To ask how many hours you work?

[Elmoespanol]

I have just started my own business and currently have enough clients to give me around 15 hours of work a week. DH works full time and come home at 7pm every evening. I do everything around the house, everything for our 3 children, but now don't know how many hours I should be working? I am gradually getting more and more clients but not sure how many hours would be the optimum when combining work with my other responsibilities?

We both work 40 hours a week. I also commute 90 minutes each day (45 minutes each way) on top of that.

I work 50 hours a week and alternate Saturdays of 5 hours and I'm self employed.
I don't have a husband and my children have left home so my house is immaculate 24/7. Apart from the cat who kicks litter everywhere

If you want to do everything yourself (house domestics and garden) maybe keep two days aside for these. After that point you may need to start buying in services possibly or start to feel the strain

DH and I both do around 45 a week, but DH is contactable 24/7 and will often spend weekends talking to clients or meeting suppliers.
I'm going down to 32 hours as of this week, but on the basis that I'm contactable on my day off on a Friday which is fine - it also means no drop in pay by agreeing to do this.

37 Hours
Monday -Thursday 6.45am - 2.45pm
Friday - 7.30am - 3pm

DH is our of the house 7:00am until 17:00
Me 7:30 until 18:00

We both work full time on standard 37.5 hour contracts and regularly bring extra work home.

We have 1 school age DS who is in wrap around care, apart from one day a week when GPs pick him up.

We outsource a lot of the domestic stuff, cleaning, service wash at the laundrette etc etc and everything else is divided mostly equally.

Despite us both having similar working hours, this doesn’t always equate to how much energy we have left to contribute at home, hence why domestic life is shared mostly equally.

Both our jobs can be extremely demanding at times, and we are respectful of that, it’s not always easy (I have got up with DS at 7am the past two morning whilst DH has slept in!) but I know he has a lot on, and he would do the same for me.

50 hours a week and sometimes more , very rarely less. BUT I do get the long summer holidays and I like working.

DH and I both work c40 hours. Plus I do about another 5 from home in the evening.
In addition, we both have a 40min commute each way.
DCs are 10 & 13.

about 60 hrs on a good week (self employed single parent). 70+ if I have a bigger workload, about half of this is working from home (class planning, accounts, paperwork) the other 30 hrs is teaching time (dance teacher).

I do get more holidays off though, as I can reduce my teaching hours in school holidays (though I still do a significant amount of paperwork from home when I am off).

We both work 38 hours. Mine is across two jobsi - Mon 9-1 and 5-9, Tues 10-3 and 5-9, Weds 9-5 and 6-10. Thurs 9_1, Fri 10-3. We both have weekends off. My hours were great when the kids were in primary and i could go pick them up. Less.so.now they're in secondary. I'm leaving for my second job when they are getting home
I'd be better finding a 9-5 now but it is handy to have a couple of afternoons off for appointments and house work. When the kids were younger I worked less, I did 3 days for a long time.

I’m contracted to work 34 hours (but worked flexibly around school times so I do quite a bit in the evenings). Sometimes it can be up to about 40 hours but I get paid for it (overtime or flexi hours to use when work is quiter).

DP does about 40 most weeks, but again has flexi time etc so can always make school assemblies and things like that.

We have a cleaner 2hours a week, I couldn’t cope without her (partly because of the chaos 4 children cause, mainly because I am hopeless at tidying!) .

We both really enjoy our jobs, and are lucky to both have a good degree of flexibility.

I have a very flakey/ nasty ExH who uses child maintenance payments to try and control me, so it is important to me to earn enough that his withholding of child maintenance is just an irritation not a disaster.

Me 37.5 .... DH 36 + - that is 3x 12 hours night shift plus extra when required.

We have one DS, who is 7. DH and I both work full-time. I officially work 08.40 - 17.00 (Monday to Friday), but with school drop off/pick up there's an hour's commute each way. DH's job is a little more flexible, as he works in IT and can sometimes work from home, but usually he's in the office from 09.00 - 17.00 at least 3/4 times a week. If he's working on a big project he'll often work in the evenings or at weekends, but as I do the school run he has the flexibility to stay late in work if he needs to. As I don't have this flexibility I often do some work from home too, even though I don't get paid for this and there's no expectation on me to do so. I like to keep on top on my work emails so I know what's going on and what to prioritise when I get into work. Also, if an email just needs a quick reply I'll do that quickly from home. I really enjoy my job and therefore I don't mind working so hard. My manager appreciates my work, and keeping on top of everything keeps me calmer and allows me to focus more on the big stuff in work. Holidays are tricky, as between us we don't have enough leave to cover all of DS's school holidays, so he goes to lots of holiday clubs, which he likes.

40hrs for me. DH took early retirement

32 over 4 days occasionally 40 by choice, 7am starts.
DH 50 to 70+ over 6 to 7 days depending on time of year.

DC are teens. when younger, at times I was SAHP or had jobs with hours ranging from 8 to 20 hours.

All though DH works long hours we are on a farm so he's in and out of home for breakfast, coffees, lunch and dinner. He likes cooking so cooks most nights and will sort most of the domestic stuff out (washing,drying, dishwasher, general tidying, hoovering) when he pops home for a break.
I've often question it, as I feel he like he's doing too much, but he says he's happy and it's relaxing and says it doesn't take long. So I let him crack on. I deal with all school stuff and appointments though, orthodontist, physio, doctors and hospital appointments.

I use to, and still do to an extent, do the running about being a taxi and taking to extra curricular activities, dropping/picking up at friends or in town. Although DH is now spending more time going shopping or Music gigs with them.

sometimes in the past it's been difficult to do whole family days out or activities due to DH hours, but I feel we still fitted in plenty. it's harder now for family days out, with them being teens, as it's not really how they want to spend their time.

Around 35hrs at work although sometimes up to 40. Plus studying. Plus all the house and child related stuff (I’m a single parent).

Pretty hectic 😐. Fortunately my older teens help with stuff in the house such as washing and tidying up.

Me 20 but includes weekend and a couple of evenings and DH 40. Childcare worked around our hours and the hell of my DPs- although DC are now at the age of no longer needing it.

Help not hell (sorry DPs)

Thanks everyone. I suppose when I say how many hours 'should' I be looking to work, it's because I do all of our domestic stuff and everything for the children (3 young primary age) and that works out well, and would likely go unchanged. So taking that into account, I'm trying to work out how many hours would be reasonable on top of my other responsibilities? There is no financial need for me to work, but due to the youngest DC starting school, I used to feel at a loose end in the day. Now I have started working again I feel happy that I am contributing both to family life and financially.

Sounds like you're in the same position as me then op, from your post twenty minutes ago.
I do ten hours per week.
It's enough to not feel guilty that I don't do enough, brings a nice little bit of extra pocket money to the pot, and still affords me some me time to do my hobbies. I feel that 10 hours plus the other stuff, means that I put in the same amount of hours as my dhs 40 hours a week.

Oh, and cos I get my 'me time' during the school day, I'm happy to let dh get first dibs (ish) of an evening and weekends to do his hobbies. Everyone is happy.

I work 30hrs across 3 days, DH works 40hrs across 5 days. I commute 30mins each way, DH commutes over an hour each way.

On my 2 “days off” I care for DS age 13mths.
On a weeknight, one of us takes DS to bed while the other tidies up. On a weekend we just both muck in and split things 50/50.
We’re about to hire a cleaner for a couple of hours once a fortnight to start.

I work 29 hours a week, dh works 32. Dh is a postman so is home for the afternoon school pick up and I do the morning school run apart from Tuesdays when I’m in early so we use breakfast club for our youngest. I generally do most housework as I quite like doing it but dh does the odd bit when he sees something that needs doing and the dc clean up after dinner. I have 3 dc at home aged 14, 11 and 4.