# Back to college at same time as Kids?



## Dundon (13 Mar 2010)

Age: 40
   Spouse’s/Partner's age: 40

   Annual gross income from employment or profession: 32000
   Annual gross income of spouse: not sure - public service net €4500/month
    Child benefit 485, reducing to 2 children this year
   Type of employment:  private sector

In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving? -saving

   Rough estimate of value of home - Who knows, maybe 550,000
   Amount outstanding on your mortgage: 480,000
*What interest rate    are you paying? *ecb plus .75 currently 1.75% - 2600/mth

   Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc - none

   Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? yes
   If not, what is the balance on your credit card? 

   Savings and investments: 30,000 on deposit

   Do you have a pension scheme? prsa started 2 years ago 5000

   Do you own any investment or other property? no

   Ages of children: 17, 15, 10

   Life insurance: yes 560,000 me 900,000 him


*What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you? 

*My job is evaporating - pay continuously being cut - was earning 72,000 this time last year.  Likely to have no job by end of year.  No prospect of other employment anytime soon.  I am considering going back to college - have always wanted to do it and am not good at having nothing to do.  This will cost 4000  per year in fees for 3 years.  I may get funding and/or some teaching but this is not certain.  Almost guaranteed job if I finish. Will get statutory redundancy only, about 8000, and may be able to do some consulting work for my current employer.  Have 2 children very close to college age and the savings were to finance them.  We live in Dublin so they should be able to stay at home for college.  Our fixed outgoings are 3200 per month - (insurance, esb, phone, heat etc) pared to the minimum - have been expecting to loose job for a while.  Would like some views on whether we will be able to survive financially given that we are likely to have 2 people at college at the same time for the next 3 years.  We spend about 2500 per month now over the fixed outgoings, have been trying to get this down to 2000 but always seem to get a large bill to eat the other 500.


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## circle (15 Mar 2010)

> Will get statutory redundancy only, about 8000


Remember your redundancy may be calculated on your average income over the past few years, so might that be higher?

Would doing a degree by night and working in some capacity by day be an option?


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## Dundon (16 Mar 2010)

Thanks for that.  Statutory redundancy is capped at 600 per week  7 years service, there is no chance that my employer will provide more.  I do intend working while studying but my age is against me in doing anything other than full-time study.  My plans seem to make sense to me but I am worried that I could be pushing my family into financial insecurity.


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