If you could take only unpaid leave, how much would you take?

[forinborin]

Out of interest. I am at the moment on a contract where any time off I can take can be only unpaid. Really struggling to persuade myself to book more than one or two odd days for the summer break, but immediately start thinking about it in terms of opportunity cost / money lost.

So... would you take your usual amount of annual leave, if you had to take it unpaid (assuming that the overall level of compensation is maintained).

When I was an employee I had 30 days' holiday plus Bank holidays plus bridging days plus the time between Christmas and New Year (we had flexi-time and our hours were calculated so that all the non-statutory holidays were worked in advance). As a result I almost never used up my entire holiday allowance.
Now I am freelance (and earning considerably more) I take from 3 to 4 weeks off in one go, although that is project-dependent, once a year for my holiday (long-haul).
However I do not have any dependants, so never need to factor school holidays into the equation.

I'm self-employed so unpaid leave is my normal!

I've always just bumped up my day rate to cover void periods. I tend to assume that I won't work for around one-third of the working days in any given year. I then work my day rate out to make sure it brings in enough to cover my outgoings, save some, spends etc.

This includes up to six weeks of holiday time, because that's how much I want.

"forinborin

maddening

On a contract you should account for holidays and sickness as part if you wage, so your hourly wage should be much higher than an employed person, is this not the case for you?

Yes, that's true - I don't have any grievances as to the pay level, it is excellent. My issue is within my head on this topic, just need to talk myself into accepting that yes - I will be throwing money"

In that case, yes it is your mindset you need to address. Work out how much of your pay is attributed to holidays, sickness etc and apportion it. You are not throwing money, you are looking after mental health and spending time with your loved ones.

Do you not proportion your pay over the year to account for annual leave etc? Same with uniforms? We all know we need the money for them come summer etc.
Trying to, but I rarely have more than 3 month contracts, so proper advance planning is difficult. Used to have some savings, of course, building back up now.

Yes, that's true - I don't have any grievances as to the pay level, it is excellent. My issue is within my head on this topic, just need to talk myself into accepting that yes - I will be throwing money away if I go on holiday.

I look at it as it's not throwing money away but that the money I would have earned is accounted for in my contract rate. So it's not unpaid leave as such. If that makes sense. I view it as my daily / contract rates allows up to 6 weeks per year leave and if I want to take them in summer I can! Helps me feel better about not being paid. Lol.

My issue is within my head on this topic, just need to talk myself into accepting that yes - I will be throwing money away if I go on holiday.

You need to start looking at it differently. Plan your time off at the start of the year and put money aside each week/month to cover those weeks.

I'm self-employed and set my rates so that I'm covering time-off, sick days, snow days etc. My rate is higher than an employees wage precisely because I have to account for those things.

I take an additional 5 weeks a year unpaid on top of my 6 weeks paid leave. Covers the school holidays nicely. Once I've averaged my pay over 12 months and taken into account reduced tax and reduced (almost non-existent) childcare bills, I'm barely £50 a month worse off.

My work has peaks and troughs. It is entirely flexible as long as the job is done. I cut down to just about a day a week over the summer, maybe spread over the week and work intensively the rest of the year. It is about finding the balance which works for you.

I used to work somewhere where you could "buy" extra leave as part of flexible benefits. I used to buy the maximum additional 2 weeks of leave so I had 7 weeks instead of 5. Effectively was "unpaid" but the cost was spread over 12 months which was nice.

@forinborin

Thank you all. Not self employed technically, paid as PAYE but on a rolling FTC contract - so never accrue any leave. One of post ir35 solutions, I think, self employed is still the closest equivalent. Used to contract before, usually took my breaks in the gaps between the contracts, for some reason did not have such hesitations then. But then the children were not in school yet, so holidays were much more flexible too.

I remember you from the contracting thread recently. I'd love to know how they've created a vehicle for offering no paid time off - even umbrella paid IR35 workers who have virtually no other rights are entitled to holiday pay.

@forinborin

Do you not proportion your pay over the year to account for annual leave etc? Same with uniforms? We all know we need the money for them come summer etc. Trying to, but I rarely have more than 3 month contracts, so proper advance planning is difficult. Used to have some savings, of course, building back up now.

Could you then divide your annual leave into quarters and proportion over these periods?

OP, that doesn't sound right. I work in an industry with huge numbers of PAYE folks on fixed term contracts. They are all paid their rate plus holiday allowance, the holiday money is paid out at the end if they can't take the days off. And with each extra week of contract, their entitlement increases It sounds like your employer is paying a rolled up rates which HMRC have made clear is not ok

@PinkArt

OP, that doesn't sound right. I work in an industry with huge numbers of PAYE folks on fixed term contracts. They are all paid their rate plus holiday allowance, the holiday money is paid out at the end if they can't take the days off. And with each extra week of contract, their entitlement increases It sounds like your employer is paying a rolled up rates which HMRC have made clear is not ok

That's what I thought and why I was asking although they may not wish to rock the boat if otherwise happy of course.