More income or more flexible job?

[Caffeinequeen91]

DH and I have a joint monthly income of around £4700. This is after tax, NI and pensions. Bills, joint committed spends comes to £2100. Leaving £2600 for monthly spending on food shop, fuel, days out and other spending. We are doing okay but don’t manage to save much.

We both work 4 days but full time hours to save on some childcare. I took a pay cut for a more flexible WFH job after DC2. I’ve been asked to apply for a job in my previous sector. It would be 5 days, not flexible, not WFH. More responsibility (more stress!). The pay would be higher adding around £700 a month to the take home pay pot.

What’s the price of giving up compressed hours, flexibility and WFH? We could do with the extra money but I’m not sure.

Personally I think flexibility is worth a lot, mine are secondary age now and I still find the flexibility and ability to WFH so helpful.

I'm part time/WFH after being made redundant in a previous career.

Flexibility, WFH/compressed hours are beyond price. I've an interview later today for a different role which is a better skills match than doing what I am now. I understand the employer is amenable to me doing 24hours but if I'm offered it as full time or leave it I'll be leaving it.

Having been in the fortunate position of being able to afford to have a job with flexibility as opposed to higher income, I cannot begin to say how much the impact is and how good.

I've not got school age children though, with all the demands that brings, both emotional and financial.

How much is actually left of the £700 once you factor in travel costs, more work clothes, additional childcare and the adhoc expenses of being in the office? Personally I wouldn’t unless there was a very clear path to progression and significantly more money in the fairly near future.

If you were on the breadline then of course it would be sensible to go for it.

You're not though. You have £2600 a month for food/extras/savings. If you're not saving much you need to make more effort to budget, it should be EASY to save £500pm from that and doable to save £1k.

I wouldn't consider an extra £700 pm worth it to go from 4 days WFH to 5 days in an office. You have the holy grail of working arrangements right now and if you give that up you may not be able to get it back.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

I wanted to add that my current job is limited to what it is now (role and pay) but I would have some baked in pay increases in the other one. I’ve had only 1 pay increase of 2% in the past three years in my current job. Going back to my old sector would mean a public sector job with pay scales and at least some pay rises.

It would be nice to have a crystal ball!

When I stopped working in a London office and was no longer buying sarnies and needing decent shirts etc, never mind rail fares, I was no worse off in spite of a pension less than two thirds of final salary.

How old are your dc? If still junior age or below, I would stick with flexibility.

Given they are asking you to apply, is there no scope to ask for some flexibility?

Would there be scope to find a similar role but with flexibility?

I can see your dilemma, I think I might be tempted to forgo flexibility if it was my only way to get career progression. But I would always be aiming for a flexible job in the long run because it is so much more sustainable

How old are your DC? If they are already school age I'd go for the higher pay.

I think ages of dc are key here. What extra childcare costs would you need? What AL will you get? What extra travel costs are there? For me flexible working is a god send and I would not give it up easily.

Is it only me that finds these posts so much of a smug boast.
There are workers doing hard, responsible essential full time jobs who earn nowhere near as much - but don't worry OP soon you will have a labour government and able to work 4 days without a loss of pay and not worry about those who have to work 5 days or shifts to service your life-style.

Apologies to you OP - BUT you have hit a raw nerve with me as this is the second or third post recently (even today) on the same vein

I think I would be granted 4 days in the new role but for 0.8 pay whereas my current role allows me to compress FT hours so no loss of pay which means I would be on almost the same money as now but for a more stressful job.

My DC are primary age.

Extra travel costs will be negligible because the new place of work is close to their school so I’m going that way anyway every day. There would be a small amount of extra childcare wraparound on my 5th day.

I am not giving this flexible job up easily. You are right about that. Lots of brainpower going into this decision and I feel torn.

Yikes I have touched a nerve. I didn’t mention how much I earn at the moment. Does it make you feel better to know I’m thinking about giving up WFH for a public sector ‘essential’ job (hard one, lots of stress and responsibilities) and that’s what I’ve done for my whole career minus the past three+ years when I’ve taken a pay cut to WFH? I don’t have a chip on my shoulder about what other people do though. It is what it is and everyone has to make a decision about what works in their life. And that’s all I’m trying to do here. If you’re not happy with what you do then look at changing! I did! I wish you well.

Flexibility every time. If you don’t need the extra money then it feels like a no brainer. If you want to save more then cut back somewhere else.
Compressed hours and actually getting a day off sounds pretty sweet to me. In my company compressed hours means inevitably still having to log in on your day off to check on or get ahead of things, and as a result working even more than you would otherwise for no extra money.

Nope. 5 days, instead of 5, more responsibility, more stress, less flexibility. For £700. That's not enough to justify for me. That's just me.

What's your daily rate? Because £700x12 mths /52 weeks = £161.53. Per day. £21.53 per hour. Take home, admittedly, not gross.

So what's your daily rate. Take home. And the difference is? Then you see how much extra, per day, you'd be getting for the extra stress and responsibility, compared to if you did your current job for the 5th day.

Is it worth it? Only you can decide.

Given they are asking you to apply, is there no scope to ask for some flexibility?
That was my immediate reaction.
My second reaction was similar to those threads in Property where they say, "shall I go for House A or House B?". There are more than two houses / jobs in the world, wait for Option C.

Stick with what you have. Apart from anything else you have job security (more than 2 years' employment) and there is talk of a squeeze on civil service jobs.

I could apply for another firm and make more money, but would inevitably be a lot busier, have the stress of having to prove myself again and lose a lot of autonomy (I can work my diary as I please, wfh predominantly and can take an hour out during the day if needed as long as I make up the time.

Would I give all that up for potentially another 10-15k+ a year? No, but I appreciate I am fortunate to make that decision in that we don't need the money (although obviously more money is always nice).

Sometimes it's hard to really put a value on flexibility until you have lost it. My DH has realised that the hard way moving jobs this year (despite getting a pay rise).

The new role isn’t one open to flexibility other than possibly being 4 days 0.8 but really I would be losing pay and still carrying all the responsibilities and being on call (unofficial no pay!) on that day off.

That is a very interesting way to look at it. The difference in net take home daily rate:
job 1 lower salary but 4 days
job 2 higher salary but 5 days
the difference is £2.36!!
this takes into account higher pension contributions for job 2 but yikes that is a teeny difference!
job 2 has around 4 weeks more annual leave so it’s hard to compare exactly but that is a small difference!

The reason I keep coming back to the question of which job is progression and career. Job 1 is a job. Job 2 was my career and the longer I am out the lower my chance of getting back in at the same level.

OP are you an ex teacher considering going back into the fray?

If so.....beware the rose tinted glasses

How much of that £700 would you end up spending on a cleaner, easy meals because you're knackered, takeaway because you have got home and the fridge is empty?

Equally is Job 2 once in a lifetime and won't come up again or actually you could be fairly certain it'll come round again in 5 years or so when dc are bigger?