Tricky situation that you are in. Best advice that I can give is stick with your current job until you get your MSc. This will help you out in finding better paid work after this. I also had a family early (wife had a little bump when she graduated) and it is really hard trying to balance job security and paying for everything. One decision that we made was to move to where we had grand parents local who could help with the child care. Whilst its not a short term solution, my wife retrained as a teacher and this helped boost our combined income.

Stick with it as these will be hard times, but the benefits are there in the end (or so I've been told - now have a teenager to deal with )

It's worth thinking about emigrating, but if you do, you need to try and make sure that the job is a long term one. I moved from the UK (where I'm from)>New Zealand (and moved internally)>Australia>US and we'll probably be moving within the US in the next year or two if I manage to get a professorship. New Zealand>Australia was a move I was happy to take and I had a job to go to, plus my boss offered ~AU$5000 in relocation costs. Australia>US was a move I didn't want to take, but my contract was not renewed and contract = visa, so I was lucky to get a job in the US. Unfortunately, my new boss couldn't/ wouldn't cover my relocation costs, which ended up being ~US$12000, which pretty much wiped us out. So, if you do emigrate, make sure you have a relocation package to cover costs, including flights, relocators, visas, medicals, deposits (house, utilties), etc. and make sure you'll be there for at least 3yrs. Also, be careful coming to the US. Our quality of life is entirely hostage to our healthcare coverage and is substantially worse than our quality of life in Australia (although probably equal to what we would have in the UK).

As for finances and controlling them. It's a bitch and no doubt about it. I hate having to be such a tight miserly old git, wearing 2nd hand clothes, not being able to do things for my kids that we should be able to, but it's not forever (at least I bloody hope not) and knowing you can make it from month to month takes a whole lot of stress off. Seriously, look at everything that you do - make your own coffee and lunches, car pool, cut out the nice things (chocolate, bottle of wine, eat meat less) from the weekly shop, transfer your electricity/gas/phone etc to a cheaper utility, put your Netflix account on hold/ downgrade the cable. There are lots of little things you can do that together make a big difference and after a while it just becomes a habit. Not a pleasant one, but useful at least.

Consolidated debt repayments may not necessarily the cheapest option to manage long term debt. I appreciate the desire not to have a credit card to spend on (I have terrible willpower for not doing things myself) but have you considered a balance transfer credit card? Don’t even think of it as a credit card like you’ve been used to spend on – the rates and repayment arrangements for purchases are horrible and you absolutely shouldn’t spend on it for purchases ever. Looking at the appropriate Money Saving Expert article the current best is a Barclays you could get a card with 19 months of zero interest on the debt, with a 2.4% initial fee.

The trick is to shift the debt onto it initially and then cutting the card in two so you can’t spend on it and probably giving it to someone else with strict instructions not to give it back to you, just to make sure. You should always make the monthly repayments and make sure you shift the remaining debt elsewhere when you’re getting towards the end of the interest free 19 months – best to leave multiple reminders for yourself via phone, calendar, whatever (the MSE site I linked to above has a free email/txt alert you can set to remind you for this sort of thing).

I’ve spent a lot of time researching different countries for their future potential as places to live and of the English speaking countries I reckon New Zealand is the best possible place to emigrate to overall. Canada and Australia could be reasonable too, though they have more downsides. For a variety of reasons I would suggest avoiding the US.

If you do not mind living on the ring of fire, then yes. If you have any qualms about possible earthquakes or tsunami in the future, well that is another matter...

_________________
Frogbear is responsible for...
Previous World Eaters
Previous Emperor's Children
Previous Death Guard
Previous Imperial Fists
Previous Chaos Squats

I'd rather live on the ring of fire than in the midst of innumerable deadly fish/snakes/snake-fish/bugs/spiders/bats/assorted spiky things...

_________________
Uti possidetis, ita possideatis.
May your beer be laid under an enchantment of surpassing excellence for seven years!
An online epic force creator: Armyforge

ah, they all just make you tougher

_________________
Frogbear is responsible for...
Previous World Eaters
Previous Emperor's Children
Previous Death Guard
Previous Imperial Fists
Previous Chaos Squats

road accidents and drowning(especially tourists not used to the surf) followed closely by vampire koalas.

unfortunately I've already taken the loan so a balance transfer card can't help (I don't think.....)

Thanks to everyone for their replies and advice, it's been very useful, I wrote the following message to the company yesterday:

"Dear Sarah,

I was extremely excited to recieve your offer of employment, and I thank you for your patience in awaiting my response. I've had a lot to consider, and a lot of research to do in regards to accepting, and while I feel that your offer of £30,000 plus a relocation allowance is respectable, after checking the figures multiple times, I feel that the responsibilities of the position coupled with the significantly higher cost of living in the Guildford area will leave me in a similar situation to the one I am currently in, and therefore I am unable to accept at this time.

if there is scope for negotiation on the salary or if you wish to discuss things further, please feel free to contact me"

I got a response yesterday saying that the head of HR will be in touch today or tomorrow to discuss..... so that's a result of some kind....

_________________
Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

reminds me of one friend who wrote 'but as the job title now includes project manager, with the extra responsibility that implies, I feel unable to accept the current offer.'

HR - ' Don't worry, we can change the job title!'

good luck. Work out how much you need, add 10% and stick to it.

the project management aspect is what I'm nervous about really.....

I do some of it (maybe 20% of my time is spent on management) at my current job, but my passion is for designing and building things, getting my hands dirty and working at all stages of production

the new job will entail some design and prototyping work, but the rest of it is all done by different departments so I'd spend a lot of my time answering emails and chasing suppliers, as well as writing progress reports and attending meetings, although the job title is 'Hardware Engineer' they told me at my second interview that they refer to the job internally as a 'work package manager' and I'm concerned that the role won't meet my expectations of engineering..... I told them all of this and they still offered me the job

_________________
Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

I'm afraid that's "careers" for you - often it's the case that the doers are not the earners

_________________
Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

I found the step from being a worker to being a manager pretty darned brutal. Got there in the end, but the temptation to micromanage was the worst part for me. I wanted to get my hands dirty all the time.

_________________
Tom Webb
Author Page: http://www.newtonwebb.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/thewebb
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thenewtonwebb
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/thenewtonwebb

yeah there's a guy I currently work with who is like that..... he's gotten better recently though as I went off on one at him and told him what I really thought, he wants to be all buddy-buddy now.... there's certainly a skill in managing a manager....

I'm not interested in being a project manager, I'm happy to manage projects, but they're not the same thing....

_________________
Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

Just to say, project management does not always entail people management per se. You might be allocating work, but that's not the same as being someone's line manager.

_________________
Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list