To ask how part time you’d go if…

[workidoos]

Your DH’s wage covers all the essential outgoings (mortgage, bills, food, cars, childcare). After that you still need to save and have some disposable income enough for clothes, trips/holidays, meals out, birthday gifts, little treats & generally a nice quality of life.

How much would cover the above for you as a family of 3, per month?

I need to work out how realistic our plans are for my return to work. Keen to keep my foot in the door career wise but know how quickly the early years go and want to spend as much time as I can with DD.

£500-£1k a month depending on how expensive your tastes are. I like holidays and you should make the most of termtime prices before dc starts school!

If you can negotiate a term time only contract, I'd go for that. It's so much better being able to cover the holidays without relying on clubs or whatever other options you have.

It also means you only ever work 6 (maybe 7) week blocks at a time, and you get the best parts of the school years with your kids.

I probably can’t in my role unfortunately. It won’t figure for us until DD starts school, but would be useful after that

Thank you. I wondered about this but didn’t know if this amount would be too little.

My DH’s wage covers absolutely everything. When dd was 3-5 I worked 10 hours a week. That wasn’t sustainable career-wise indefinitely. Once she turned 5 I went up to half time. I have been half-time for 10 years now.

I’d work 4 days, taking advantage of funded childcare and limiting effect on my career whilst maximising my pension contributions. Much depends on the sector you’re in though and opportunities for advancement.

It does depend on what you are used to and what standard of living you think is the minimum.

Holidays don't have to cost much with small children. It's not really worth spending £10k on an all inclusive holiday with a baby imo, just go to the Canaries in May for £2k. But plenty of people would be horrified at the thought of that.
Similarly days out aren't expensive because you are just going to a farm for 3 hours, you're not going to Thorpe Park with a child that can't even walk.

Once they're bigger then everything gets more expensive, the stuff you want to do gets more expensive.

This is the same situation we're in. I still work 4 days a week. I love having a day off with my DS but I also want to be able to save, overpay the mortgage, go on days out etc.

After nursery costs I net about 1500 a month. Plus pension contributions.

I thought this but 3 is also appealing, just don’t know if we’d lose too much money that way

Probably 4 days a week to be honest.

depends on the type of holidays you want but I probably spend a minimum of 4k on holidays a year. Then there’s spending money.
day trips are dear so even if you say £200 a month for that type of thing.
plus clothing and other treats.

id say 1k to 1.5k a month.

I think everyone has a different definition of a ‘nice’ life though.

The other trade off is how much time do you want to spend with your children.

And then how feasible is it to do your job part time.

3 days a week is clearly part time. Whereas 4 can end up doing a full time job but only being paid 80%

Thank you. I’m happy you say this as I was wondering if 3 days (1.4k ish) would be feasible

Are your funds and savings all pooled together OP? 3-4 days sounds ideal, unless you don't share your finances and then I'd probably stay full time for security.

We live in the NW, so three days used to be enough. At one point I did 12 hour shifts, so 36 hours a week in three days. Now I'm nearly 60 and with GC, I wish at times I didn't work as much as I did. Time does go quickly and you don't get it back. You can hammer your hours later, just overpay your pension.

I do 4 short days. This adds £1100 to the household budget and we save most of it.

It depends what lifestyle you want and how much you want to save. I’m in a similar position in that my DHs salary covers all essential outgoings (just). I chose to work 4 days a week and I bring home £3200 a month. This means we have enough money for family experiences like holidays and days out, can easily afford Christmas and birthdays including birthday parties and can save both for us and for our DC which I see as essential savings. We could manage on less but I didn’t want to compromise too much on lifestyle and I still get one day a week at home in the week.

My DH could manage find financially without me. My working days have fluctuated a lot in the last 6 years, mainly due to wanting to work/having opportunities come up than any necessity. My salary pays for the childcare (which wouldn't be needed if I wasn't working) and a bit of fun spends/savings.

After DC1 was born I went back 4 days a week and we concentrated on overpaying the mortgage and increasing our savings with the income I had left over after paying childcare. After DC2 was born I went back 3 days, mainly to keep a foot in the door/I liked it. My salary didn't cover both their childcare so working was actually an expense for us. Which is a bit mad. When DS started school I changed jobs, dropping to 2 days, which suited me well at the time. Work have since offered me an additional day doing something which would enhance my CV nicely so have said yes to that and am back up to 3 days. DC2 starts school next year at which point I think something 4 days would be good, or perhaps 3 days spread out over 4 so I do school hours.

Yes all pooled

Keen to keep my foot in the door career wise 4 days with Wednesday off. It's tempting to choose Monday because of the bank holiday situation but don't do it if you want to progress, Monday is a key day of the week. Wednesday can be easily missed and caught up on.

Having done 4days a week, I found the expectation was basically the same as a full time role. My employer was getting the same amount for 20% less money. Personally, if I were to reduce I’d go to 3 days.

Thank you, that’s good to know

Would second this.

Realised I told you all my life story without actually answering the OP's question. Doh! This is basically the answer though...

If the job type suits it then compress 5 days into 4. Or 3.5 into 3. As PP say, 4 days gets treated as full time, so you either need to be only working on three days, or paid for five over four days.

I'd do 4 days per week. In my personal experience 3 days was too much of a drop career wise. It was really just keeping my job open.