When you become a parent your whole life changes, everything is about your little one and no longer about you and your needs. You want to be able to ensure that you can provide for them and give them the very best life possible, which is why when something unexpected happens like you being signed off of work sick, it can feel like a total nightmare and as if you are letting your family down.
Although it’s far from ideal being signed off of work due to an illness or injury, it’s important to understand that there are plenty of ways that you can make coping easier, it’s just a case of ensuring that you know what it will take to get by and get things back on track. Bearing that in mind, below is a guide to the best ways to cope when you are signed off of work sick.
Budget effectively
The first step to coping when being sign off of work sick is ensuring that you are budgeting effectively. The fact is that you will have less money to live on than you are used to, so being mindful of how you spend it and making sure not to overspend it is crucial. Budgeting isn’t easy if you’re not used to it, but with a few simple changes, you and your family can adjust. You may find that smartphone budgeting apps are rather useful, as they can be linked up to your bank account, making tracking what you have been spending even easier. ICredit has an extensive list of personal finance apps.
Look at your options
If you’ve been signed off work sick, you should be getting paid statutory sick pay from your employer or from the government. However, often that isn’t enough to live on, especially when you have a family to care for. If your sickness or injury was caused by someone else’s negligence, like unsafe steps on someone else’s property for instance, then you might want to look into liability info and learn more about whether you could make a claim. You might not want to make a claim against someone that you know but the fact is if their negligence has impacted your health, you have no choice but to do so for the sake of your family.
Look to the future
When your situation is somewhat dire, it’s not always easy to be positive and look to the future. However, the fact is that if you are going to ensure that you and your family have a bright future you need to look to it. It’s not easy being signed off of work sick and it’s easy to fall into a state of depression, but if you can look to the future you should be able to find a way to move past what is happening now and get excited about your future.
Being signed off of work sick is not something that it’s easy to cope with, but the fact is that if you’re not well enough to work, you’re not well enough to work. The good news is that coping doesn’t have to be a nightmare, it’s just a case of knowing what steps you need to take to manage, that’s all.