To be surprised by the difference in take home pay between 38k and 48k?

[0rangeCrush]

Recently I have looked into reducing my work hours by 0.2 FTE. This would knock £10k off my salary, but only £400ish off my take home pay per month.
This money would be saved through childcare costs anyway so I’d be no worse off for at least 5 more years.

Presumably due to going down a tax band and paying less NI?

Unless there’s something strange with your tax code, pension or you have other earnings then a £10k gross salary should be around £7k a year, or £600 a month, less in net pay since it’d all be at basic rate surely?

Often the way. The 5th day is the worst paid.

I think it would be more than £400 from my back of the envelope calculation 🧐. It's not like you're crossing a tax boundary. Also, don't forget to take into account the impact on your pension.

OP may perhaps have student loan repayments and high pension contributions. Or she could be in Scotland?

It’s mainly the tax thing - it brings me down a tax bracket.

Also my student loan contribution is quite a bit different since I only pay it on earnings over £25k.

Scotland, all of the above!

On the standard 1257L tax code (not accounting for pension contributions, student loan, etc) the take home pay at:

48k = £3114.25
38k = £2530.92
Difference = £583.33

Cross posted. The fact you're in Scotland and have SL contributions would have been useful info to include in the OP.

I am moving down a tax band since I live in Scotland. And I have a student loan.

Ive got a fairly good pension already because I overpaid before, and my employer pays 27%.

OP are you a teacher? Lots of teachers I know are dropping a day as they've found the loss of earnings is not that much due to the 42% tax after £43k

Scotland and student loan would explain a lot.

Oh, you're in Scotland @0rangeCrush - I didn't realise that the limit was so low.

I dropped a day ( much worse pay than you) and it only made around £150 difference to me overall. The extra day off is so worth it.

That’s more or less exactly when I dropped a day. Can’t remember the exact numbers but it hardly made any difference with childcare costs linked in. I got promoted and asked to drop down to 0.8 and they said fine. So I never missed the money either. I just stayed on 0.8.

When I gave up my £40k per year job to become a SAHP, we were amazed to discover a few months down the line we were ending up with MORE disposable income!
We'd only worked out the saving on nursery and saving on petrol and thought we would only be about £10 a day worse off with the change.
BUT there's also a huge cost involved with never having any time. Last minute presents/food/clothes cost far more. I had the time to browse charity shops at my leisure/in advance for example. Having to have a hair cut during peak hours costs more, for example I had mine done for free as a hair model at 11am on a Monday. It just mounted up so quickly and really surprised us.

£400 a month is loads though??

I always calculate that when you get a pay rise, you get £50 per month per thousand pound salary, so the reverse must be true also.

I dropped a day and after tax, NI, pension and childcare only made about £100 a month difference yet 10 fold improvement in quality of life, was so worth it

Got it in one ⭐️

Its frustrating! I’d happily work full time but it’s not worth it, I’m actually paying to go to my work lol.

This is so true!! Although we were about £100 worse off, end up saving so much just by having time!!!

I thought so @0rangeCrush!

Not when your childcare bill is reduced by £400/month, plus you aren’t spending £25/day commuting. So I’m still £100 better off per month. Plus, it’s worth it because I have two young kids that I get to spend time with.

The OP wasn't asking people to check her calculations. She was making an observation

Incompetent and brain dead socialist government in Scotland should pat themselves in the back. For losing tax revenue as result of people reacting to the batshit high levels of tax. Scotland will be the new Greece soon, without the sun or good food.