To find it unfair that my DH doesn’t seem to want me to work?

[Internationalwomendayheadquarters]

Slightly complex situation here.

I work full time as a teacher. To cut a long story short, it isn’t really working for me- long hours, tough conditions and three small children that I hardly ever see. I’m hoping to leave at Easter. Having gone from doing everything round the house as a SAHM for a few years, my DH has found it hard that now he has to pick up his share of pick ups etc. DH is happy at the thought of me quitting my job.

We’ve got a holiday cottage that I’d like to run instead of teaching. I think I can make it work around the children a bit more, and I’ll be able to do most of the pick ups and drop offs. All fine.

However, there’s a part time job that I’ve seen advertised and that I’d really like to try doing. Its museum work. It’s 28 hours but over a rota of 7 days. My DH really doesn’t think I should go to the interview (which is next week) as he thinks it won’t make our lives easier and that I should just stick to cleaning and running the holiday cottage.

I can’t help feeling that he just wants things to be easier for him, and for me to revert back to doing all the pick ups and drop offs. He doesn’t earn loads so the part time wage that I could bring in might help us financially. He just says I change my mind a lot, and that I’m frustrating.

You’re going from a full time secure, reasonably paid job with a decent pension to full time hours in badly paid, insecure work with little prospect of progression (I used to work in heritage) and inconvenient working hours plus cleaning and ironing for hours every week. Unless you’re working direct for a local authority the pension will be absolutely rubbish, and even then it will only be based on 2/3 of a low wage.

Apart from reducing the stress of teaching, which I totally understand, you’re not going to be improving your current life much and your future is going to be very significantly affected.

I think you need to think very seriously indeed about your plans and ambitions, and especially about how you are going to support yourself as a pensioner.

I had a three bedroom seaside flat sleeping 8 - one double bed, two single beds, one bunk bed, and a double sleeper sofa in the sitting room. I switched from holiday let to full time rental - less money but definitely less work.

When it was a holiday let, changeover day was fixed as Monday or Friday, three night minimum. So a 3 night weekend, Fri - Mon, or 4 night midweek, Mon - Fri, or one week either Mon - Mon or Fri - Fri, etc. No deviating from Mon or Fri, they could leave earlier or arrive later as I had a key safe, but still paid the full booking.

I did changeovers myself, took every bit from 10am check out to 3pm check in. I had 4 sets of linen for every bed, and 4 sets of towels - each guest got one bath and one hand towel for short breaks 3-4 nights, and two bath and one hand towel for 7 or 10 nights. There was a washing machine they could use.

I made it a one week min over Xmas week and NY week with a triple deposit - bugger the person who wanted to check in Xmas Eve and leave Boxing Day, no way was I ruining my own holiday! Likewise NY weekend partyers! Pay the full week and big damage deposit or go elsewhere.

As I said, I made a lot of money as it was fully booked May - August, and I had several 10-21 day lets over the rest of the year from contractors working in the area. But must emphasise it was a lot of work, and when someone who'd stayed for 10 days asked about a 6 month let, I jumped at it. During that time they made an offer to buy, which I accepted, and it went through, sale fully completed, three weeks before lockdown started!

You get a lot of tax breaks on a furnished holiday let, so I doubt OP will have many taxes to pay - in my time, the offsets just about equalled the income, so with no other job, I didn't pay much tax. Your petrol to and from, wifi for bookings, printing ink and paper etc etc are all chargeable offsets.

I also charged for my cleaning time - got three quotes from professionals, and used the lowest rate on my tax form.

So if OP gets the museum job and runs the holiday let, even allowing for the occasional professional clean when she's not available, and childcare / ASC when neither adult is available, she should still be better off. That's both financially and MH-wise.

Surely you can appreciate though that there’s a massive between this museum job which is literally a changing rota over all 7 days of the week, and a teaching job which okay yes may not technically be “set hours”, but you know what you are getting in terms of days and rough hours. PLUS with teaching you know exactly what time you have off in the holidays. People do cope with shifts of course, but if you don’t HAVE to then I don’t know why you would choose to.

I honestly don’t think it really matters whether it’s a man or a woman, because it’s not going to increase the family income if it will require “the family” then needing to pay for a cleaner, afterschool clubs and most likely near enough full time childcare during school holidays.

Surely it’s a family decision based on the needs of the WHOLE family. If this was DH & I for example it would be a case of: as a family we need £X per month to pay our bills and we spend £Y on extras. On top of that, we also have X drop offs/pick ups at these times, we have this holiday cottage which requires cleaning etc. Sit down together and see what works for everyone.

I can’t see any version of any reality where taking a part time job with completely flexible shifts and times is going to benefit the family unit as a whole and that’s what matters really. When you’re a family, your decisions have to be based on what is best for the entire family, not what one person or another wants to do. So if this was me & DH, first thing would be would we actually be better off as a family financially if I took a part time job and then we had to pay for a cleaner, childcare during holidays, ASC. If the answer to that is yes, then it would be down to practicalities, how easy or difficult is it going to be for the family as a whole to work around that? Is everyone going to be happy with that? And then looking at bigger picture, if DH then wants to reduce hours or go term time so that he can do school runs and school holidays, can the family afford that? There’s far too many considerations to think it’s as simple as “I want that job I will have that job”.

Given that one of the things mentioned in the OP was that she never see’s her kids, it seems bizarre to take a job that would actually mean putting them in ASC as well as needing childcare to cover school holidays, therefore actually taking more time away from family time.

I can see both sides.
28 hours across 7 days + part time job doesnt sound workable for family life

He's already had to drop down to 4 days pw to do school pick up. So its not as if hes doing nothing. Im not sure why he's getting a pasting on here.

You both need to compromise

@Internationalwomendayheadquarters

I agree with some of what you say but the days of set changeover days are long gone with the advent of Airbnb and VRBO. Guests now expect flexible check in/check out.

The most convenient way of combining museum + rental would be either:

a. Placing it with a good agency like English Country Cottages who will take 20-24% commission, and finding a good cleaner & handyman. Turnaround day on a 2 bed will cost around £80-90.

b. Managing the rentals yourself on Airbnb/VRBO but paying a cleaner to do the turnaround. That will save you the 20% commission, but you will be paying up to 15% in service charge (indirectly). In that case worth paying yourself the commission so you have funds to pay into a private pension.

c. A long let which you either manage yourself or place with a letting manager. Advantage is much less hassle. Disadvantage is that wear and tear is more considerable.

One thing is certain is that it will be impossible to combine museum hours with cleaning a holiday let.

There are few jobs these days with set hours least of all teaching.

But at least you know teaching is Monday to Friday out of the house. You also get holidays and weekends and bank holidays off.

A job with changing shifts can be tricky but not impossible (how do you think doctors cope?) and it may also be a question of what’s available in the area.

Doctors earn enough money to cover childcare and holiday care - someone working part-time in a low-paid museum job will not.

You might prefer your DP not to work for your convenience and to save childcare fees, but he also has to consider pension and his own career progression and personal fulfilment!

Of course, but working 28 hours a week in a museum isn't going to help much when it comes to retirement either.

There is no “unilateral” decision in this case, just a woman under pressure from her DH not to take a job and work for free.

Why is working for your own business working for free? If they can't afford to pay OP for cleaning and maintenance, it's not a profitable holiday home, surely?

If a man wanted to add museum shifts to running a rental business to increase family income I think he would be supported.

Not if it involved suddenly working weekends and school holidays with his wife needing to pick up all the slack with childcare at those times he wouldn't be!

As has been explained it’s not possible to combine the two jobs if OP intends run the holiday let herself (bookings and cleaning).

It’s perfectly combinable though if the house is with an agency or OP runs the bookings but employs a cleaner (or if it’s on a long let).

That way you combine both incomes without any great addition to the museum hours.

@margotrose

Sorry I cba to respond to your whole post.

Doctors earn enough money to cover childcare and holiday care

😂 Junior doctors are on £14ph.

Why is working for your own business working for free? If they can't afford to pay OP for cleaning and maintenance, it's not a profitable holiday home, surely?

Which a why I’ve suggested paying her commission and it doesn’t all end up as family income. But if OP will be paid for cleaning they may as well pay a cleaner and she can do something more interesting.

£14 an hour is a lot more than many people earn 🤷‍♀️

For such skilled work? Minimum wage is £11.44.

Anyway the point was it’s not conducive to affording childcare or holiday care.

But the point with junior doctors is that, unlike most, they're not on £14p/h forever - they will soon be earning much more than most people could ever dream of.

Someone in a museum (or in similarly low-paid work) won't see a similar wage increase and will still be stuck working awful hours for low pay in 10 years time.

Even if you said this museum job pays £14 an hour as well- which I don’t imagine it will- look at how that actually maps out?

28 hours per week x £14 = £392 per week.

You can probably straight away write off approx £150 of that for tax, NI, pension (if not more).

That leaves £242.

Say for example 3 shifts overlap both pick up time and cleaning time- one of them may fall on DH day to do pick up. The other 2 days is after school club to pay for, our local one is £13.50 and then cheaper £10.50 for siblings. There’s £50 gone on after school clubs.

That leaves £192

Then there’s the cleaner, I genuinely don’t know how much it costs to have a cleaner in to do the holiday let but I would imagine maybe £150?

Now you’re left with £42.

If we’re talking school holidays, if need childcare full time for 4 days a week, you’re probably looking at a minimum of £35 a day per child per day, 4 days a week, so £280 a week. So actually, by the time the childcare bill is paid and the cleaning bill is paid, from that £392 a week you’d be left in the minuses.

Considering OP has already said that her partner doesn’t have a massive income, and that her contribution from the part time job would be needed, does that still look feasible financially?

Obviously that’s a very simplified version and as a married couple hopefully finances are combined, but it doesn’t change the fact that OP having this job will essentially be costing the family as a whole a lot of money each month on childcare & extra help for the holiday let. As well as the extra hassle then of OP never knowing if she will be off on a certain date in advance without using annual leave, not being able to plan ahead for evenings/weekends/holidays because you are at the whim of the works rota

If you are keen to do museum work then I'd snap it up (if offered) as that's a hard industry to get into with a lot of well qualified people (women) chasing a few not particularly well paid jobs.

It's not like there would never be another teaching job!

@Mrsttcno1 Read my posts on combining museum + holiday let.

You’re subtracting holiday let cleaning from museum pay? 😂Why? (Turnaround is £80-90 for a 2 bed.)

I think you need to read up on NHS doctor’s pay and training.

Once you’re a consultant is when you can earn megabucks but only if you incorporate private practice, and that takes around 14-15 years training including degree. So “soon” it is not.

But the thing is it’s not just about “combining” holiday let + museum. The reality is that for the family unit as a whole (which is how you really should be looking at finances with kids), there is currently 2 Full Time incomes, no after school clubs to pay for and no school holiday childcare to pay for- I assume they are currently paying for the cleaning of the holiday let.

Taking on this new job is (presumably) going to be a pay CUT, so then the family has roughly 25% (ish) less income overall, AND on top of the job reducing income into the family it also INCREASES the expenses because it brings a need to pay for after school clubs and childcare during the holidays.

And that’s just the financial side of things, so not taking into consideration the actual real life impact when OP has already said she doesn’t get to see as much of her children as she would like. She will see even less of them when they are in after school clubs and then childcare all through school holidays.

I really don't need to - thanks though!

You don't need to incorporate private practise to earn 100k a year as a doctor - that's triple what most people in this country could ever dream of earning. But I guess it's a tiny salary on MN where everyone earns millions

According the NHS themselves, base pay for a consultant as of April 2023 is at least 93k per year.

Even Junior Doctors earn 32k per year, plus overtime, plus extra for working nights, plus weekend allowance, plus availabilty allowance for on-call work.

So it's not "just £14 an hour".

Link

No you’d have to train as a GP or consultant which is minimum 11 years- so not “soon” as you claimed, and I don’t count 100k as mega bucks.

More than many could dream of earning - but then they don’t have that kind of education - and it’s much less than they could earn in finance and other professional services.

Newly qualified junior doctors are on £14 ph - you’re a junior doctor right until you’ve qualified as a GP or consultant and pay is graded according to what training year you’re in.

Teachers work 50-55 hours a week, so 28 hours is a considerable cut in hours, and less stress. Holidays would need to be covered but OP would have almost double available hours in the week.

She will take a pay cut, but if she takes over the bookings of the holiday let, which is presumably currently with an agent, that will save them 20-24% commission.

I don’t count 100k as mega bucks.

Of course you don't 😂 meanwhile, back in the real world...

No, once you start specialising your pay goes up to a minimum of 43k a year, rising to 63k.

GP and Consultant pay starts at much more than that.

You’re repeating what I’ve just said. 😂

This is the real world, you’re just focused on the lower end.