how low can I go?

[expat]

I found myself looking at a permie job, where I fitted all the keywords, but the salary was, after tax, just about enough to pay the mortgage and no more. Not good because I do have other bills (e.g. council tax) and a little bit of credit to service.

Oh well, I thought, maybe I could take it for a year and hope things get better.

Then I looked at it: I've just turned 58. It's on the cards that I might only have another 10 or so good years of life (after that I'll be pushing 70). Do I really want to spend one of them merely existing?




Now, you in your 20s or 30s: it doesn't hit you so hard, but the question is the same for you. Throw it away, and you will never get it back either.

[pzz76077]

I found myself looking at a permie job, where I fitted all the keywords, but the salary was, after tax, just about enough to pay the mortgage and no more. Not good because I do have other bills (e.g. council tax) and a little bit of credit to service.

Oh well, I thought, maybe I could take it for a year and hope things get better.

Then I looked at it: I've just turned 58. It's on the cards that I might only have another 10 or so good years of life (after that I'll be pushing 70). Do I really want to spend one of them merely existing?




Now, you in your 20s or 30s: it doesn't hit you so hard, but the question is the same for you. Throw it away, and you will never get it back either.

Some money is better than no money??

You could always work behind a bar or at B&Q in the evenings/weekends to make some fag money. I hear that B&Q prefer old folk as they know more about house decoration etc and can help customers all the better...

PZZ

[Fred Bloggs]

Sad that we've come to this. Commiserations. At 52 I'm lucky to have the mortgage etc all paid off, zero debt.

[Sysman]

Ask yourself if it's better than sitting at home doing nowt.

On the other side of the coin I took a permie job in the early 1990s just to pay the bills and do little more than exist, and definitely regretted it.

[Archangel]

Sad that we've come to this. Commiserations. At 52 I'm lucky to have the mortgage etc all paid off, zero debt.

I'm nearly 50, have a 200k mortgage to service and no contract.

[expat]

It is better than nothing, no doubt. What I was getting at was the realisation of how little time I have left, how much of a waste even one year would be.

[Fred Bloggs]

I'm nearly 50, have a 200k mortgage to service and no contract.

with knobs on.

[Fred Bloggs]

It is better than nothing, no doubt. What I was getting at was the realisation of how little time I have left, how much of a waste even one year would be.

I hope things pick up soon for you. What field are you in?

[expat]

I hope things pick up soon for you. What field are you in?

Snap to Archangel.

Field: Siebel. Data Migration. Oracle PL/SQL. Database & data load & interface performance tuning. Plus another 19 years of various: Client/Server. Windows App GUIs, Credit card mainframe systems, COBOL CICS MVS etc, IBM Assembler, RPG, ...... nothing of any value now.

[Fred Bloggs]

Snap to Archangel.

Field: Siebel. Data Migration. Oracle PL/SQL. Database & data load & interface performance tuning. Plus another 19 years of various: Client/Server. Windows App GUIs, Credit card mainframe systems, COBOL CICS MVS etc, IBM Assembler, RPG, ...... nothing of any value now.

Oh dear, that's Chinese to me. I hoped you were in engineering I might have been able to help. Hope it picks up soon.