To wonder why people seem to have a problem with my 'lazy' lifestyle?

[Bumpandkind]

My dp and I both work part time. We don't own but happily rent a nice house. We have a son 4 why goes to school everyday of the week. We don't rely on anyone for money and have just enough for rent, food and a few treats. We can't for example afford a foreign holiday but we like caravan and camping holidays in the uk.
We can't really afford much new stuff but are happy with what we've got and can afford toys for birthdays and Christmas etc.

My days off look like this:
Get up at 5 and play with ds. He is awaiting a diagnosis of high functioning ASD and everyday starts at 5 and its full on play time till he goes to school. The chances of him playing alone or watching tv are zero so it's full on for a while.

I go back to bed after dp takes him to school and surface about 10-11ish

I then potter and do house work, go for an hour or twos walk and just enjoy myself. Ds comes home and it's the usual routine that most parent have in the evening.

The same goes for dp. He works about 4 shifts a week and when off does gardening, cooking and sleeping.
People often make comments that if we worked more we could have so much more but we're happy as we are. The same goes for more children. Ds is a star but as most parent of children with ASD, life can be hectic and unpredictable and we are happy with just the one.

People constantly have to let me know how busy their lives are and it makes me feel a bit guilty that mine isn't.

In my jobs ( I have 2) I see an awful lot of people who suddenly get ill in their fifties and early sixties and often have very little financial cushioning to fall back on. It's always a good idea to have a safety net.

As far as I'm concerned we should all do our bit. There is a work/life balance to achieve but if you can do more you should.

I'm assuming from your income you are likely to take out more from the system than you put in, in terms of taxes.

So, you seem happy to take from health, schooling and all other services but not want to really pay for it? Happy for the rest of us to do it?

I'm not jealous by the way, I'd be bored stiff having so few goals and ambitions in life.

I'd be bored stiff having so few goals and ambitions in life.

How do you know OP doesn't have goals and ambitions? Not all ambitions are work/career related What about relationships, friendships, hobbies, children, wellbeing, home and garden, kindness, politics, health, etc?

Because theyre busy 9-5ers and perhaps don't much like that. Or have to be frenetically busy in other ways. & their soul cant take that you don't have to nor do you share their values sround eork/busy. Im in my 50s, p/t self-employed, kids grown up. I could work more but I dont want to. I make do with what I have and don't intend to sacrifice hobby, leisure interests, relaxation time on the altar of busy. Was corporate for years I cba now. I truly wouldn't give a shiny shit what anyone thinks, if I were you. Their disapproval is their problem, not yours.

Do whatever the hell works for you.
I do think people who try to guilt trip you are simply envious, whether they want to admit it or not.
You sound content with how things are at the moment so stick with it! Why do we 'have' to be frantically busy? Is it a competition? If it is then I'd like to disqualify myself please

(Obviously there are people whose bitterness is understandable if they're forced to work mad hours to make ends meet so for them x)

Not the same as you OP but me and husband work a couple of days a week (me in a minimum wage job that is looked down on by the very people who use my labour ) and people ask really rude questions like it's mind boggling that I didn't make the same life choices as them. You don't owe anyone an explanation for your life, if you get blustery 'but but..what do you DO?' drivel just say 'whatever I want', or 'nothing' with a big shit eating grin.

I have the same work pattern with my DH and it's perfect. We are becoming workaholics in the country and Im not interested in anyone judging us for enjoying time over money.

I think YABU to have this lifestyle if you have to rely on tax credits.

Many families do with working full time (we do) but to make the choice to just work minimum hours and to rely on TC is wrong and indeed lazy.

Your say yourself that your DS is only mildy affected. I have a child with severe LF ASD and work Mon-Fri. I get up 5/5:30 most days. It sounds a bit like a lazy excuse that you have to go back to sleep because of the early morning play with DS.

This is the most sensible post I've read in a while. What a great lifestyle. We are addicted to working to buy bigger homes to keep more crap in. I'm trying to be more like you.

There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village.
As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish.
The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?”
The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.”
“Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The businessman was astonished.
“This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said.
The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day?”
The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.”
The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman.
“I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.”
The fisherman continues, “And after that?”
The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.”
The fisherman asks, “And after that?”
The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!”
The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”. Paulo Coelho

Think the stories changed a bit from the original but same idea. Sounds great what you are doing

If it works for you guys then brilliant
While our youngest two dc were babies and upto reception age one of us worked full time and the other stayed at home.
We worked as a team. We managed on one wage as we cut our cloth accordingly.
Once the youngest was at pre school and then reception we both worked full time hours but I finish to do pick up three days a week and I do drop off every day so I'm here most of the time the dc are here.
We make the very most of weekends and have a lovely house and garden we've spent years creating.
We are very happy with our life generally.
Sometimes the pressures on with our jobs and the dc have loads on but we juggle it and manage.
We make sure we have a holiday of some sort every year (uk) and me and dh are finally starting g to be abled to afford meals and cabs out sometimes on a sat night.
Twice a month we have a breakfast out somewhere as a treat on a Sunday.
We both lay into a pension pot and top it up as and when. We don't have a mass of savings at all due to five years on one wage but we are making tracks with that.
If something in the house went wrong we would find the money to replace it

It took us years to get to this stage. We've had years of living on the wire literally but it is getting easier and I get a little excited each month that I top my pension up,or we pay a bit more off a holiday,or Iike when I finally got the car I wanted for years.
This is how we work. These steps are what we work towards.
Not everyone feels the same way so I think if it works for op for the minute and they are all happy it's a great thing.
Enjoy the time you have together and the things you get to do together.
It's a lifestyle choice and if the op can afford to do it good on her

Just a minute. What if we all had this attitude? Where would the money come from to run the country?

james yes, but is a family unit or individual can achieve this without claiming from the state then great.

I don't agree with the taxpayer funding a lazy lifestyle.
But I am happy with my 15 hours work a week.

James, sadly many do. The amount who want to do little or nothing is astounding and a huge cost to the state.

Teachers can only push students so far, they can't instil a work ethic or sense of self responsibility in people.

There's seems to be no shame anymore having children and choosing actively not to support them. It madness.

It is up to you what you do. You might be a bit scupperred come retirement if you haven't saved or bought a house.
You are then at the mercy of the state, which isn't in the business of providing people with their preferred location to live, nor in the nicest conditions.

I think if you have the time to work more so wouldn't necessitate topping up by the state that would be the preferable option Gwenhwyfar...I'd have thought that was fairly obvious! Having loads of spare time to lie in bed and go for walks while claiming doesn't sit right, especially if the child is at school and more hours could be worked.

As I said, this doesn't come from jealousy as we too both work part time around each other to facilitate home education and have a very leisurely lifestyle, but it would feel wrong to expect the state to contribute to that when there were other options.

Our society doesn't actually require the full time wage labour of every able bodied adult, though. It's really not as simple as that.

For a start, some people cost the state more by working. It's perfectly possible to be getting more in childcare subsidy than you pay in tax, and by no means everyone doing that is in a job where they're going to be able to progress and earn more because they stayed in the workplace. Ie, it isn't necessarily a case of the state investing in someone for a short period, via childcare subsidy, and then reaping the benefits later. Then you also factor in that some of the people choosing not to work/not to work much are engaging in activities, usually in informal care, that would be more expensive for the state if they didn't do them. I don't know that that applies here, but it does in some cases.

Your life would so not be for me OP.

But we're all different thank goodness. Room for us all .

But then I have a fabulous job. Exciting, creative and very well paid ( plus I steer my own ship as a free lancer). And I like the finer things in life ( plus it's extemrly important to me to give my DC financial security and amazing opportunities).

Sounds a lovely lifestyle to be honest and is probably really good for your family but you do really need to plan for the future. My MIL has just had some of her benefits taken away (rightly so!!) She was claiming all sorts because she decided never to work when her kids were growing up and not even when they were grown up because she believes a woman's role is to care for her husband. She has no private pension and she had no savings as her husband retired at 50 as she couldn't bear to be apart from him when he was at work. She then started having health issues and managed to claim benefits now these have been cut she has nothing to live on. My argument is if they had worked when they were younger this wouldnt have happened and it was their choice not to work so it is her own fault that she is finding it hard to survive now. Just make sure u are able to save for the future.

Dh and I both work full time but still only have about £500 in savings and a mortgage which will be paying off into our sixties, assuming we both manage to keep working. We are no more secure than OP really. despite all our efforts. Work pensions will amount to little as we have had various low paid or short term jobs and periods of redundancy,unemployment and raising 3 dcs.

I earn 5x my DH salary. He doesn't have to work if he doesn't want to. He has however been brought up like me to have a work ethic and wouldn't dream of not doing his bit.

To claim benefits when you don't have to is called bone idle. Hope you enjoy lying in bed whilst the rest of the work force carries you and your family.

You could even make a good contribution to society by doing regular and consistent volunteering for a charity.

But you just go back to bed for a lie down.

Just my view and I can see I'm pissing against the wind so I'll go now and take my DD to her music lesson.

To me it sound slike you've got the balance just right for now. At that age, DC, especially ones with SEN, need and want your time and attention more than any fancy stuff. I didn't work when DC were small. We went on very cheap caravan holidays, they dressed in Primark and hand-me-downs. A lot of people disapproved. Now they're teens, I work, and the extra money goes to pay for holidays, after school activities, decent clothes and days out as a family. That's what they appreciate now. You're in tune with each other as a family. If your needs and wants change, I'm sure you'll alter your lifestyle.You sound very happy to me!