Jobs gone

Age: 36
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 29

Annual gross income from employment or profession: 75k
Annual gross income of spouse: 41k
Type of employment: Private sector

In general are you:
(a) saving for now,

Rough estimate of value of home 230k
Amount outstanding on your mortgage: 272k 22 years left €1350 pm
What interest rate are you paying? 3.86% fixed to Feb 2015

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? 0

Savings and investments: 35k Cash plus 2 redundancies on the way 25k Gross each approx

Do you have a pension scheme? 36k

Do you own any investment or other property? No

Ages of children: 5 months

Life insurance: Yes


What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
My wife found out last week that she will be made redundant when she goes back from Maternity leave and will be out by Christmas. I found out yesterday that my company will be closing over a period of months starting with an initial clearout this month. This came totally out of the blue. I am not sure when my time will be up but it will be October at the latest and 3 weeks at the earliest. I am not sure what kind of tax comes out of the redundancies. 11 of it is statutory and the rest is lump sum.
Just looking for a few tips on how to prepare myself for the inevitable and how best to use the money we have to get by. Our income will go from 6k a month to €196 a week.

Outgoings are not massive usual stuff Gas Electricity
TV + Broadband €70 a month.
We had 2 company phones and she has a company car and they will go too.

First thing that springs to me is that apart from your mortgage you have no other debt which is great.
Between now and the redundancies and there on in you need to get the best deals out there for phone, tv, switch providers if you have to eg switch EBS to Bord Gais electricity or airtricity. Cut back on luxuries and get used to food shopping on a budget - LIdl and Aldi and any special offers in other stores.
Do you just have tv and broadband with out a land line or do you have a land line to - if no landline you are paying high.
You will get more than 196 a week as you should both be entitled to claim if you have stamps paid.
Start looking for work now, get your CV up to date and referees organised.
With having a fixed mortgage you will not have the option to pay off a lump sum in order to bring down payments, but you will have the money from redundancy to help with payments.

Losing your job is never good but between savings and your redundancy payments, even after tax, you will have around 4 years of mortgage repayments saved.
Info on tax on lump-sum non-statutory redundancy here.