Your financial runway is the number of months your essential costs are covered. This guide shows how to calculate it and improve it.
Financial runway is accessible money divided by essential monthly spending. It is deliberately simpler than a full forecast, but it gives you one useful number to improve.
A practical way to work through it
- Add cash you can actually use: current account, easy-access savings and confirmed final pay.
- Do not automatically count investments you would be reluctant to sell or pension money you cannot access.
- Build an essential monthly budget.
- Divide accessible resources by that monthly figure.
- Run a second scenario with likely benefits or partner income if applicable, but keep the conservative number visible.
Example
£9,000 of accessible cash divided by £2,250 essential spending equals four months of runway. Cutting essentials to £2,000 extends the same cash to 4.5 months.
Your main options and trade-offs
- Increase cash.
- Reduce essential monthly burn rate.
- Add temporary income.
- Keep redundancy cash liquid until new employment is clearer.
Think in runway, not just redundancy pay
The size of a redundancy payment matters less than how long your household can operate without normal employment income. A £15,000 payment can feel large, but at £3,000 of essential monthly spending it represents only five months before considering other income. At £2,000 it represents 7.5 months. That is why reducing fixed spending and protecting liquidity can be as powerful as increasing the lump sum.
Build at least three runway scenarios: fast re-employment, expected search and long search. Include confirmed notice/final pay and accessible savings. Treat uncertain bonuses, sale proceeds and hoped-for freelance income separately so they do not make the base plan look safer than it is.
Separate the employment decision from the investment decision
Redundancy cash creates an unusual temptation to make several decisions at once: clear the mortgage, wipe out debt, invest, take a break and upgrade something at home. Those may all be reasonable later. During income uncertainty, however, accessible cash has extra value because it buys time and reduces the need to borrow.
A useful order is: confirm what you are legally and contractually due; calculate the tax treatment of each element; protect a realistic cash runway; deal with urgent/high-cost obligations; then decide what genuinely surplus money should do.
Questions to ask HR or payroll
- What is my contractual and statutory notice position?
- How has redundancy pay been calculated?
- What happens to unused holiday, bonus, commission and benefits?
- When will pension contributions stop?
- Is there an enhanced redundancy scheme?
- What is the exact termination date, and when will final payments arrive?
Redundancy facts to check: reviewed 10 August 2026
- In Great Britain, statutory redundancy pay normally requires at least two years' continuous employment as an employee.
- The statutory formula uses half a week's pay for each full year under age 22, one week's pay for each full year from 22 to 40, and one and a half weeks' pay for each full year aged 41 or over, with service capped at 20 years.
- For redundancies on or after 6 April 2026 in Great Britain, weekly pay used in the statutory calculation is capped at £751 and the maximum statutory redundancy payment is £22,530. Northern Ireland has separate limits.
- Minimum statutory notice in Great Britain is generally one week after one month of service up to two years, then one week per full year from two to twelve years, capped at twelve weeks. A contract can give more.
- Statutory redundancy pay can receive favourable tax treatment, but final salary, holiday pay and some notice-related payments can be taxable. Read the final-payment breakdown rather than treating the whole lump sum as tax-free.
- If income stops, you may be eligible for Universal Credit, New Style Jobseeker's Allowance or other support depending on your circumstances and National Insurance record.
Questions to ask before you act
- What problem am I actually solving? Be specific. “I need more money” is vague; “I need to free £180 before the 25th without missing rent” is actionable.
- What changes if I do nothing for one month? This separates urgent consequences from changes that can wait for a calmer comparison.
- What is the full-year cost? Convert monthly payments, fees and savings into annual figures where that makes the trade-off easier to see.
- What flexibility am I giving up? Paying debt, fixing a tariff, cancelling a policy or locking money away can improve one number while reducing your options elsewhere.
- What assumption would make this plan fail? Test a lower income, higher bill, unexpected repair or slower-than-expected progress.
- When will I review it? Put a date in the calendar instead of treating today's decision as permanent.
How to tell whether the plan is working
For How Long Could You Survive Without Income?, success should show up in the numbers and in day-to-day stability. You should be able to explain the next payment or action, avoid creating a new problem elsewhere in the budget, and see whether the position is improving from one review to the next. If the plan relies on perfect months, repeated borrowing or missed priority bills, it is not yet sustainable.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Using normal lifestyle spending instead of survival spending.
- Counting credit limits as savings.
- Ignoring annual bills during the runway period.
- Assuming finding a new job exactly when the runway ends.
When specialist help is worth it
Employment rights can depend on status, contract terms, consultation process and the circumstances of the redundancy. If you think the redundancy process is unfair, discriminatory or not genuine, or you are being asked to sign a settlement agreement, consider ACAS, Citizens Advice, your union or an employment-law professional. For money pressure after job loss, use a benefits checker and free debt advice early rather than waiting for arrears to build.
A simple action plan
- Write down the actual numbers. Use statements, bills and balances rather than memory.
- Separate urgent from important. Deal with serious consequences and deadlines first.
- Compare at least two realistic options. Include cost, cash-flow effect, flexibility and risk.
- Choose one next action. A phone call, cancellation, repayment change, savings transfer or calculator result is more useful than another hour of worrying.
- Set a review date. Revisit the decision when rates, income, bills or circumstances change.
Reviewed 10 August 2026. This guide is educational information, not personalised financial, debt, legal, employment, tax or investment advice. Examples are illustrative. Rules, rates, eligibility and provider terms can change, and some rules differ across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
If your redundancy situation is different
If you expect to find work quickly
Keep the base plan conservative anyway. Recruitment can take longer than expected and a signed offer may start weeks later. Preserve enough cash to cover the gap between last salary and first salary in the new role.
If you expect a long search or career change
Use a longer runway assumption and reduce fixed costs earlier. Training, travel, childcare and interview costs belong in the runway too. Consider whether a planned career break is affordable only after the essential household budget is protected.
If you receive an enhanced package
Separate the contractual enhancement from the statutory amount and check the tax treatment of each component. A larger package gives more options, but it does not remove the need to protect liquidity until future income is clearer.
Make the decision measurable
Before changing anything, write down the starting number you care about: monthly surplus, debt balance, months of emergency cash, annual bill or another clear measure. Then record the expected effect of the action. After one full billing or pay cycle, compare the actual result with the estimate. If the improvement did not appear, find out why before stacking another change on top.
This simple before-and-after check prevents “money admin” from becoming activity without progress. It also helps you learn which changes have the biggest effect in your own household.
