What can you do

Being redundant means being left with your own thoughts, desires, dreams, and … It’s a good time to think about priorities in your life, what is important and what is the most important. Friends, family, hobbies, health, travel, and etc now can be paid attention.
Where to start and what to do, if you had never been at home for more than two weeks last year, during illness? There are several things that could be done:

1) Continue search for work
2) Family
3) Health
4) Hobbies
5) Friends
6) Education
7) Learning new stuff about home
8) Reading books

It is up to you to settle priorities in this list. Although there is one great thing about being redundant – there is no need in putting priorities to the list, you just can do a little bit of everything every day. J

List of all benefits

Here is the list of all benefits that you can apply for:

Illness Benefit
Disablement Pension (when paid with Illness Benefit or Incapacity Supplement)
Injury Benefit
Invalidity Pension
State Pension (Non-Contributory)
State Pension (Contributory)
State Pension (Transition)
Jobseeker's Benefit
Jobseeker's Allowance
Pre-Retirement Allowance (PRETA)
Farm Assist (FA).
Farm Assist (FA).

Remember for most of the benefits you have to be working legally for more than 2 years at full time job and paying PRSI. You can be EU or non EU citizen to apply for the benefits. Please check all procedures at citizeninformation.ie

Other benifits

If you lost job, but due to the other reason than redundancy you are may be eligible to other social benefits that are proposed by Ireland government, such as:

Jobseeker's Benefit http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/social-welfare/social-welfare-payments/unemployed-people/unemployment_benefit

To qualify for Jobseeker's Benefit you must:
Be unemployed (you must be fully unemployed or unemployed for at least 3 days in 6)
Be under 66 years of age
Have enough social insurance (PRSI) contributions
Be capable of work
Be available for and genuinely seeking work
Have a substantial loss of employment and as a result be unemployed for at least 3 days in 6.

Jobseeker's Allowance http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/social-welfare/social-welfare-payments/unemployed-people/jobseekers-allowance

To get Jobseeker's Allowance you must:
Be unemployed
Be over 18 and under 66 years of age
Be capable of work
Be available for and genuinely seeking work
Satisfy the means test
Meet the Habitual Residence Condition.

Illness Benefit http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/social-welfare/social-welfare-payments/disability-and-illness/disability_benefit

To get Illness Benefit you must have:
At least 104 weeks PRSI paid since you first started work
Have 39 weeks PRSI paid or credited in the relevant tax year (a minimum of 13 weeks must be paid contributions*)

Documents to apply

You will need the following information to complete a calculations and apply online for Redundancy Payments, this information can be found on your P60/P45 form.

Employer/Liquidator Information
· PAYE Number
· Registered Name/Address
· Trading Name (if appropriate)
Employee Information
· PPSN
· First Name / Surname
· Address
· Date of Birth
· Date of Notice
· Date of Commencement of employment
· Date of Termination of employment
· Weekly Hours
· Weekly Wage

Please also see different Redundancy Application forms depending on:

• if you feel that there is a problem with your redundancy payment
• Employer agreed with the employee
• The Employer fills out section A to notify an employee of temporary short-time or lay-off

http://www.redundancy.ie/employee/redundancyforms.html

Redundancy Payments and Recoveries

If you were officially employed for more than two year and then lost your job due to circumstances such as the closure of the business or a reduction in the number of staff. You have a right to apply for Redundancy Payments and Recoveries.

Check if you under following list of requirements to get it:

1) Be aged over 16 years of age
2) Be in employment and paying PRSI contributions, which are insurable for all social welfare benefits. Currently this is only a PRSI Class A contribution
3) Have worked continuously for the employer for at least 2 years (104 weeks)
4) Have been working continuously for the employer for more than 2 years if working part-time.

You can apply online for Redundancy Payments and Recoveries or calculate your payment:
http://www.gov.ie/en/services/redundancy/

Looking for help

Here are some links to the websites that talk about starting business: tips, stories, problems, net working, and etc.

http://www.basis.ie/
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/
http://www.ros.ie/
www.revenue.ie/en/business
http://www.dceb.ie/
http://www.isme.ie/
http://www.idaireland.com/
http://www.liffey-trust.com/
http://www.sfa.ie/
http://www.chamber.ie/
http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/
http://www.cro.ie/

Getting started

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning. Ivy Baker Priest

What your business will be about? Good way to start thinking about it is to analyze your strength, what you can do the best, or what you enjoy doing the most. For example you like making things by your hands such as women bags, homes, decorative elements, cloth, or else. To start your own business you would need photographed examples of things you did, and just load it on gumtree.ie or ebay. Show it to all your friends (because they all may be considered as potential customers), print a paper ad and spread around your neighbourhood.
Even if you know some foreign language fluently, it could be a potential business for you, as long as someone needs to learn that language.

You also may think to start business coming from the raised necessity of the market. For example making grocery shop that would work 24hours, or writing a blog that supports people who being made redundant and bringing ideas about how to find a job. There are a lot of options out there, just look around from the different prospective.

Don’t try to make your business perfect from the first step. Rather develop idea, put effort in it and give people to try it. If you see that number of positive responses are high then you are on the right way. If you are not getting needed number to cover your expenditures, ask people opinion – they will tell you what needs fixing so more people comes. In case you don’t get any success, well it is still good experience, new knowledge and new friends. Maybe your first business start will help you to find the one which will work with the best benefit.

Opening the business

If you cannot find a decent working place for yourself, it is a good time to create new one! Why? Because everything is so cheap now... a lot of people are willing to work free of charge, construction cost and cost of renting office are very small like never. The only question is where to find money for new business. Banks are still giving credits with not very high interest, but now procedures of getting it is much harder. The other way is to find investor, which would donate required amount of money (for that you definitely may want to know at least some potential investors J) or you can simply start business that would require no initial investments (for example in internet or else).

Well, getting started your business in Europe is quite easy, regulations are clear and straight forward. The difficult part is getting idea and courage to start your own business. What if nobody likes your idea? What if you spent somebody’s money and will not have any result? ..... All those are eternal questions with the answers that only you can provide.

Remember that your idea for new business may not be unique (generations pass before people to invent things, so don’t worry if completely new idea of business don’t come to you over night), the important is that it should be useful. Main idea of every business is getting profit, and profit you can get only when people buy your goods or services. And people will buy your goods or services only if they find them useful, interesting, attractive, and innovative. (although due to the current market situation, most of the shopping is now due to the necessity, just keep that in mind).

Is it going to be grocery store, or company that will make wedding dresses; it is up to your skills and market around you.

Getting reach while facing the debt

There is one more aspect of facing the debt problem. One of the famous German financier and coach trainer for personal development Bodo Schefer based on his life experience proposes following solution to the debt problem:

Well, basically it is not a solution but rather question. Where are you going to be or who are you going to be after you paid off all your debt? Simply paying off debt is often not enough. As soon as you finished with all your credits, you would be at the same position as years ago when you started paying off.

Basically the idea is that when you are paying off some amount of money to the various creditors also pay off some amount of money to yourself in order to create safety account. Further on you can either invert that money, or just keep them in bank on deposit account and receive monthly payment. In any case that money will become your security deposit in case of unemployment or illness. You are not just getting rid of the debt but also trying to get rich.

Social help

1) Law consultation http://www.walesco.ie

2) This company helps to manage your debt (basically all steps that are described in book but through agency) http://www.debtrelief.ie/debt-problems

3) Online consultation http://www.claims.ie

4) Help lines for facing the debt http://www.nationaldebtrelief.ie

5) Debt solutions http://www.ifds.ie/

6) The bankruptcy Association of Great Britain and Ireland – 01524 64305

7) Free legal advice http://www.flac.ie/

Course of actions to pay off debt without getting new loan

It turned out that even if you have to pay off every month more than you earn there is still a way how to survive without changing your name and running away to another country (which I don’t think is possible anyway).

It doesn’t matter about the future and how you might get this or that one job. It is now when you cannot afford to repay debt, not what might happen or not at a later date. Don’t make optimistic predictions about the future, deal only with the present. At this point you can do one of two things. You can either let events take their course, which will result in further interest being added until the time of the inevitable country court appearance followed by court costs. Or you can take some actions to stop the process.

1) First you want to start from preparing financial statement. It is very easy, Just put on the piece of paper all your income, min needed monthly expenses (such as food, transport, rent, etc), and all debt payments that needs to be done (make sure you put everything even a small ones, it will help you to see picture in general)

2) Contact all your creditors. You want to ask them to give you: a copy of original credit agreement, the total amount outstanding, what service charges or interest charges are being added each month, the interest rate (if applicable), is there any unemployment or sickness insurance attached to the agreement? (this apply only to loans and credit agreement)

3) After receiving answers, we can now start to make firm offers in an attempt to reduce the debt, or even eliminate it completely. Write offering to repay bills in monthly installments, instead of the full amount outstanding. Be sure that your monthly payment that you are offering to the creditor is the amount that you can actually manage to pay. Even if it is small sum like 5 euro, you don’t want to be seen as not trust worthy when you are not able to pay bigger amount.

4) Write a letter to the companies that gave you loan, asking to freeze interest, making sure the debt does not get any larger. There is no point stretching already tight finances making payments that only just cover interest and service charges, they never actually reducing the overall debt.

5) Your mortgage/rent – there is no reason at all to lose the family home especially, as in most cases, other options are always available. Turn to the Housing Benefit Office, they can help to arrange your monthly payment in terms of housing benefit which cost nothing for you.

6) Contact any other debt collectors you have such as utilities, student loans, credit cards and etc. Remember that most of the credit companies are more interested in receiving their money back rather than taking your possessions (especially now when their market price much lower than it was). Nobody will apply to the court if the amount of money you borrowed is around 200 euro. But if some of the companies want to take your case to the court, there are ways how to survive that situation.

Information provided above is taken from the book by Graham Willmott “Forget debt in 90min”. It is available in central library in Dublin city center. If you have more questions please contact me directly or read the book.

Facing the debt

In recent years, it has been so easy to get involved into debt. Almost everywhere we went; credit companies were trying to convince us to borrow money or buy goods. It felt like there is so much almost free of charge money, and interest rates are very small, and in almost a minute u can join this class of wealthy people by taking some more money in credit. Finance companies and banks have been competing to lend us their money. There were a lot of signs WORRIED ABOUT DEBT? TAKE OUT A LOAN.

Crisis hit with unexpected understanding that money in the world are limited and to get some you actually have to earn them. There was a mixture of strong desire of banks to give us money, so that they didn’t bother with checking credibility of payment; and great desire of people to have more money to spend without deep thinking about possibility of repaying it. (why would anybody bother with such idea, in any case u can take one more loan – suggested credit companies).

With the crisis banks stop giving out so much money and the debts needs to be faced and paid off. How on earth it is possible to do? What if you got redundant and have no more income, should you run into another country and change your name?

Review

In addition to rising unemployment, a number of other recent indicators show the impact of the economic crisis on working people.
Car sales registered in March fell by 64 percent compared to the same month in 2008. Total car sales are expected to be just 60,000, the lowest since 1993. New goods vehicles issued with licences fell from 3,858 in March 2008 to just 915 in March 2009.
Over all areas of retail activity, sales fell 21 percent in the year to February, although this was a marginal improvement on January, when sales fell 27 percent. Even food sales have fallen by 5.5 percent. Some 25,000 retail workers are expected to be laid off this year alone.
The near collapse of the financial system has not stopped personal debt levels from continuing to spiral. The Money and Advice Budgeting Service (MABS) reported to an Oireachtas (parliament) committee that the proportion of their clients with mortgage problems has risen from 18 percent to 27 percent this year, while the average debt on clients' credit card has gone from €3,833 in 2006 to €8,009 in 2009.

What is unemployment?

Unemployment occurs when person is available to work and seeking work but currently without work. There is number of types of unemployment that occurs depending from seasons, business cycle or etc. There are main types of unemployment:

frictional unemployment (that occurs when people quit one job and in process of search for other one), seasonal unemployment (that occurs depending of the season, for example there are more jobs in summer for tourist cities then in winter), structural unemployment (when there is a mismatch between employers requirements and employee skills).

There is a minimum rate of unemployment that every country has and it exists all the time. It happens due to the people who subscribe as the one who search for the job, but never actually intent to work.

According to the CSO (statistic center) unemployment rate started to growth from its normal around 4% at February, April last year. Its continued its growth from 4.8% to almost 7 -8% last year. This year it is started from 9% and already reached 11% last month. (Please see Seasonally Adjusted Standardised Unemployment Rates at http://www.cso.ie/statistics/sasunemprates.htm)

Forecast for 2009 and 2010 Unemployment in Ireland is going to grow up to 17%. Due to the decline in export and moving of the major plants from Ireland (where labor cost is high to the other Eu countries). http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/irel-m06.shtml

Volunteering for company

I called one of the big international companies asking to do volunteering job for them. HR Manager answered “We are right now letting go 300 people, I don’t think we will be hiring soon. But volunteering seems interesting. Check our internship program first...”

Volunteering in the company

Due to the crisis some of the companies stopped hiring but they still need extra hands to do job.
You can choose one specific sector you would be particularly interested in and try to send them your CV with cover letter saying about your desire to work for the company even for free. The only problem with that is that companies may not allow volunteering work due to the information security consciousness.
The best help in this situation would be some acquaintances with in the company who can agree for you with director. One more way includes simply coming with CV to the door of the company asking about job.
Big companies also often have so called “internship” programs, which is organized year to year program that involves hiring people with no experience or students for volunteering work for 3-6 months. Within this program person gets a chance to know about different departments of the company, style of work and get a chance to choose preferable job. Information about internship you can find on the web sites of each company separately or here:
https://www.iesabroad.org/IES/Programs/Ireland/Dublin_Summer/dublinSummerInternships.html
http://www.jobs.ie/Jobs.aspx?Categories=125%2C81%2C264%2C14%2C182&Regions=&Keywords=
http://iwork.iagora.com/jobs/Ireland/Dublin/listing/index.html

Check the web sites of the companies you are interested in, sometimes volunteering job required and it is advertised, like for example here
http://www.manleys.co.uk/careers/index.asp

Volunteering through agencies

There are number of web sites that provide you possibility to apply for volunteering job through them. Just google volunteering Dublin or Ireland and you will find big variety of choices.
I would recommend to look at the
www.volunteeringireland.ie
They have a very nice and understandable interface. First thing you need to do is to register with them, specifying your qualifications and your interests.

They have number of possibilities working in:
Office based environment
With children
Managers
Teachers
Art and Craft
And others

Volunteering Ireland serves like moderator between you and companies that would look for people. Most of those companies connected with different charity projects and organizations. It is a good chance to bring value to people and get working experience.

Remember that to work with children you have to go through special check by Garda. They then issue permit, which is specifically to the certain position and it takes around 7 weeks to get it.

Choosing volunteering work

Since it is not paid job, you would want to make sure that:

1) It is easy for you to get to the place
2) You contribute only part of your time, so you still have time for work search, things at home..etc
3) You are doing work that would be interesting for you or can be added to your CV

There are three main types of volunteering work to do:

1) Volunteering through volunteering agencies
2) Volunteering abroad
3) Volunteering to one of the big companies

Volunteering work

Cons

1. Continuing of getting experience. If you don’t have any experience working in Ireland or in office it is could be a good start.
2. You can certainly indicate your work in CV which is a plus
3. Meeting new people, who know maybe one of them, will be your future friend, husband, employer...
4. Keeping yourself busy cooperating to home sitting
5. Bringing value to the people who in need
6. Opening boundaries to the new possibilities of life (I mean who knows maybe your destiny is to help children of Africa)

Pros

1. Necessity of spending time on volunteering work instead of being busy with search for work
2. You may contribute a lot of time and effort to work that is not paid
3. The work you will be doing would not certainly directly connected with the one you want to

Ways to look for a job

1) Well there is one good way to look for a job – use Internet. Today there are a lot of local and international web sites that would offer you good services. You may check monsters, cvjobs, job..... Every country has its own set of the web facilities. Due to increased demand on job openings (sometimes it is getting up to horrible numbers like for 50 jobs around 4000 CV) you may want to apply every day or at least regularly. It will be around 200 CV you send before getting any respond that would look like invitation to the interview.

2) Volunteering. At first it may sounds weird, but it is actually a great chance to start working, or continue getting experience. You may choose volunteering job for the big companies who are often doing so called “internship” programs, or being volunteer for some charity organization doing office based tasks, that would be under your qualification or close. In this way you will get new experience, keep yourself busy, and meet new people.

3) Attending sport classes. One of the great ways to find a new job is to ask your friend about it. Not every company is hiring, but those who are would rather prefer taking somebody who they may potentially trust (e.g. recommended person from the favourite employee). So you may want to consider be outside of home as much time as possible. You never know where you can meet new friend at the bus or at metro? Attending sport classes (or basically any classes) help to establish friendly relationship with new people even more easier (since you are together in a small room and it is so nice to talk just about everything). New friends, old friends, you may want to let them all know about your situation. Of course they are not going to do your job, but at least may help with directions.

4) Cold calling. This means direct approach to the companies. Not everybody can do that. But it includes calling to the HR managers directly asking for job. Don’t be scared to hear “no, or she/he cannot answer your call, send a message” Probably those poor HR who are still employed continue to receive so many calls every day.... The other way to do it is to print your CV and come directly to the company asking to see HR manager. He/She probably would not meet with you, but at least you will have direct email and tel number and next time could reach him/her personally.

5) Walking. I was very surprised to find that some of the shops puts “Help wanted” at their doors. Who knows, maybe your favourite shop would offer you a job.

6) Art and craft. This is one of the way to find at least part time job for yourself if you are good at art and craft. There are always people who want to have something special for themselves, it is good if you can provide it.

The list may go on... Be sure that you put your CV to as many places as possible (to your local gym, hospital, kinder garden...) you never know who may hire next time but you would want to make sure they consider your application.

Fear to start everything from the very beginning

Sister Carrie is a book by Theodor Dreiser. Story talks about girl from village coming to Chicago to look for work. Interesting was to know: her first work was paid by 4.5$ per week out of this money she would have to pay for table and bad to her sister 4$ per week. Short summery of the book you can find at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Carrie
I was very impressed with the story line of George W. Hurstwood. In the book we see him first being very reach. He was a manager in one of the most famous places in Chicago. Theaters, everyday spending of hundreds of dollars, recognition among famous and reach people of that time – this was his regular life. Then all breaks apart…. He needs to start life all over again. Difference between his previous lifestyle and the one he was about to start was dramatic. Everything that used to bring him so much happiness in his life: money, reach friends, social position, big house, and etc. was now beyond the line he could reach. Eventually he could not cope with new status and commit suicide.
A lot of people who being redundant today would need to start from the beginning (to some extent)… Some of them will agree to work with less salary, some for no salary, and some will choose new education and then start everything from the very beginning. Changes in life are never very easy, especially if those changes for less prosperity in life. It is all comes down to the person’s pride “I used to be… I used to do… I would not do it… because it’s for people from lover class.” Comparison of past and future may hurt a lot. “I am too educated to do this job or to receive such salary, or to work like this….” And realization that you have to do thet hurts even more.
I went through the same feelings when I was reading a book. My previous job was well paid; I had a lot of friends from “higher class”, every night diner in restaurants, expensive dresses, etc. I moved to the other country and now need to start everything from the beginning. My previous successes are not recognized here but ambitions are as high as they were. Being very convinced in myself I did not want to compromise. I thought “I don’t believe in recession, I know I can do it”. But this book opened my eyes. I was so scared that I will end up like Mr. Hurstwood could not help myself stop crying when I read about his death. I thought a lot about it, and decided:
1) It will not happen to me unless I want it
2) I thought about future me. Who do I want to be in future, what to have, what to do…?
3) I decided to start even from very low, because I know where I want to be, so I can go all the way there.
Don’t give up, there is always something you are the best at. And there is something only you can do, so let your dream come true. Even if it means cleaning the floor at the beginning your dream will lead you through, because you worth it!

Please comment:
Do you find it difficult to start everything from the beginning?

Why do need to read books

There are so many sources of information like TV, news, video, word to word stories, so why do we need to read books?
1) Philological research of “British Medical Journal” stated that reading books to kids help them to capture language grammar faster and develop their interest/ curiosity towards world, which in return help them to socialise more easily.
2) American researches stated necessity of reading books through comparing amount of reading poor and reach people do. They found interesting that reach people read in 3 times more than poor people. Maybe it is because they have nothing to do, so they just shorter their time? It turned out that reach people work more than poor (which often are dependent from government support and don’t work at all). Their work requires much more responsibility and working till the work is done (even if it is 2am) is rather regular statement cooperating to poor people who often work from “breakfast till lunch”. Conclusion follows: want to be reach = read books!
3) Books are written by people who are able to put their feelings and emotions on the paper (or at least copy those from somebody else), which is not that easy at all if you try… So when you are reading it’s almost like you are talking with somebody smart. Leaving through personal life experience, learning on mistakes of main characters, and getting your own conclusions about what to do in your life.
Reading helps to educate, enlarges boundaries of understanding and accepting. Often you can find main characters feelings be alike to the one you have, just because most of the books are based on true stories. It makes life a bit easier, when you know that you are not the only one in the world who going through tough times :)

Please comment:
How often do you read books? Do you find it helpful for yourself?

Reading books

Having a lot of free time, I decided to put a little bit more efforts towards education. One of step towards it is reading of the books.
Books in general can be divided in two categories:

1) Those one’s like textbook, that teach us grammar, marketing, physics, how to earn money, how be happy….

2) And those one’s that teach us about life itself: history book, novels, roman, poetry….

There are some nice web sites that will tell you what are the most popular books to read:

www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml
www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html
…………………..and many others

Personally I choose books by the name, contest, or recommendation. I like to read about history, people’s relationships, and just interesting stories.

Please comment:
What is your 5 favorite books?

Why it is important not to give up

As it was mentioned before, first desire to do nothing ends up very fast. I believe every person should be fulfilled in some or other way. It is up to you what to do with your life… Just remember:

No bees, no honey; no work, no money. (Proverb)

Work is life, you know, and without it, there's nothing but fear and insecurity.(John Lennon)

Hard work brings prosperity; playing around brings poverty. (Bible)

Remember that you are needed. There is at least one important work to be done that will not be done unless you do it. (Charles L. Allen)

Hard work doesn't guarantee success, but improves its chances. (B.J.Gupta)

I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work the more of it I seem to have. (Coleman Cox)

Thanks http://www.great-quotes.com for quotes