Relaunch Your Career

This will depend on several factors. If you will need to live on the payment you received, try to put it into the highest no-notice instant access savings account you can, and pay yourself a small ‘salary’ from this into your current account each month to eke it out. If you face significant debt, consider whether it would be worth paying down the debts which are attracting the highest interest rates, aiming to reduce the amount you have to spend each month on paying interest.

If your settlement was very large, say, over £10,000, you may want to put any amount you will not need within a year into a higher rate, notice account, so that you are less tempted to spend it. In this case, take some advice from a financial adviser. It may be that your employer will have arranged for an independent financial adviser to come and talk to you, if a group of you are going under a voluntary redundancy agreement.

If you are close to retirement, you definitely need to take proper independent financial advice. Again, your employer may have made a special arrangement with the Inland Revenue or an independent adviser, so go along to any sessions that have been arranged.

Only if you are certain that you will not need the money – for instance, if you are going straight into another permanent job which is with an employer who is financially stable and secure Link to am I at risk of redundancy? should you blow your settlement on a new car or an expensive holiday, or put it into stocks and shares.