How long will my redundancy money last?

Start with money you can actually spend

Use estimated net package value rather than the gross number in the redundancy letter. If you intend to clear debt immediately, decide whether that money should come out of the runway pot before you divide by monthly spend.

Keep known one-off costs separate so they do not quietly eat a month of runway later.

• Estimated package after tax and National Insurance
• Cash you already have available
• Debt you genuinely plan to repay now
• Essential monthly household and personal spending
• Known near-term costs such as insurance, travel or professional fees

Use more than one spending scenario

Run one number for normal spending and another for a leaner version of the next few months. The point is not to scare yourself into living on toast. It is to see which choices materially change the time available.

MoneyHelper notes that people often aim for an emergency fund covering three to six months of spending, but there is no single correct runway target.

Be thoughtful about debt

High-interest debt can be expensive to carry, and MoneyHelper notes that repaying it often makes sense. But there are important exceptions, including interest-free or very cheap borrowing and debts with early-repayment penalties.

Runway is partly a maths question and partly a liquidity question. Keeping cash available can be valuable when income is uncertain.

What the number is for

Runway is not a countdown to disaster. It is a decision-support number: it tells you how much time the current plan appears to buy and what happens if spending, debt repayment or the package changes.

DunDunSee lets you model that alongside the package rather than treating redundancy pay as an isolated lump sum.