Would you stay full time for an extra £200 or go part time for an extra day a week with your little one?

[Frenchsticks]

I will finish Maternity Leave early next year and currently plan to return to work full time over 4 long days. My DD will be in nursery as we have no local family to help out which will cost £800 a month (including taking tax free childcare into account). After all childcare costs, bills, food, fuel etc. I should have £450 left which I would like to split between £250 spending (clothes, days out, little luxuries etc.) And £200 savings.

I could go down to 30 hours a week over 3 days and lose £400 of my income a month. The extra day not needing nursery will save £200 so we'll lose the £200 I had hoped to be able to save each month but still have enough for all bills etc.

My husband is self employed and we keep finances separated for ease of his account. He has a large car loan each month where I have no debts to repay and his income is erratic so he pays his half into the joint account but otherwise, generally speaking, as I earn more money everything else will fall to me so we won't split the childcare bill. In theory he should be able to save some as well but 10 years with the man has taught me not to rely on that. He's not doing anything with money that he shouldn't, he just has very erratic income but loves his job and works very hard so it's not massively a problem. He will do all drop offs and pick ups at nursery as I can't with my hours so he is doing what he can.

Anyway, to me an extra day a week with my DD is definitely worth £200 a month but I do worry that we wouldn't be able to save anything and we currently have no savings at all due to moving this year which has eaten up the savings we did have. We would like another child in a few years and I'd like to be able to take a year's mat leave with them as well so this requires saving up for.

My husband can't go part time as he has a small business with a partnership; his partner cannot afford to go down to 4 days and they legally can't work without both present for health and safety. Although it would make more sense to protect my full time income over my husband's it's just not an option for him to go part time.
He definitely wants me to stay full time and prioritise trying to save but has said he will support me if I choose to go part time.
What would you do please?

And I think I’d look for a childminder not nursery, because I prefer the in-home care and attachment of one person for tinies, but that’s personal preference.

Can you make the decision to drop hours at a later date? If this is the case I would return on 4 days and see how it goes.

Are you able to do four short days rather than three long days?

I do my contracted hours over four shorter days, this means my son doesn’t need after school club (I use my dinner hour to finish an hour early), so we have more time together and I don’t have to pay for as much childcare. This is because I now WFH, when I was in the office I would pick him up at 4:45ish.

When he was in nursery I also followed this model, so on my working days I would pick him up around 4:45. For my four short days cost the same as three long days at nursery. So after a nap there was still time for play, stories, a walk, bath etc, rather than just dinner and bed.

I would go for the 3 days rather than an extra £200. I've done 3 days a week since I went back to work after having my first, and now I have two children, and I find it's a good balance. It's not just about having the extra time with my children, it's also about not having to rush out of the house on 2 mornings a week getting kids to nursery and getting to work, having a bit of extra time to get a few things done around the house, get the kids to appointments etc.
I just find it a lot less stressful all round and financially I'm not losing out on much as I'd be paying for an extra day of childcare, but I guess it depends on how important an extra £200 a month is to you.

I would look at still trying to save the £200, but cut the 'personal treats / spends' to £50 per month.
If you are working such long hours and have a baby to spend that time with, I can't see why you would want to prioritise £250pm of 'treats' for yourself, over time.

When I first started to read I would of advised to drop to 3 days. But you say you would like another baby I would definitely save just in case of a rainy day.

The childminder idea may shave your costs down too.

Right now, I'd take the money. You never know when you're going to need it.

Id definitely sit down with DH and talk through the finances in a holistic way. There might be some wriggle room with his finances where money can be saved or outgoings reduced. It should be a decision based on both of your finances and looking at what can be adjusted by each of you.

If you can make some adjustments to give you a chance to have some savings, then do the 3 days if that's what you'd like as long as you've also looked at how easy it would be to return to full time and if you'd be able to do it over 4 days again.

You're lacking a buffer which is pretty important. Is there anything either of you can do for a short sharp burst to bring in an extra grand or two? If you could do that you'd feel much better reducing to 3 days.

@BackforGood
It isn't 'treats for myself'. Of course I'm not prioritising £250 worth of skin care and clothes for myself over having time with DD. This is everything on top of our basic essentials so anything extra at all. Trips to the local zoo or farm etc., clothes for DD, toys, Christmas and birthday presents and yes, if I need something like a new bra thanks to the ever changing boob size situation I currently have going on, then that too.

And those that have mentioned DH too, yes of course and I agree he needs to be saving more and we do speak about it a lot (trust me) but it's just not something we can rely on now. He doesn't get a regular income, it's very hit and miss; he can be paid nothing for months and then get a little something then nothing for another month and then he'll get several months worth in one go, but by then he has bills to pay and clear from the months of not being paid and he has to try and keep some cash in his account for direct debits that can't be paid on credit card, as he doesn't know when he'll be paid again. I am the first to acknowledge it's a nightmare but it's why we don't rely on his income. We should have saved more before DD came along but we got extremely lucky and she came along earlier than we thought she would; we perhaps shouldn't have moved using all our savings, but we wanted the life living in this area would bring more than where we used to live. My DH is not a bad man, a bad planner certainly but not a bad man and he does everything else that he can for us. As we are no longer paying off debt and when his car loan is cleared next year hopefully he'll be able to save much more but immediately it's not something we can rely on as we need the stability of my income.

Thank you for everyone's thoughts and opinions. They are helpful and have given me lots to think about.

If you're planning on having another, stay full time. This is what I did. I had a two year age gap and went back working part time evenings after having my youngest.

You really need to think of the long term picture here. Yes it is nice to be home with them when they are babies. But that doesn't last long. By the time my youngest was 3, he was doing half days in preschool/nursery school and I didn't need to be home in days as much and childcare costs dropped. I then moved roles back to full-time.

You need to think about how you will pay for another baby. What will you do if you want to go back to full time? Others have mentioned about when DC starts school, how will you facilitate wrap around care?

There is also the much bigger issue here of your DHs income and job. I do say this from the privileged position of having two of us working in the public sector, but realistically he needs a more secure income. You are essentially the main earner here. In your position, it should be DH considering dropping his hours. If that means leaving his business and doing something else, then so be it. Women give up their careers for kids and to support the main earner husband all of the time. (At this point I will say that I was put at risk of redundancy whilst pregnant with my youngest, which was why I went part time rather than DH. I had to move jobs anyway)

I would drop a Monday

Forgo the money and make time with your D.C.

Added to which going back to work on a tuesday is so much easier than a Monday morning

If you stay at 4 days when school starts it will also make life easier, most bank holidays are Monday’s, school often starts term on a Tuesday-

It's not about being a "bad man" or a "good man" - humans are not so black and white as to ever be all good or all bad - but making the right decisions for his family and being reliable.

I do think it's sad that he's abdicated responsibility for covering childcare costs and saving for another child to you, plus all the rest. Your child is not some personal hobby of yours to be financed individually.

Go to 3 days but use childminder instead of nursery. Often a lot cheaper as well as being homely

100% time with my baby. These years are precious and short. You've years to work. Don't regret it.

Do you have holiday accrued that will allow you to drop a day for a while. What you accrued while on mat leave would probably cover 7 months of dropping a day.
If you balance your husbands earnings over a year is it an OK income but erratic or is it not very much money? He should be contributing fairly.
I think doing the 3 long days could work especially if you can then swap to 5 shorter days when they are school age.

I also work for the nhs and did 37 hours over 4 days before I had my daughter. I went back in July and now do 24.75 hours over 3 days and I love it. Daughter goes to nursery when I work I find that I'm not productive during my three days and I was before, and I see it as I will only get this 1-1 time with her once.

I’m at the other end of this situation. I stopped to 3 days/week when I went back to work after DS was born. Stayed like that when dd was born 3 years later and went back up to 4 days a week when dd started school.

I have never regretted the time at home, other than I would have liked DH to have a day off with the dc once a week instead of me, but his application for reduced hours was rejected twice for business needs (he works in a very niche, reactive industry, we both understand why it was rejected). We have no local family, all the time the dc are not at school/nursery/ afterschool club has to be covered by DH and I. We were skint for a few years, but I loved that time at home with them when they were tiny, I love that they could do after school activities or have friends for tea etc a couple of times a week.

My dc are 9 and 12 now. I still work 4 days a week. I do a lot of food prep, cooking, jobs, admin etc on my day off, so that we can make the most of weekends.

Judicial choice of days off also means that we can generally absorb inset data too!

As for the 10 hour nursery day 8-6; that’s fairly normal nursery opening hours in my experience. My dc did that 3 days a week, and similar when they started school with wraparound care. It’s not unusual if abhiusehold has/needs 2 working parents.

** I'm MORE productive as opposed to
Not productive 😂

Somehow I think with a Mum like this, this little girl will be fine whatever.