If you could afford to live by working just 3 days a week…

[Somedreamer]

Would you?

Or would you keep working 5 days and put the money into savings for your future?

Extra context: No huge financial safety net, still have a mortgage and 6 months of expenses as an emergency fund.

Full disclosure: I am considering this but wondering if it’s irresponsible!

OP I'm in a similar situation to you, I have friends who work part time for childcare reasons, and whilst I don't doubt that's hard, part of me thinks if they're making it work out of necessity, and they have higher outgoings than me (I don't have children) surely I could make it work? However I am a bit worried about the impact on future pension, and long term sustainability. I also have to remind myself that most of these friends will have to go back to FT, they aren't doing PT until retirement but only when the children are small!

As a compromise, I'm doing my best to live off less money and putting some aside in investments as well as savings. In that way I'm hoping that in 5-10 years I could be more confident that I could genuinely live long term with the pay cut, as well hopefully having a bigger cushion so that I'd have more security to go P/T, especially if for example I could pay a big chunk of the mortgage off.

Would your job allow you to take a sabbatical? My job does; in a couple of years I'm going to move and was thinking when I do I am going to save up and take a sabbatical for 3 months to settle into my new place. That's the plan, anyway!

Does your employer allow you to purchase additional annual leave? If so you could do that and give yourself a trial of a shorter working week.

The danger, especially in the public sector, at the moment is that if you drop hours you won't necessarily be able to get them back.

I couldn't up mine even if I wanted to.

I think you are single and that brings both additional pressure in the sense you only have yourself to rely on in terms of finances, but equally it frees you from a lot of the saving for children's future. You may as well enjoy your own money (and time ) you just need to work out where the right balance is.

I think its usually a trade off.
I work 2 nights a week and have done for years, I love it! I will have 30 yrs in a public sector pension when I finish and my mortgage is paid. Live alone so no kids to think of but I also dont have any savings and I do have to live quite cheaply.
Its worth it for me though, to have time for hobbies and relaxing. Plus I dont think I would be mentally able to cope with my job full time!

I’m self employed and love my job so I’d always chose to work the 5. BUT previous jobs which I hated I would jump down to three in a heartbeat. Fuck the savings.

I would if my children were pre-school/infant school age. Otherwise I’d do 4 days and save the extra money tax-free into my pension, to give me more flexibility later on.
If I didn’t have kids I’d do 5 days for as long as possible to save as much money as early as possible so I could relax more when I was over 50 and had less energy for work / or so if I lost my job it wouldn’t be stressful. Money saved young then just magically expands with no effort on your part, it’s great.

I be the same circumstances as you OP, 40 single no kids small mortgage etc

I did go down to 3 days a week over a 1 year ago now (although 10 hr days I do on the days I does working)

it been the best thing for my mental and physical health I has done as I been so much unhappy at work for a long time now. It be much more manageable for me now and I feels so much better for it

Living on the equivalent salary for a while and putting the extra somewhere that you can't easily spend it sounds like a good idea.

Staying FT for a bit longer in order to save is a good idea in principle, but it's very easy to fall into the trap of just spending it.