Give my head a wobble - leaving job

[FrustratedGnat]

I earn around 40k, so does my husband. This is a take home of about £2,500 each. I’ve only just gone back full time so I haven’t earnt this for a while.

I want to leave my job to become self employed. It would be difficult to soft launch whilst still working as I would need permission from my employer. I can’t just do it anyway because if they found out I could surprise loose my job and I could be disciplined by my professional regulator for being dishonest.

Before Christmas I worked 4 days but my work only agreed to that because it was temporary. I really want to be able to spend more time with my 1 and 4 year old especially because the eldest starts school in September and I’ll never get this time back. I never really got over going back to work after maternity leave, my heads not really in my work. I had 9 months off because I only had SMP but it was too soon. Settling baby in nursery was a bit of a shit show. They are settled now and doing well in nursery.

The thing is we haven’t really recovered financially from my maternity leave yet. We got through about 5k of savings which we’ve been trying to build back up but with nursery fees for 2 kids and needing to do some renovations on the house when I first started earning again saving money has been very slow. We have finished the immediate jobs that needed doing on the house.

Our mortgage is £1,100, we spend around another £1,000 on bills, insurance and food combined and then another £1,800 on childcare (that’s with free hours and tax free childcare). We put away £100 a month for car maintenance and whatever’s left pays for anything else, holidays etc.

The most sensible thing would be wait until my eldest is in school and really save some money from the reduced nursery fees before taking the plunge. Then put the youngest in a term time only nursery when they’re 2 and that would be much cheaper.

But I don’t want to do that. I want to leave my job after Easter. Put the children down to 1 or 2 days in the nursery and spend the summer term playing with them and working for myself for around 20 hours a week. Hopefully I could cover the nursery fees with my income. We just won’t have much of a financial cushion for if things go pear shaped or I don’t get any clients.

AIBU to walk away from my 40k job? Or do I just need to put my grown up pants on and suck it up and accept that adults can’t just quit. I just really miss spending time with my kids.

This.

It's never a great time to reduce money, hours etc.

I would go for it, assuming your partner's job is secure.

I feel like financial security of knowing you are able to provide for your kids would long term make you feel much better than spending some extra time with them. 40k is a good wage that a lot of people would love to be on and a lot to lose.

are you sure that working for yourself will actually give you more time for kids? Usually setting up your own business is HARD work - you’re not in control of your hours in the initial phase. If you want time with kids in summer taking unpaid parental leave seems a better solution in the short term.

Don’t change your kids schedule if they’re settled to reduce hours. This will make it much more unsettling starting school in September.

Plus it sounds like the money coming in from your self employment will be delayed. You have to put in days or elapsed weeks upfront before you can ask for payment ie not til development is approved. Then clients don’t always pay for 14 days so you def need a buffer to allow for that.

I’m with the handful of posters who say go for it - you can make money at anytime in your life , but time with your kids is the one thing you can never make up.

I was a SAHM for 7 years - best years of my life ! And I enjoyed my career pre kids, I work in a different industry now but it’s flexible, school hours, and enjoyable as well. There’s far too much emphasis on slogging away at the rat race on here.

I would do it. Time with your kids is important and you will never get that time back.

What I would do though:

• give yourself six more month in the job to increase your savings

• find a part-time job, that does not have to be related to what you currently do, to at least continue to have some income coming in in while you try to set yourself up as self-employed

Basically do it, but do some planning. Once you have made your decision, six months will go quickly.

Hello, architect here and in a similar situation… I’ve given it a lot of thought over the last couple of years and I’m also planning ooni doing something similar, fed up of the constant deadlines and stress.

your buffer seems a bit small, id work on boosting it for a bit as you don’t want finances hanging over you. Have you put out the feelers for freelance work with small practices to see if a couple of days a week is something they would find useful? Or are you thinking of just doing planning applications as a sole trader? Just consider your PI etc and that sometimes the small jobs can be just as much stress as the big ones.

if it all stacks up and your gut says yes then go for it!

I would do it great fun with both DC at home before tyranny of school run and summer can have lots of local cheap trips to nature. Economy should recover in a couple of years so more opportunities to get back in then if business doesn't work (and rebuild savings)

You have a family to support and bills to pay. Plan very carefully and don’t jump into leaving without money saved and an income lined up.

‘Hopefully earning enough to cover their nursery fees’ isn’t going to be enough is it? What about the expense of everything else?

There’s no good in dreaming of being at home if you’re going to financially suffer.

I think if you've only got £100 a month to allocate to emergencies you should put it on the back burner for now, sorry. Esp as you were living on savings during mat leave.

I would also be seriously thinking about whether or not working for yourself is actually going to net you more downtime, or are you going to end up working in the evenings and weekends, i.e. working round when you're at home with the kids?

Could you ask work for a leave of absence and see how it goes? A colleague of mine recently had 3 months sabbatical, she is pretty wealthy and spent it travelling south America (lucky devil) but if you do similar over the summer months, aiming to return when your eldest goes to school, then at least you've seen whether it's possible without your salary coming in. Of course you'll have to forfeit your nursery places, but you should be in a position to look at and find another place fairly easily with careful planning.

I've been self-employed throughout my kids' childhood and now they are older I'm starting to think about a career change back to employment for predictability and for the pension.

I liked it because I could work the hours that I chose and spend lots of time with them during the day. That is a really big plus. It was also a real help when one of them had a serious illness that went on for several years and being self-employed gave me a lot of flexibility.

However, the work (if you have it!) still needs doing, regardless. When they were younger, that either happened when they were at nursery/school – both in nursery or at a childminder from six months – or asleep. Payment can be unpredictable and you need to learn both to negotiate rates and to chase your own invoices. I was doing that with reasonably-sized companies with accounts departments – SMEs can be harder to get money out of and if you are working for individuals you may have to be still tougher.

That said, I've made more money as a self-employed person than I would have on staff, and I've very much enjoyed it. But it's not at all like being on maternity leave. You have to be very able to compartmentalise your working and parent lives.

I think I know deep down that we can’t really afford it.

Over time when our nursery bill is less and my DH earns more (my wage has plateaued now, DH still has a lot of scope to increase) I know it will be less of a risk financially. But as PP have said my kids won’t be as small then.

I disagree a bit about PP saying don’t take them out of Nurserys routine. They are knackered they get dropped off before 8 and get picked up at 6 most days. Frankly I’m not sure it’s in their best interests. But such is life.

There is definitely an inbetween of asking for a 4 day week or taking a lot of leave over the summer. I’m a bit scared to ask, I would need to confirm the nursery days by the end of March for the next term which means I needs to be putting in a request now. It feels like they’ll just roll their eyes. I haven’t even been full time for a month yet. I do also know that none of this really matters. I don’t know why the nuclear option of quitting feels easier than negotiating more flexibility.

Your responsibility is to your children now, providing for them & putting food on the table.

OP you can take parental leave, I do over the summer. It’s unpaid but it gives you a bit more time in the summer hols. Everyone is entitled to it, worth looking in to while you build up some savings perhaps?

I think the nuclear option feels like it would simplify things but in fact it will bring a whole load more complexity and uncertainty. The grass is always greener eh, just let the grass grow a bit more before you go for it, and it will be all good.

I like this advice 😂 I have never been very good at letting the grass grow. I always like to be onto the next thing.

I’m shocked how low the salary is for an architect given how long you train, the skill required and how intense the lifestyle sounds. I’m not surprised it feels like a bit of a bum deal right now and would also be looking at how I could change things up, but it doesn’t sound like you can afford to go nuclear right now.
I know it feels urgent whilst they’re small but they actually really need you in different ways as they get older, so if you could switch to a school hours job that would be a good time to change and no nursery costs then too?
It’s horses for courses but I really believe it’s about quality and not quantity of time with children. I also am v conscious of wanting to build something for them for their future (even if that just means paying off our mortgage) and afford lovely holidays and activities with them. Having no money and being stuck at home all the time seems really depressing to me, but I get that for others that’s a worthwhile sacrifice.

I wonder why you’re so reticent to make the flexible working request? You have a right to and they’re legally obliged to consider it. Lots of companies love a 4 day week as means 20% pay cut and often doesn’t tend to impact on output. This is what I’ve done and it’s meant we have had that special ‘mummy day’ once a week which has felt a good compromise (although I am exhausted after that day so find work much easier 😜)

Is a more flexible position with another employer not an option? Full time to self employed with little/no buffer seems too risky.

It’s hard to go part time as an architect, i tried 3 days for a while and it just wasn’t feasible. It’s not a profession set up for part time working unless you have a very focused specialism and you’re not a job runner. And yeah the salary is crap for the amount of stress.

This is good advice - we had a huge buffer and contracts but financially has been a roller-coaster. It's been a distraction away from that quality time you envisage with your children. It is the best move for us but without the buffer and a close hand on the budget would have been a disaster.

I'm familiar with the profession. I think you hugely underestimate how much work it will be quoting, advertising, invoicing etc. you also get no paid leave, no pension. It won't be 20hrs if you want to make a living.

I guess I feel like I’ve already used up a lot of good will. I did a flexible work request in around November time as I had planned to drop a half day for January onwards but it relied on lots of things also happening with DH’s job and the nursery, in the end it didn’t work out. I also had a request in May that related to my return to work.

But yes the salary for an architect is frustrating. Especially considering the amount of liability and technical knowledge required for the most recent changes to the regulations. I don’t think I’ll ever earn over 50k unless I’m a director.

I know I wouldn’t bring in anywhere near as much as I am now. If I could cover my own costs (insurance, software etc.) and the nursery fees for perhaps 2 days per week then I would be happy. The debate is whether financial that would be enough for my household.

It would be a way of maintaining my skills, keeping my registration being around my children more.

I could maybe find a part time job to fill the gap but it likely wouldn’t be in architecture. It’s a very difficult profession to find part time work in especially from the point of being recruited. I could probably get a 4days per week position elsewhere but not any less than that.

Anyway I think the side of being sensible has probably won. I need to book some leave for the summer/put in another flexible work request.

In the meantime I’ll wait for the grass to grow and take the plunge once we’ve built up our savings some more.