How much was your warchest?

[chineseJohn]

My Mrs bank account is my war chest (she's permie)

[MarillionFan]

As per title, I'm curious to know how big a warchest you guys had when you switched to contracting.

How many months/years could you have survived without a gig?

About 5k

[vwdan]

Depends how you look at it - cash at hand, we'd got about £15k but it was mostly my wifes cash and was all our savings for a house deposit. She'd have killed me if I'd spent it and not recouped it.

As it happened, I was able to walk out of my permie job and into a six week project without even a day off. Then had a few days between that one and the next and life has been pretty good to me since.

[Whorty]

Had about £30k in investments, wife on £60k salary, and was taking VR and netting 7 months salary. We were 1 year from paying off our mortgage. I left the perm role on a Tuesday, interviewed on the Thursday, started work on the Monday. A 6 month contract on 350 a day that then got extended for a further 6 months but at an hourly rate as I was working long hours (this turned out to be about 550 a day).

From then, in 2007, until late 2010 when I took a year off, I was never out of contract (I'd leave one on a Friday and start another the following week). Fantastic times to be a contractor in London.

Cam back from year off late 2011 and again walked into a contract (before we even got to move back into our London flat which we had let out). Apart from 4 months I took off last summer (by choice) I've never been out of work.

This is why I will be retiring at age 55

[washed up contractor]

Had about £30k in investments, wife on £60k salary, and was taking VR and netting 7 months salary. We were 1 year from paying off our mortgage. I left the perm role on a Tuesday, interviewed on the Thursday, started work on the Monday. A 6 month contract on 350 a day that then got extended for a further 6 months but at an hourly rate as I was working long hours (this turned out to be about 550 a day).

From then, in 2007, until late 2010 when I took a year off, I was never out of contract (I'd leave one on a Friday and start another the following week). Fantastic times to be a contractor in London.

Cam back from year off late 2011 and again walked into a contract (before we even got to move back into our London flat which we had let out). Apart from 4 months I took off last summer (by choice) I've never been out of work.

This is why I will be retiring at age 55

Im already retired and its great. I can go to bed at 1 - 1:30am if I want and dont bother getting up until 9:30 in the morning most of the time. If I wake up at 7am and I feel like it, I just roll over and have a doze. Do not miss the daily commute and agent's games one bit. Maaaarvellous.

[BR14]

bugger all, as i recall.
but it was '74 and if you knew how to power up and load the OS, you were never short of a gig

[ChimpMaster]

Im already retired and its great. I can go to bed at 1 - 1:30am if I want and dont bother getting up until 9:30 in the morning most of the time. If I wake up at 7am and I feel like it, I just roll over and have a doze. Do not miss the daily commute and agent's games one bit. Maaaarvellous.

Retired from contracting but not retired from CUK

I do wonder how much I would visit CUK once I've left contracting/IT.

[martinHe]

warchest

I have been contracting for 2 1/2 years now after a lifetime in public and charitable sector. My aim has always been a three months cushion (being 3 months worth of my company paying me). I have been very lucky that I walked straight into my first contracting job within a week of leaving my old employment and have had work ever since without break (other than my holidays). I hope that the 3 months 'cushion' will continue to work for me.

[psychocandy]

About 3/4 pay from redundancy but got gig in first week so quids in.

Warchest at the moment is not great - would like to have 6 months but kids/mrs spend it all. Can't take it with you I suppose.

[Lambert Simnel]

I took the plunge as part of taking redundancy from a long term permie gig, so I was fortunate enough to have 18 to 24 months worth of working cash. I had (and indeed still have) a sizable mortgage, but with enough equity in the house that I could have downsized if required. I was hardly at a risk-taking time of life, however, so I'm not surprised that my approach to entering contracting was more cautious than most here.