The Broken Ankle Test: Could Your Household Survive Six Weeks on Sick Pay?
We insure the boiler. We insure the phone. Some of us even insure the washing machine, which feels optimistic given what it goes through. But almost nobody has stress-tested the one thing most likely to knock a hole in the household budget this winter: a person being unable to work for six weeks.
A fall on wet leaves, a slipped disc, a chest infection that turns into something worse, a planned operation that lands in December. None of these are dramatic. All of them are common. And all of them come with a payslip that looks nothing like the one you budgeted around.
The bit nobody reads until it happens
Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) is the floor, not the ceiling. A few things worth knowing before you need them:
- There are waiting days. Traditionally the first three qualifying days of sickness are unpaid before SSP kicks in. That's a chunk of a week gone before anything arrives.
- It's a weekly rate, and it's small. At the time of writing it sits just under £120 a week — roughly a fifth of what an average full-time wage pays. Rates move each April, so check gov.uk rather than trusting a figure you read in November.
- It runs for a maximum of 28 weeks. Fine for a broken ankle. Not fine for anything longer.
- Your employer may be more generous than the law. Lots of contracts offer company sick pay — often full pay for a period, then half pay, then SSP. This is the single most useful thing you can find out this week.
- The rules are shifting. Changes to waiting days and eligibility have been on the government's agenda, so don't rely on how it worked for a colleague two years ago. Confirm the current position.
If you're self-employed, agency staff, or on a zero-hours contract, the picture is different again — and often harsher. Assume nothing.
Six weeks, run through real numbers
Let's use a household where one of two earners brings home £1,900 a month and the other brings home £1,500. Household net: £3,400.
Now the earner on £1,900 snaps an ankle on the way to the car.
| Normal six weeks | Six weeks on SSP | |
|---|---|---|
| Earner A net | £2,630 | roughly £600 (allowing for waiting days) |
| Earner B net | £2,075 | £2,075 |
| Total in | £4,705 | £2,675 |
A gap of about £2,000, landing over six weeks, with Christmas somewhere in the middle of it.
Now the outgoings. Mortgage £1,150. Council tax £180. Energy £155. Water £42. Broadband and mobiles £68. Insurance bundle £55. Car finance £210. Minimum debt payments £130. Food £480. Nursery or childcare £620. Fuel £140. Subscriptions £38.
That's around £3,270 before anyone has bought a coffee, and it doesn't pause for a poorly ankle. Some lines will fall — commuting fuel, the meal deal, the Friday takeaway — so call it £2,900 of genuine unavoidable spend against £2,675 coming in.
It's not a catastrophe. It's a slow bleed. And a slow bleed is exactly the kind of thing that ends up on a credit card at 24% APR and takes eighteen months to clear.
The costs that get forgotten
Three things regularly catch people out:
Pension contributions. If your employer's scheme is salary sacrifice, contributions usually continue while you're on company sick pay. Drop to SSP and both sides may stop — which quietly costs you more than the missing wage in the long run.
Minimum payments don't negotiate. Lenders will sometimes offer a payment holiday, but interest usually keeps accruing. A 'break' is a deferral, not a discount.
The hidden extras of being ill. Prescription charges, travel to appointments, taxis because you can't drive, a bit more convenience food because nobody can stand at the hob. Budget £50–£100 for it and you'll be roughly right.
Run the twenty-minute test this week
Do this tonight, before anyone falls over.
- Find your contract. Search your emails and staff handbook for 'sick pay' or 'absence'. Note the exact entitlement: how many weeks at full pay, how many at half, when SSP starts.
- Write down your household's true monthly essential spend. Not your budget — your last three months of actual bank statements. Essential means it still leaves the account if you're in bed.
- Work out the six-week income drop. Take the affected earner's net pay for six weeks, subtract what sick pay would actually deliver, and note the gap as a single number.
- Compare the gap to your savings. If the gap is £2,000 and you have £600 accessible, you have a £1,400 problem.
- List three fixed costs you could pause or cut within 48 hours. Gym, a streaming stack, a car you barely use, a phone contract out of term. Not to cancel them now — just to know they're available.
- Check whether your mortgage or any loan has a payment holiday option, and what it costs in interest. Useful to know; rarely the first move.
- Write the answer on one line. 'We could cover five weeks. We'd struggle at six.' That sentence is the whole exercise.
What to do with the answer
If your test says you'd sail through, brilliant — leave it alone and go and check something more interesting.
If it says you'd struggle, three levers, in this order. First, build or top up a small dedicated buffer — even £500 changes the mood of a six-week illness considerably. Second, ask HR directly and in writing what your entitlement is; people routinely underestimate their own company sick pay because they've never looked. Third, trim the fixed costs now, while it's a choice rather than a scramble.
Income protection insurance exists and can be genuinely useful for longer illnesses, but it's a paid product with exclusions and a waiting period, and it's not the right answer for everyone. Look at it with clear eyes rather than fear.
The point of this isn't doom. It's that a broken ankle is a nuisance, and a broken ankle plus a £1,400 hole is a bad winter. Twenty minutes with a bank statement and your contract tells you which one you're facing.
