WWYD? Part time or not?

[FrostyBamboo]

I'm 35. I have two DC and DH. I am not the only earner in our home, but I am the higher earner. We have a joint mortgage.

I have worked FT all my life when not in education. I'm often tired, and struggle with my MH.

I currently work around 40 hours over 5 days. If I were to drop to a 4 day week, it would make a £500 difference per month. This is currently the amount we try to save each month (and often gets pulled back out for car, home maintenance, etc).

If you were in my position, would you do it?

Not if you cannot live without it.

Sorry, to clarify - £500 is what we put into savings each month, leaving us the rest of our earnings for bills, groceries, travel, and general small spending.

I would and have done

I went from 45 hour weeks to 30 hr weeks as the originally higher earner and the drop (around £1k less per month) was worth it for my mental health and work life balance

We manage fine as we don’t splash the cash anyway and DH has had pay rises which have helped in that time

Could you reduce the financial hit by working 4.5 days over 5? Slightly less impact financially, same saving with commuting etc but might still enable you to save a little rather than living payday to payday?

Yes, I would - it gets tougher as you get older, so take the opportunity now.

The thing is, you say that the £500 you try to save each month, is often needed to be brought back out of savings to pay bills, so realistically, you can't manage without that money all the time.

What you need to look at is what your outgoings are, and if you can manage to cut back on those.

I think working fewer days is a great thing, but you need to be realistic about if it would work for you.

The other alternative is looking at ways of reducing your workload at home - would it make more sense to use some of that money to get a cleaner - or more of a housekeeper / cleaner for a few hours every week ? Not just a minimum 2 hours to clean the house, but some extra hours to change the beds and maybe do some ironing (if you iron) or whatever it is that you spend time doing at the weekend or evenings, so that they can actually become 'days of rest' rather than 'days of catching up with everything in the house.' ?
and / or - someone to do the gardening / decorating / etc ?

Can you afford for your DH to do this as well? If not it doesn't seem very fair.

It will cost you a LOT less than £500 a month to get a LOT of help around the house each month, and you will still be contributing to your pension etc. at top rate.

I would certainly consider it. £500 per month into savings is a lot and could be reduced.

Things to consider:

Will you be expected to squeeze 5 days workload into 4 days?
Do you have an existing savings buffer for emergencies?
Would you be able to go back up to full time if you find you are struggling financially?
Will being at home one day a week save money on commuting, food costs etc which will offset the reduced income a little?
Are there other economies you can make to partially offset the reduced income?
What are the implications for your pension, tax, NI etc?

Honestly I don’t think you can afford it if those are your only savings and you often have to dip into the pot for essentials e.g. car maintenance. Unless you can make up the money elsewhere e.g. your DH has an opportunity to increasing his earning potential, you could really cut back on the household spending or you’d become eligible for tax credits or something by dropping hours then sorry but I just don’t see how it’s feasible. Can you look at ways to make things easier at home at reduce stress that way instead? Like a cleaner for 2 hours a week wouldn’t cost too much and makes life so much easier.

Yes, you put it into savings but you say you often pull it back out again. Realistically, how much do you have left over a month?

Would the day off a week reduce childcare bills at all?

Could you try cutting back your expenses first to see how much that will absorb the financial hit?

Can you adjust your lifestyle? Pre DC I spent nearly all my FT wage on goodness knows what. Suddenly, with 1 DC I’m better with money dropping to 3 days...

If it’s viable then go for it.

Some good questions here that I hadn't been clear on.

When we pull back from savings when we need something replacing on the car or home, it's never the full £500 - just some of it. We've got a couple of grand put by as a result. We've always treated our savings as there for emergencies. We don't use it to pay for expected bills; that comes out of the monthly budget.

No childcare implications - both are in school.

We've tried to find a cleaner, etc before but there was only one available in our (remote) area and she wasn't very good, unfortunately. It would have made a difference.

I'm in a field where hours can't be moved around, unfortunately, so it's set days. I have to bring work home with me on a daily basis, so I feel as though having one day at home could give me either a day off, or a day to blitz the work if I feel so inclined to give me my evenings and weekends back.

My thinking is that we're not really living payday to payday as there are things we could cut down on from general spending... but perspectives from others helps!

As for whether DH could do this too - we've talked about this and the big thing at the moment is that he cooks and cleans because I have to bring work home every night. He offered to do this as he doesn't have that workload. If I could cut down on the amount of evening and weekend work I have, I'd like us to be able to share the housework more equally.

Phew! Thanks for all the advice and questions so far. All very much food for thought.

Oh, also - I have a few months before I could drop to PT, but I'd need to request it in advance. As some people have suggested, we could use those months to 'practice' living on a lower income. It's a good idea.

If DH is happy for you to do it and it allows you to share more home time together then yes as long as you can afford it. Give it 6 months and see how it works for you, presumably you can go back to full time in the future if you need to.

Are you looking at doing a pure 4 day week (e.g. 80% earnings) or compressing?

Both DH and I work 4 days per week. I do 32 out of 35 hours and DH 34 out of 37.5. I work e.g. 8 - 4.30 with 1/2 hour lunch break. My salary percentage is 91%, so the drop in salary isn't as much. Also, we are higher rate tax payers (just), so the net drop isn't too bad, as we're not losing 40% tax.

Working a 4 day week is invaluable, I can take my son to and from school and have a much better life balance. Could be worth playing around with hours/breaks to see if you can minimise the salary loss?

Not 'paying' 40% tax.

I'm sorry, I didn't see your response above with more information.

Can these 'set hours' be challenged? Is there even an option to do 10 days into 9 so you get a full time salary but every other Friday off?

I'd always choose part time over full time if money allowed, go for it op.
You'll be able to claim tax credits to help as well.

You can't say that they'll be able to claim tax credits if the OP works part time. That only applies if they are very low earners and it sounds like the OPs wage on PT hours would still be too much.

OP if you are the main earner, you can't really flex your hours and you can't find reliable help, it makes sense if your DH does the lion's share of the work at home, and if more time is needed for this, could he cut his hours back as the financial hit would be less if he dropped to 4 days for example?

He could try and get as much done as possible on his non working day, leaving time free for family time when you're all at home together.

I’d carry on full time. Children get more expensive as they get older and it wouldn’t take long for savings to be depleted if you won’t be able to add to them monthly. If both are at school, then the housework and cooking shouldn’t be that much so get DH to do that at night whilst you work so you can have the weekends free together.

This is all really helpful to consider, thanks.

Hopefully this won't be considered a dripfeed - it's set hours as I work in a school. I'm trying to be vague just to be anonymous!

I'm currently in the 20% tax band, and wouldn't get TC from the drop as far as I can work out.

I currently work evenings and weekends at home, and there's no room to bunch it all into evenings to have the full weekend free without my own kids having next to no attention from me Mon-Fri.

I think I need to discuss this with my boss early; there may be other solutions that I haven't considered.

you can check tax credits here

www.gov.uk/tax-credits-calculator