Update

I have signed on for unemployment. Its not much. £60 quid a week.

I did apply for some non legal temping work just to get out of the house and for a bit of pocket money. I didn't get anywhere with this. Hmmm strange.

The Bank of England has recently made a cut to interest rates of 2%. So this will mean that we will mean that we are a few hundred quid a month better off as the mortgage payment will be reduced. This plus the dole money will give us approx £400.00 per month extra.

I am looking at 2 job possibilities. One is due to start in December. The other will start in January 2009. They are both locum jobs. Perhaps they will both come off or none of them will come off. Also DH needs someone to help him out with his caseload as one of his staff is leaving at Christmas. I have offered my services as a locum. Not a great move to work with your husband but it will only be short term until he finds a permanent replacement. DH has said that if he doesn't find someone on a permanent basis by Christmas then I can go in and help him out for a few months or so. Actually I quite fancy doing this for a while if I can. DH has the luxury of working in town and his commute is a 2 minute walk and he comes home for lunch every day. I am so jealous of this. So it would be nice to work in town again.

I have decided not to look at working in London for now. I need to make a go of it here. For my own peace of mind I think I need to stop the locum work and find permanent work. I will definitely have to take a pay cut maybe at a rate of 40 - 50% gross. I'm not happy about this but its an example of how terrible the legal market is over here. Apparently there are even more law graduates this year than ever before. I read somewhere that more people are going into law seeing it as a secure industry as opposed to banking. What a joke.

For my health and temper I need some stability now. My focus seems to have changed. I need to have a life until The Escape. If I am earning less money then I will not be hit with 40% tax. So would I really be earning much less anyway? I have realised that running from one gig to another in an attempt to stash away as much cash as possible is not good for me mentally. This attitude was typical of my black and white thinking again. I have come to appreciate that my all or nothing thinking is a symptom of my codependency issues.