Feel too guilty to work a 3 day week

[sailfree]

Bit of background. Have worked my way up to a fairly good salary and am now in my late 30s. I went down to a 4 day week after maternity leave when DC were smaller and have stayed on 4 day week, they are now in primary school. I always wanted to do a 3 day week for a better balance but DH was still training and earning very little so it wasn't possible. He now has a salary that is a lot less than mine but still makes a big difference to us.
I have always found my job stressful, draining and tiring as it involves a lot of responsibility. I would still love to go down to a 3 day week as I think it would affect me less, I would be happier and have a better balance. However, my DC would be in school for most of the day on my two days off. The salary I take home would reduce by a quarter. And I feel massive guilt every time I think about doing this just for me.
Am I nuts to feel bad? Nuts to consider reducing my hours at this stage? Can any wise mumsnetters give me some perspective?
Thank you all.

What financial impact would it have on your family?

If you can afford it and it's better for you, it might be best to reduce your hours.

If you can afford it, do it.

Dd is in year 11 and I do three days a week. I have no plans to increase my hours even when she's left home! I also find my job really stressful. Dh muttered something once and I said I was happy to go f/t but it would be in Tesco where I'd earn less money for being full time. He shut up then.

All I can say is that I would, like a shot, if I could afford to, and I don't even have children to 'justify' it. As long as you're confident you are financially OK in the long term (pension etc) I would go for it. You could always increase your hours again in the future if you needed or wanted to.

Well it's unlikely it would be reduced by a full 1/4 as you would pay less tax as an overall percentage (due to tax free allowance). Would you make any saving on wrap around childcare/cleaner/dog walker?
I'd say do it but you may want to feel it is a good financial decision too.

What does your dh think ?
Would the job still be as stressful or even more so if you end up with the same work load over 3 days ?

( are you a teacher )

It would mean a reduced income of around £600 per month. We earn more than we spend so no hardship would be involved. But we have been overpaying our mortgage, partly because I don't feel I can stay in fairly well-paid but stressful job forever and that would reduce if I earned less. I also think things like, I could save that money for a college fund for DC instead of having an extra day at home. So although we can afford it, I am willingly earning less and I feel guilty doing that when its not to stay at home with small children. At the same time, there are SAHMs that I meet at school and I think, wow great for you! I don't judge them at all.

If you look at it from a selfless POV, you would have two days when the kids are in school to do the boring household admin and chores. So then you have more family time at weekends and in the evenings.

If you can afford it then do it

Do you have the option to make your 3 days longer so the reduction isn't as much? Only asking because in my work some people do 3 x 9 hour days instead of 7.5 hours.

I'm not a teacher but I work in a health-related role so similar issues! Its true I would not earn a quarter less as I would pay less tax. We don't have a cleaner as I feel too guilty about spending money on that when I don't work full-time.

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions and things to think about. I might be able to go for a middle ground and do 3 days one week and 4 the next, so go down to 3.5 but longer days wouldn't really work in my role. I have thought that family time would be better quality if I was on fewer days as I could "run the house" on those two days and bloody relax for once on the weekend instead of spending it catching up on jobs and trying to recover from the week.

When I was pregnant with DS I worked a four day week in a 9-5, Mon-Fri job and I requested to return on a 3 day week contract which although they initially agreed upon they changed their minds two months before I was due to return.

I handed in my notice and got another job which involved me working three days a week but still full time which meant I was out the house for 14 hours on the days I worked. On those days I only saw DS for about 20 minutes in the morning (he was 10 months old when I returned to work) and if I had to work two days in a row it was so hard not really seeing him for 48 hours.

However, the four days a week I got to spend at home with him outweighed the negative of hardly seeing him for the other three.

DS is currently three so my 4 days off a week are all spent looking after him but I imagine when he starts school I would probably feel guilty for having so much time to myself whilst DH worked 5 days a week.

Are you saying you want to reduce your hours because you don't enjoy your job and feel stressed but would feel guilty about doing it for just that reason?

As has been asked, would the drop in salary have a huge impact on your lifestyle? Have you discussed this with your DH and what does he think?

Yep. Two days a week for cleaning, food shopping, any random chores, maybe some meal prep/freezer stocking. Will mean weekends for family time not housework and less stress on evenings on work days.

What does DH think? What if he also decided/wanted to work 3 days a week?

I would do a proper budget and look at what you would gain and what you would lose. It might be a really good balance or you might find that being at work only 3 days really reduces how much contact you get with the rest of the team and in some ways it increases your stress as you are always catching up/being updated on patients/picking up someone else's weird idea of care IYSWIM Or there might be an amount of savings you both feel comfortable to have, and then you could stop. But it may be that you only have intermittent opportunities to do this, in which case fair enough. Would your DH's salary go up in the reasonably near future, for example?

I would want to reduce my hours mainly because I find my job rewarding in many ways but definitely stressful. I had some time off on holidays recently and I really thought about the effect on my health of long-term stress. Yes I would feel guilty for doing it for that reason. Mostly I grit my teeth and get on with it and keep going. Its hard to say, this is too much when I can manage, just wondering if managing is the right way to live my life going forward.
DH would be supportive of me reducing hours if I really wanted that as I have supported him through lean earning years and re-training etc. He also sees the difference in me when working and not working. He would prefer the additional income but he would not oppose me doing it.

Do you manage staff? Just a word of warning as when I did three days a week it was really hard for the whole team. They didn't feel that I was there enough to see everything that was going on and I was on constant catch up. I felt I missed out on a lot at work doing 3 days a week and had less value. 4 days a week was fine - made all the difference to me. But it depends on your long term goals. Would you consider doing 4 days and getting a cleaner so that your one day off a week was really yours - no housework. Worked a treat for me when kids were younger.
I've now gone full time to get my next step up and I do miss my days off.

I can't possibly ever truly "keep up" at work on a four day week as that's the nature of the role. If I was there 3 days I think it would be easier in some ways, as I would be more clearly part-time. There is no work culture of being contacted out of hours or expected to stay later on the days you work so I would feel I could keep it to three days.
I guess one of the things that is keeping me there is the idea that we can pay down the mortgage while I earn more, build up more savings and be better set up for the future. But that feels a bit like living in the future and not making the most of life now. Sorry if I am rambling here and I really appreciate the posts.

Bearing in mind how long we all have to work now, it is definitely important to think about longterm health. I find my job stressful (much less than yours, though it is health related) and when I think about having to do it full time for another 19 years, I have a bit of a gaspy moment.

I do think it's important to work to live, not live to work. TBH it is not likely that you will do only a few errands on those other two days (though fine if you did) - I bet that within a few months you'd have another project on the go.

What are your dh's options for increasing his income? (sorry to go on about this!)

Its interesting that people keep raising DH's income and probably a sign that I don't think about that enough. He earns about half of what I do. I don't think, given the field he is in, that there is massive potential for that to greatly increase. I am fortunate in the sense that I trained at a relatively young age in a specialist area and can get a decent salary whereas what he does is just generally less well-paid overall. He works very hard but I don't see him catching up or overtaking me in terms of earnings and that has always meant that I feel a certain pressure to keep the money coming in, for bigger things like the mortgage and savings.

This is a really tricky one, really tricky. I work 24 hours compressed over three days and pick up one day per we'll freelance as often as I can.
I think you should stay 4 days per week, get a cleaner (I have! Every other week) and then have a plan for the "surplus" money. Over pay mortgage, invest in pension, save for family experiences and holidays. Do that while you still can because who knows what the future may hold?
Perhaps rather than drop a whole day, you could cut short each day? Maybe by an hour?
Good luck with your decision and sorry I think you should stay at work, but for me there's a special angle to be able to over pay mortgage. That's what I'd love to do.

I have said this before but from the viewpoint of our late fifties, the happiest are those that work three days a week.

He also sees the difference in me when working and not working. He would prefer the additional income but he would not oppose me doing it.

About 6 years ago I was in a very stressful job and it got to the point where I dreaded going in. I would sit in my car in the car park and not want to get out and then most days I would go home crying. I reached a breaking point.

DP (now DH) could see how desperately miserable I was and said I should get a new job. I looked around and found one that was less hours and meant about a £500 drop in wages but was obviously going to be much less stressful. DP was fully supportive of me because he knew I couldn't carry on as I was.

If you have your DH's support and your lifestyle wouldn't be affected too detrimentally then I would absolutely make changes to make you happier. Life is too short

By the sounds of everything you said, I think a 3 day week would definitely benefit you and your family. And definitely nothing to feel guilty about. You'd have better quality family time now which is far more important than building a college fund and perhaps being a stressed mum in the process. Live in the now and create a happy you and a happy home.

Thanks scifi I appreciate your thoughts. I have been leaning more in that direction too but I have ridiculous guilt about paying a cleaner!! I can't get past this idea that I shouldn't pay someone to do something that I can do myself. But it would certainly take the pressure off. I have found overpaying the mortgage motivating, it is a tangible goal and if it was much smaller than it is, I would feel less guilty about earning less.