WWYD?! Is it actually worth me working in London??

[RGPargy]

Ever since I went back to work after having DD (who is nearly 4 now) I have always wondered if it was actually worth my while being at work.

Basically I commute from Kent to London two days a week and it costs me £28.70 each day for a return ticket for the privilege of sitting on the train for 50 minutes each way. Add to that the cost of my childminder (£40 a week), the cost of parking at the station car park (£10 a week) and the cost of paying my friend for having DD from 7.30am and taking her to pre-school with her DS (£10 a week). All this adds up to half of my salary per month. Considering I am left with around £480 a month after paying all this stuff out, i'm wondering if it's actually worth me working in London at all!!

My way of thinking is that i could possibly earn near to that working 2 days a week locally and then top up the rest (if needed) with Tax Credits of some form or another. We currently dont get any tax credits because jointly we earn too much!

I'm out of the house from 7.30am til 6.30pm and it doesn't seem to have any great financial benefit. If i worked locally I could be dropping DD at my friend's at 8.30am and collecting her from the childminder at 5.30pm. A much much shorter day!

A girl at work suggested that i could possibly start later in the day to avoid paying peak hour fares but that would mean staying later at night and i would pretty much not see DD before she went to bed. Although having said that, it is only for 2 days so.... ?

Anyway, WWYD?!!

:o

[Trills]

A few questions/things to think about

1 - Could you actually get a job closer to home? There are not a lot of spare jobs going at the moment. If you do decide to do this try to get your local job lined up before you leave your London job.

2 - You're not just getting the money that you earn, you're also getting NI contributions, pension, etc

3 - Do you enjoy your job? If you do I wouldn't give it up for the sake of 2 days and I would definitely try out getting the offpeak trains even if you did peaktime one day and offpeak the other day

4 - Get a Kindle and make the train journeys enjoyable (you can hold it and turn pages with one hand so you can read even if you have to stand)

[flowery]

It's not really a decision to make unless and until you actually have an alternative lined up though is it? See what's available locally and if there are similar jobs on similar hours and similar money locally, no brainer.

[RGPargy]

Thanx for you replies everyone.

I wouldn't say i actually love my job, as such, but i do love the long pub lunches we go on practically every week. My job isn't busy because they are all so self sufficient so i do find myself at a loose end quite a lot of the time, despite asking others if they need help etc.

It has crossed my mind that if i do work locally i will lose my pension and my BUPA (health and dental) but that's pretty much all i get from the job. We do have STLs but it's not worth it for me as it would cost me more. We dont have gym membership or anything else quite as flash, but i do belong to a gym at home anyway.

Hmmm, perhaps i should start sending out my CV and see what happens. Of course i would definitely not leave my current job before finding work locally.

I do think that being home by 5.30pm would be wonderful - i'd get to spend so much more time with DD! Although as you say, it's only two days a week, so not too much of a big issue but being in London means that DP is tied to getting home on time for picking DD up from the CM, which might always be possible if he's either working away or stuck in traffic etc (he works all over the country on a daily basis and so it's not known where he'll be working from one week to the next).

I suppose there's no harm in getting my CV out there in time for the new year and see what happens?