War chest Almost Depleted and Getting Desperate

[BillHicksRIP]

As with the other comments, best of luck riding this out. I was running on fumes after my first contract ended and benched for a while. Had another 9 month layoff but had enough warchest to keep me afloat and now at a point I'll be ok for another lengthy layoff if it comes. That first one was scary times, though. Good luck to you!

[Networker2017]

Mine depleted couple of month back and only just narrowly missed the 0 spare change mark. Then I landed and extended. Never known stress like it.

Wont be playing the waiting game again. Will take anything to keep topping up the war chest.

[Tractor Trace]

Mine depleted couple of month back and only just narrowly missed the 0 spare change mark. Then I landed and extended. Never known stress like it.

Wont be playing the waiting game again. Will take anything to keep topping up the war chest.

I'm getting close and I've never known stress like this either. Each day that passes is another day closer to the zero mark. It's mentally draining at times just trying not to worry or think about all the things that could go wrong. It feels as though I've been looking at every job advert imaginable today! I had an initial "screening" telephone interview for a perm PM job today. The salary is alot less than contracting of course and my heart sank at the thought of possibly going back to permie life again, but if needs must. The comments on here have been helpful on here - people have had similar experiences and come through in the end with a gig...

[56samba]

I'm getting close and I've never known stress like this either. Each day that passes is another day closer to the zero mark. It's mentally draining at times just trying not to worry or think about all the things that could go wrong. It feels as though I've been looking at every job advert imaginable today! I had an initial "screening" telephone interview for a perm PM job today. The salary is alot less than contracting of course and my heart sank at the thought of possibly going back to permie life again, but if needs must. The comments on here have been helpful on here - people have had similar experiences and come through in the end with a gig...

Just treat a permie job like a badly paid contract, take the training budget, the paid holiday, pension contribs, it doesnt mean you can't return to contracting at a later date. I took a permie position for a few years when I moved to the country, wasn't so bad, paid the mortgage. Back contracting now, happy days.

[Hobosapien]

Just treat a permie job like a badly paid contract, take the training budget, the paid holiday, pension contribs, it doesnt mean you can't return to contracting at a later date. I took a permie position for a few years when I moved to the country, wasn't so bad, paid the mortgage. Back contracting now, happy days.

If clients treated permies like badly paid contractors then more contractors would be interested in becoming permies.

i.e. drop the bollox of performance reviews (always an excuse found not to award a decent pay rise), personal development plans (just give them training for the job they are doing or want to do), happy clappy 'team building' buddy systems and events where management pretend to care about the staff, loads of fringe employee benefits that many would prefer to do without and maybe get a slightly better pay rise instead, and all the other stuff only corporate drones looking to climb the 'career ladder' put up with for long.

[ziggystardust]

The longest time I had on the bench was 9 months . The real downside was that the previous contract I was on was meant to be 12 months but the project was canned after 6 weeks. Before that one I had also had 4 months out of work due to a serious accident. It doesn't end there. To make matters worse, repayment of my director's loan was due about 8 months into being benched. Now THAT was a stressful period. Lots of sleepless nights towards the end.

I ended up taking a desk support gig which was less than half of what I was previously bringing in as a day rate. Stuck at that for a couple of months but it barely kept me afloat... I did jump onto another gig shortly after paying a much better rate. Just like a project, you can plan to the enth degree but it doesn't always mean that something doesn't go wrong. When the tulip hits the fan, you do what have to do. Best of luck.

[Tractor Trace]

What's the biggest drop you've taken compared to your usual daily rate and how have do you explain away such a long time on the bench at interviews?

[Lance]

What's the biggest drop you've taken compared to your usual daily rate and how have do you explain away such a long time on the bench at interviews?

£26 a day

I don't. Call it a sabbatical. Tell them your child died. Messy divorce. It's none of their business. You could even pad out the gap with your own company servicing a variety of clients where no single project is worth calling out as a separate piece of work.

[oliverson]

I'm getting close and I've never known stress like this either. Each day that passes is another day closer to the zero mark. It's mentally draining at times just trying not to worry or think about all the things that could go wrong. It feels as though I've been looking at every job advert imaginable today! I had an initial "screening" telephone interview for a perm PM job today. The salary is alot less than contracting of course and my heart sank at the thought of possibly going back to permie life again, but if needs must. The comments on here have been helpful on here - people have had similar experiences and come through in the end with a gig...

You need a reality check. Try threats by the revenue and your bank to wind up the company, try massive arrears on corporation tax and VAT, try getting kicked out of your contract property rental, try 2 days away from holiday home repossession, try 1 payment away form main home repossession, try car repossession, try giving second car back before inevitable repossession, try debt counselling. Fortunately I was in a strong relationship because that could have gone wrong as well. All down to naivety and failure to plan ahead, financially, assuming things can only get better and never worse. What you do learn though is that when you are down, everybody wants to give you a good kicking, makes it even harder to get back on track. It can take years on end to get back into financial shape. Maybe 10 or so depending on your situation. But, you do get there and I can assure you that you will come out of it far stronger. I call it character building. You've just reminded me that I need to go back to the Revenue and refer to our conversation of several years ago when their agent said I 'did not have a viable business'. Show them the c £ 1.2m turnover in the years since then and ask her if she might stand corrected.

[simes]

You need a reality check. Try threats by the revenue and your bank to wind up the company, try massive arrears on corporation tax and VAT, try getting kicked out of your contract property rental, try 2 days away from holiday home repossession, try 1 payment away form main home repossession, try car repossession, try giving second car back before inevitable repossession, try debt counselling. Fortunately I was in a strong relationship because that could have gone wrong as well. All down to naivety and failure to plan ahead, financially, assuming things can only get better and never worse. What you do learn though is that when you are down, everybody wants to give you a good kicking, makes it even harder to get back on track. It can take years on end to get back into financial shape. Maybe 10 or so depending on your situation. But, you do get there and I can assure you that you will come out of it far stronger. I call it character building. You've just reminded me that I need to go back to the Revenue and refer to our conversation of several years ago when their agent said I 'did not have a viable business'. Show them the c £ 1.2m turnover in the years since then and ask her if she might stand corrected.

The thing is with this kind of response is that someone, somewhere, will have been in a worse still situation than you, and tell You that you need a reality check.

Everyone has their own worst experience. It just might not be the world's worst.

At the end of the day, I am not sure telling someone at their lowest that they could still be lower, helps. Or maybe that's why EastEnders is so popular. No matter how crap you're feeling, right there on TV, people are worse off...