'My world came crashing down': how 2020 took me from a six-figure salary to universal credit

[23rdian]

Sounds the usual fake MSM story although a 100k a year job is 66k ish take home

[longgone]

12 minutes ago, Sour Mash said:

 

HR are basically there to insulate the company from any form of blowback from their employees ... Amazing how many employees think that HR are supposed to be looking after their interests.

Indeed make sure the sacking process is done correctly, the job is redundant not you.🤣

[spacedin]

13 hours ago, satsuma said:

I’d have little sympathy, I had to deal with self centred HR reps in several companies, many are the same and I had nothing but contempt for their shallow attitude which in retrospect she now recognises.  I finally learned staff are just a number to these people and they are more concerned with their next designer purchase that the staff they are trampling over.  Maybe she will learn something from this but maybe not.  I promised myself I would never have a HR department in my company and would do my own dirty work in a humane way.  

Why is she claiming Universal Credit I the first place when she should have enough NI contributions to claim New Style JSA?

At least we know she doesn't have a BTL, interesting how coronavirus may be making many of these jobless people reassess the benefits of having an investment like that..

[scottbeard]

13 hours ago, simon2 said:

There must be something missing from that. Even allowing for a few years illness - surely covered by insurance when mortgage is taken out?

If you earned six figures with no kids, how can being out of work for six months make you run out of money?

Even mortgaged to the max a £400k mortgage costs around £2k a month on SVR.

The article states that she rents.

To be honest, being ill for several years, followed by being unemployed for six months, is likely to drain the savings of quite a lot of people.

Whilst she says she had a six-figure salary in 2019, it doesn't say how long she had earned one for - people are assuming many years, but at the age of 45 it could easily be that she had only just reached such a position when the redundancy came.

Once again I find HPC a strange place, where many posters' first thoughts are that this story is entirely fabricated, or if true it's all her own fault.  Buying designer handbags is her own fault, but not all of it. 

[Bob8]

12 hours ago, 12fixer said:

I thought exactly the same, BTW, she rents, so why not downsize to a little 2 bed in a cheaper area, if she really has had this fear of losing everything she talks about, why have designer handbags that should be money in a savings account for this very event.

Quite.

But, of course it is the people who are friends with the journalists, who typically come from posh backgrounds and appealing to advertisers as a paper for the wealthy.

Twenty years ago, you would have the idea that young people were all having coffees from Starbucks, had cars and foreign holidays was taken for granted in the newspapers.

[satsuma]

8 hours ago, Sour Mash said:

 

HR are basically there to insulate the company from any form of blowback from their employees ... Amazing how many employees think that HR are supposed to be looking after their interests.

Indeed you are correct, but to be fair HR do project the fluffy image which makes people think they are on the employee side 

[regprentice]

18 hours ago, winkie said:

Many on contract work....year at a time hopeful roll over......we are a land of hope, what have we if not hope.....glory well it is up to others to decide that.

Agreed. 

I worked for rbs in 2011 when a rogue member of staff at Hays emailed out a spreadsheet with the day rate of every contractor to all of the contractors - link

There were a few on £2k a day but the vast majority were on £500+ a day (roughly £115k a year after 6 weeks holiday) . Project managers, scrum masters, thought leadership consultants, these are the kind of non jobs of people who, to give a recent example that come to mind, get paid £560k to write a short mission statement to give 'vision' to Public Health England for example. 

Edited September 1, 2020 by regprentice

[hotblack42]

1 hour ago, regprentice said:

Project managers, scrum masters, ..., these are the kind of non jobs

No. These are roles that add huge value when done well.

Most people appointed to them lack some of the necessary skills or aptitude.  I think that's the point you are making & it's very true based on my 30 years in IT. 

One of the most frustrating things in my work life has been seeing impressive people quickly leave for high flying firms.  Being a journeyman developer & analyst I was never good enough to follow them.

Really good people are rare & never stick around in so so banks & insurance co.s.  Big factor in their systems being mediocre at best.

At least you come across a really inspiring individual in IT now & again.  Never met one from HR.

[shlomo]

48 minutes ago, hotblack42 said:

 

At least you come across a really inspiring individual in IT now & again.  Never met one from HR.

HR seems to be pretty women, IT was just awkward nerds 

[NuBrit]

The Guardian is of reasonable journalistic quality, so I would be fairly sure that the story was authentic.My guess is that this person was contracting, that would explain the high salary and why she was let go so quickly. In terms of contracting, £400 a day which is £100k a year wouldn't be a crazy rate for a HR person at all.

It is damning that someone who is 45 should burn through their savings after just 6 weeks. If you were 25, or even 35, I can see how someone in that generation could be skint pretty quick, but to get to 45 and only have a cushion of 6 weeks savings is just ridiculous.

Edited September 1, 2020 by NuBrit

[Roman Roady]

Love the reference to "Bag Lady" when she recounts her thoughts of financial prudence.

[Pop321]

On 31/08/2020 at 12:07, winkie said:

Makes you think....is it better to be the poorest in the best street, or the richest in the poor street?

Definitely the latter. It has been sooooo tempting for us to move several times but we stuck in our home (albeit a very very nice home) for 30 years since we were 21/22. We looked when our house was £250k and anything of a material difference to our lives was £650k plus £30k moving costs and whilst I could do it I decided to save the money. 

It allows me to have a 9 year old car, drink at the working men’s club and keep my old clothes. It who I am, but had we moved I would have been at the golf club, tweed jacket and a new car each year. I am happy with the ‘old man skater dude’ vibe. 

On 31/08/2020 at 12:57, longgone said:

after working 8 years full time i saved up 195k and that was 9 years ago ! and i was earning half or less than her some years. 

and still bought cars went on holidays on the beer etc. 

ok 40k was gifted though. 🤣

i don`t believe this at all. 

I ‘may’ be true and oddly enough I know someone very much like this...HR Director type role. 

Like you I was probably earning half this (although with benefits possibly 75%) and saved everything I could. But enjoyed nice budget holidays all over Europe and several in the US  

Desperate to be made redundant it just wouldn’t happen for me...I couldn’t play the  ‘doing a poor job’ game and I couldn’t get a redundancy break. So when I left at 50 as a retiree, HR were bemused. I needed to evidence financial independence (to illustrate I wouldn’t need to work elsewhere therefore I could keep my slighter cheaper staff products) and they saw I left with over 7 figures in savings including £300k in my added pension. My main pension plus other assets were healthy too.

And the truth is someone with a true bag lady complex, like me, does this....maybe her friends called her bag lady because of all her handbags.😆😆 

A final note is I don’t judge her though. I don’t not use my money as well as I should. I am working on it. 

Without full details it’s tricky to pull her apart but ‘generally’ it looks like she was less frugal with her money than she likes to believe. 

[Pop321]

On 31/08/2020 at 13:46, satsuma said:

Well if she has the average IQ of a HR person its probably 5 figures and she's counted it up wrong. 

Quote of the week. 😆😆😆

[satsuma]

25 minutes ago, Pop321 said:

Quote of the week. 😆😆😆

I do try:) 

[Bob8]

9 hours ago, hotblack42 said:

No. These are roles that add huge value when done well.

Most people appointed to them lack some of the necessary skills or aptitude.  I think that's the point you are making & it's very true based on my 30 years in IT. 

One of the most frustrating things in my work life has been seeing impressive people quickly leave for high flying firms.  Being a journeyman developer & analyst I was never good enough to follow them.

Really good people are rare & never stick around in so so banks & insurance co.s.  Big factor in their systems being mediocre at best.

At least you come across a really inspiring individual in IT now & again.  Never met one from HR.

I have met a genuinely impressive man once in HR. He was an ex-military man, and being untypical probably indicated he genuinely cared about the field. Really gone things done there and then.

[bobbo]

On 01/09/2020 at 00:46, satsuma said:

Well if she has the average IQ of a HR person its probably 5 figures and she's counted it up wrong. 

I’m sure I’ve met engineers who say 6 figures, but mean over £60k

[Si1]

20 hours ago, shlomo said:

HR seems to be pretty women, 

That's so true, completely consistent with my experience.

[Riedquat]

On 01/09/2020 at 07:41, satsuma said:

Indeed you are correct, but to be fair HR do project the fluffy image which makes people think they are on the employee side 

The name's a clue. "Human resources" really sounds like a slave dealer.

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

On 31/08/2020 at 13:30, 24gray24 said:

The guardian was complaining bitterly this morning about a fake news story planted in the press to whip up hysteria over singing rule britannia... 

Is this another example?

And would it count as fake news if she had a millionaire mummy and daddy ( waiting for prices to drop before helping her out with a house)?

That would explain the rental and no savings... 

Something about this story smells dishonest to me...

What are they trying to tell us? Pity the poor little rich girl? 

Often when newspaper stories seem fake it's because they're promoting an advertiser... Isn't there a famous movie about a poor little rich girl; maybe they're doing a remake, and this is the puff piece to promote it...? 

I think this is a story to make the poor/hard up feel better about the financial calamity that is happening to them. They can say to themselves , "it's not my fault my life is rubbish and I am drowning in debt without a job......., look it is also happening to rich people."

 

[satsuma]

2 hours ago, Riedquat said:

The name's a clue. "Human resources" really sounds like a slave dealer.

They are sometimes called "people and culture" now.  Not sure what they do apart from fly the PC flag and give people the boot while staying a hairs breath inside the law 

[GregBowman]

21 hours ago, Pop321 said:

but had we moved I would have been at the golf club, tweed jacket and a new car each year.

If you had played the game - Golf clubs are like a slice of society the scratch players turn up in vans and old  VW Golfs - they have no need for adornments other than their lack of a handicap in more ways than one 😉

Edited September 2, 2020 by GregBowman

[longgone]

On 01/09/2020 at 17:03, Pop321 said:

Definitely the latter. It has been sooooo tempting for us to move several times but we stuck in our home (albeit a very very nice home) for 30 years since we were 21/22. We looked when our house was £250k and anything of a material difference to our lives was £650k plus £30k moving costs and whilst I could do it I decided to save the money. 

It allows me to have a 9 year old car, drink at the working men’s club and keep my old clothes. It who I am, but had we moved I would have been at the golf club, tweed jacket and a new car each year. I am happy with the ‘old man skater dude’ vibe. 

I ‘may’ be true and oddly enough I know someone very much like this...HR Director type role. 

Like you I was probably earning half this (although with benefits possibly 75%) and saved everything I could. But enjoyed nice budget holidays all over Europe and several in the US  

Desperate to be made redundant it just wouldn’t happen for me...I couldn’t play the  ‘doing a poor job’ game and I couldn’t get a redundancy break. So when I left at 50 as a retiree, HR were bemused. I needed to evidence financial independence (to illustrate I wouldn’t need to work elsewhere therefore I could keep my slighter cheaper staff products) and they saw I left with over 7 figures in savings including £300k in my added pension. My main pension plus other assets were healthy too.

And the truth is someone with a true bag lady complex, like me, does this....maybe her friends called her bag lady because of all her handbags.😆😆 

A final note is I don’t judge her though. I don’t not use my money as well as I should. I am working on it. 

Without full details it’s tricky to pull her apart but ‘generally’ it looks like she was less frugal with her money than she likes to believe. 

7 figures at 50 earning 50k a year

Sounds like the dominos fell your way.

[Pop321]

1 hour ago, longgone said:

7 figures at 50 earning 50k a year

Sounds like the dominos fell your way.

The harder I saved and the harder I worked in the job the luckier I got.

Work offered double share saves, share match schemes (tax and NI free) and other freebies. People on my income often said they could afford them....I said (more sensitively than I am now) that I couldn’t afford not to have them, nor could I afford to pay as much tax as they did. 

I need to be a tad careful in my assumptions and it’s something I need to try work out how we did save so much whilst enjoying a goodish standard of living. However,  having just one income bizarrely helped. The money I earned wasn’t mine but rather it was ‘ours’ so I never spent it on ‘me things’. My wife didn’t spend it on handbags or salons because she hadn’t earned it.....our only spending was on family things ie home, holidays and Household. 

The dominos fell in terms of the right initial job choice (luck), no divorce, no redundancy and no ill health. I wouldn’t  say I had good luck but I avoided many of the bad breaks some people unfortunately have. 

[flb]

On 31/08/2020 at 13:41, shlomo said:

I know a lot of people like this, who are now at this point.

If I may ask, what do they do with the money?

I bought a house in 2017, found myself ~212k in debt, I paid it off 2-3 months ago. I've got a family (yes, including children; no, no dog) to support.

What exactly do you spend your money on when you're renting (like that imaginary lady), got no children and you're making 100-200k? How do you end up chased by credit card companies/banks?

What do the people you're talking about do with their money? Cocaine or...?

Edited September 2, 2020 by flb

[regprentice]

7 hours ago, flb said:

If I may ask, what do they do with the money?

I bought a house in 2017, found myself ~212k in debt, I paid it off 2-3 months ago. I've got a family (yes, including children; no, no dog) to support.

What exactly do you spend your money on when you're renting (like that imaginary lady), got no children and you're making 100-200k? How do you end up chased by credit card companies/banks?

What do the people you're talking about do with their money? Cocaine or...?

I too know people like this. 

If they are renting it will be a flash flat in the city centre. New built, steel and glass, concierge, pool etc. My audit manager was complaining during the last heatwave a few Fridays ago - his flat was wall to wall glass 8 stories up and the air con couldn't cope, no other buildings tall enough to block his flat from the sun - the proverbial boiling frog. 

Flash cars. Recently I sat at a bank of 4 desks, the other guys I sat with drove a X5, a BMW435i (wife drives an evoque) and a Range Rover Velar (wife drives a Merc GLC). That's easily £1.5k of lease repayments a month for the couples. 

You can overpay for anything, David Lloyd gyms cost 3 or 4 times a 'council' gym (my old pm paid £110 a month for her and her daughter when I paid £60 for a family of 4), take the train instead of the bus - costs twice as much and delayed once a week, £100+ uber home from a night out, waitrose or tesco? 3 foreign holidays a year for your family and overseas golf trips with your mates most bank holiday weekends. As you life evolves you can subtly change gears barely even realising it. 

Some people get big chunks of cash and it burns a hole in their pocket...constant redecoration, Camper vans, canal boats, weird investments. The guy with the Velar bought a bedsit so his wife didn't have to drive out from his remote farmhouse steading at 1am to pick him up after a night out. 

Incidentally cocaine is rife in some of the tougher pubs where I am. I couldn't get into the toilet last time I visited one local. Mainly working class labourers - doesn't seem to be an expensive or posh drug anymore.