have paid off my mortgage so shouldn't feel worried about things really but do feel stuck at the moment.
I would feel sympathy for you if you hadn’t been in the high earners club(not sure about you but I consider £100K high earnings).
I’m not doing too badly, but I’m not a massive earner, nor am I insulated from the possibility of redundancy in my current job.
So what if you had “High outgoings” and didn’t plan/save sufficiently for a rainy day, hardly at the bottom of the pile are you?
You got re-employed. You’ve basically got a reprieve, where other low earning, hard working individuals who were already dangerously close to the poverty line, have been pushed over it by the recent spate of redundancies.
I had the conversation with my Missus the other day (who is currently on Maternity leave and considering going back early just to make sure we can keep topping up the savings), what if I was made redundant (always a possibility), how long could we survive? We have our savings (intended for a deposit on a house), I reckoned 6 months absolute tops, and we’d be knackered savings wise.
So while we have saved hard and earn reasonable wages but still can’t afford to buy, I’m sure you can appreciate it grates a little when City boys who’ve fallen from one well paid cushy job into a slightly less well paid and slightly less enjoyable job start whinging about job satisfaction.
There’s always someone worse off than you, or in your particular case most of the ****ing country! 🙄
Mean UK salary is £24k, so appreciate what you've got.
Median UK salary is about £18k, so MTFU.
Above £42k, you're in the top 10% of earners.
Money can buy self respect, and toys, and comfort, but it cannot buy happiness. In your case, I'd sign for the next 6 months, but save as much as possible / pay off my mortgage completely. I've worked in crap jobs before, but needed the money to pay the mortgage & bills. It's called life.
Sorry to roast you, but I don't think you appreciate how financially lucky you've been until now.
😕
I'd stick it out. The vast majority of people would prefer to be doing something different with their time wouldn't they? Sometimes you just have to sell your soul.
I have 2 mortgages at the moment. Trying to sell 1 property and we live in the other. Been on the market for 20 months (had a tenant in for 6 of them) and it was meant to complete last week. It's now fallen through. Completely bummed about it as it leaves me with no spare cash each month and after 20 months it's a pain in the arse, not been on holiday etc for 2 years.
I'm a Sales & Marketing Director & the moment & I'd love to do something with a little less pressure, but I can't afford the salary drop at the moment. Just got to tough it out...
Right.
I was made redundant in July. i never earned a great deal in fact i suspect one of WCA's cars cost more than i earned in a year.
My fiance buggered off 10 months ago, i'm paying a mortgage on my own and hoping desperately that my MPI will be passed before i run out of savings.
There is next-to-no work in my former line (light engineering) and i'm trying to retrain as a cycle instructor so i can work with the local authority in their cycling development office. To do this i need to get involved with volunteer work for a few months and in return they will pay for me to do an instructors course.
100K? that sort of money is fantasy island stuff to me, my bloody house was only £33'000 so forgive me if i couldn't give a flying shit about your predicament. I would LOVE to be earning 20% of that right now and i'm having sleepless nights worrying about how i'm going to keep the house.
Quit whining you pathetic little boy.
I went from a well paid job with long hours to becoming a mental case and now realised time to enjoy life was better than the pay cheque. I went for a job i always wanted that pays less and its great, just about pay the bills and keep roof over our heads and am glad i am now in a job thats never likely to be affected by economic factors.
I guess it comes down to how much you value the idea that you MUST have the trappings of someone who earns £100k when you no longer do.
Alternatively, went to funeral yesterday of a lad who were killed in Afghanistan 3 weeks ago, 21 year old and been married 6 months...then my mum called round and informed me that her next door neighbour has had an accident on his bike and is now paralysed and unable to speak. He's only 40, self employed with a wife and family. Somehow, not earning £100k any more doesnt seem that important.
i want neither money nor happiness, preferring contentment and unimaginable wealth instead
Suck it up you nancy. Hope that helps.
Try spending ££££ and 7 years for two red brick degrees in Architecture only to find that numskulls parceling bad debt have killed any hope of getting a job, a rental flat and a car that doesn't squeal when you start it. Normal jobs paying £12-20kpa aren't interested because they know you see it as a stop-gap. 'Friends' disappear. That's a Fu**ing hole, try getting out of that one!
Miserable, just miserable.
Oh and also.................... when you're actually checking down the sofa for coins - that's when you can maybe complain....
I was earning close to £100K in my early thirties. However, I would feel sick on the commute into work on a Monday morning, and really suffered due to being terrible at office politics. The job had been great in my mid to late 20s, but then the whole organisation changed and my job satisfaction went downhill.
I then changed to a smaller company was still stressed and unhappy, so decided to sell up and go travelling. (I know that isnt an option for you as you yourself say you like all the material stuff, have I got that right?)
Well I went to learn yoga for a year in India but got really badly ill in a quite painful way, and had to come back to the Uk to recover. The following year, I ended up in a job with one of the UKs biggest gambling companies, which then took me and our team of 10 people to Gibraltar 2 years later to dodge tax.
So although that was a job that superfically was totally incompatible with my personal beliefs, I stuck with it in order to save up for what I really wanted to do (met a small number of ace people over there including Roper which made it for me).
I'd say focus on what it is you really want out of life while doing the job. It wont last for ever, and someone with the skills and dedication you have to offer should be able to find something rewarding. However, when I look at all the £100k jobs around, I see very little that floats my boat, and the jobs are high stress, long hours and you are never your own boss really, not even the MDs of this world who have shareholders and analysts and bankers to keep happy).
What is it you really want to do?
I was made redundant for the first time in my life in April this year - I'm still looking - but my savings have made a difference. We had no summer holiday this year and were without a car (due to it being a company one) but my worry is really for my daughters for whom the future seems very grim at the moment re. jobs and careers. However, we have good friends and family near by and these are where your values should lie - money isn't everything but you do need enough to get by on.
I was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy, to be calm when you've found something going on. But take your time, think a lot, why, think of everything you've got. For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not.
[i]I like my comfortable lifestyle[/i]
No sympathy here, suck it up and remember how lucky you are, and if/when you get back to that 'comfortable lifestyle' maybe you could spare a thought for the vast majority of people who don't have the choice about doing jobs they love; they just have to go to work to survive, not to buy fancy shit.
You earned £100K, no kids and you have nothing left after 6 months? Tough shit!!!
[i]Serious financial sacrifices in between times.[/i]
diddums
Wow just read this thread all the way through.
After a nanoseconds consideration I would suggest that you are in dire need of a corporate arse raping, redundancy, 1 year old, pregnant wife and mortgage to fund.
That, I found, realigns your perspective on life and relative values.
Until then I am finding it somewhat challenging to warm to you.
I'm not even going to dignify your thread with an answer... oh b*****S just did!
What a brilliant thread for all the wrong reasons!
I worked in a job I disliked until late 2008. I was repeatedly promised partnership and thought I was set for life. I racked up consumer debt a-go-go thinking I never had to worry.
Then I got a redundancy threat, made a decision to go into a partnership and got shafted by someone I thought was my friend. The net result is that all my savings are gone, I have a mortgage, car loan, credit card and student loan to pay. I was unemployed for 6 weeks. I broke down crying in the benefits office. Not real sobbing but enough for the woman speaking to me to stop the interview.
Luckily I got a job paying just under the top 10% figure. I hate it. I hate the people I have to pretend to be friendly with. I hate the office politics. I was strongly considering relocating to another part of the UK for work and commuting every second weekend to see my family.
How I deal with it is to look at it as a means to an end. I am going to pay off as much as possible as quickly as possible so I can consider lower paid jobs and still meet my responsibilities.
At 38 I'm having to come to terms with the fact that I'm now never going to have my own firm which is something I had aspired to for 20 years. I'm having to figure out what alternative purpose my work is now going to have and I have a rough idea forming.
I would love to walk away from it all but I have to think of my kids (4 & 8). My advice is to put work in a box at 5pm and leave it there. I used to work 60-70 hours per week but I'm now doing 45.
we seem to have lost an OP?
we seem to have lost an OP?
Haven't we just!? Behind all redundancies is a story. I was supposed to get married two weeks ago (proposed at xmas) but sh1t happens! Close shave eh?!
We all just have to get on with it...
If in hotels go to the gym for a while. Will make you feel much better.
Cut costs if you can a little without being unhappy to try and save a little. Try to get the most your out of your current work. Keep looking / networking for a better job.
WCA - I think common sense tells you to grin and bear it 🙂
I think there are some (myself included) who feel they don't really like their job but have to stay because of the way things are right now.
This in itself is actually demotivating.
The answer......just plod along, make the best of the situation. I did and have now just secured a secondment in another department within the company I work for (and no rudeboy I can't go biking behind the building in my lunch hour! 😆 )
I feel very lucky to have the chance to be happy at work again and do something I enjoy.
And to those of you that are still struggling to find work, I wish you all the very best and I hope something good comes your way very soon.
WCA- Im only young (22) and i have found that if you dont enjoy your job then you find it hard to enjoy your free time. but you still have bill etc to pay so its 6 of one and half a dozen of the other.
I'm not sure I sure the nihlism of some of the more recent posts.
Until recently I was always very stoical. I knew I wasn't getting much enjoyment out of life but I just put it down to the stage I was at with young kids, medium sized mortgage,fixed costs, working to pay the bank, wife with busy job etc.
However, a friend I was talking to recently asked me what I was actually getting out of how I was living my life. I couldn't really answer him and that started some serious soul searching.
I agree that circumstances sometimes mean you just have to get on with it. However, I think if you are in that sort of situation for too long, the soul starts to be destroyed.
Going back to the OP, I think they key is to dispossess yourself as far as possible. Keep yourself as free of financial burden as possible to free up the choices you have. Don't become a slave or trapped and keep your life as simple as possible. That's my take on the OP anyway.
Drunk in a hotel room in Switzerland it is a living nightmare 😉
Drink less think less enjoy the now.