Oh pants, with the increase in nursery fees and the reduction in my hours I now make a grand profit after tax of . . .

[bran]

£2.06!

don't go mad with it will you!

Erm not good?

Actually, I may have miscalculated, I think nursery fees are not as high as I thought. So in fact I clear a profit of £5.06.

Of course that's after deductions for pension contributions, which I will theoretically get back if I live long enough. And I pay a small amount for family health cover which would cost quite a bit if I wasn't doing it through work (although we could have health cover through dh's work for only slightly more). On the other hand I commute twice a week which costs me £4 per day

I really didn't think this through very well did I? I was really pleased when I managed to get my hours reduced as on the days I come into the office I need to get up at 6.30 and I was getting really knackered. Now I do 2 half days from home and 2 full days in the office and I'm not tired at all, but then I'm not actually making any money either. (Which isn't good, thanks for asking TA. )

I'm going to have to think again about this whole working thing. Although if I wasn't working at all I would still like ds to go to nursery a couple of days a week as he absolutely loves it there. He's very sociable and gets a touch of cabin fever if he's stuck with just parents for more than a couple of days, and the toddler groups around here are generally younger than his age group. So that would be an ongoing cost if we didn't have my wage.

If I was going to keep this job after ds starts school then I would grit my teeth and stay, but we are planning to move to Ireland before ds starts school so I will be leaving this job in about 2 years anyway.

I'm not really looking for answers as I'm mostly just chuntering to myself, but opinions would be very welcome.

do you like your job?

Would you consider looking for another one, that may not be more money, but might cut down on travelling times and expenses?

I think it would all depend on two things
1)HOw much you enjoy the job
2)How much you need the money.

Also that you want your ds to continue in nursery so need to cover that?

Working isn't just about the money - if you enjoy it enough and don't need to earn more, then fair enough to continue.

Have you had your tax band reassessed since you cut down your hours? (don't know much about it so can't offer anymore than that).

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I'm sure that I enjoy my job really, in fact the month coming up to Christmas was fairly stressful because of workload and deadlines, but I find it easy and I'm good at it. Whereas I'm really not that good at being a housewife and SAHM. I don't like cooking, I make much more mess than I clean up and I get bored of doing jigsaws/play doh etc after about half an hour. However, there are big changes afoot at work involving major retraining onto some rubbish new software by SPSS. It's a very different way of working and basically my team's work will be "insourced" to our Indonesian office while we undertake training for about 3 or 4 months. There will be a very steep learning curve and I may have to do some 5-day weeks on training courses, perhaps just before that begins might be a good time to leave.

We don't need the money as dh earns plenty, but there would be a cost if I were to stop work and keep ds in nursery 2 days a week (I think it would be just under £400).

Sorry, that should be "I'm not sure that I enjoy my job".

I dont know if this will help you or not, I have always worked round the children, IE go to work in the evenings while DH is here to look after them, so no childcare, you can still take dc to playgroup/pre-school which is cheaper but still gives social interaction desired. I guess because I never had a career, it doesnt really bother me doing part time work I currently child mind during the week and work for Out of Hours GP service on weekend evenings, as I said not fantastic but it will do for now. When ds starts school on September may re-evaluate, but for now its ok. Sorry if this has rambled on a bit!!!!

If money isn't a huge pressure and you're not sure about your job, could this be the time to look at getting a new job or starting a new career? Looking at careers advice maybe?

You want to work (guessing part time?)
You want to earn enough to cover costs and nursery fees?
You want to have a job you enjoy.

Would a new job/career interest you?

I was not cut out to be a SAHM, so working three days a week was the compromise. I did make a bit more than that after deductions when DS was younger, not much. By the time I had paid the CM, cleaner, the ironing lady, the dog walker and the pre-school fees on the days he went, we only had enough to go out for a pizza every six weeks or so.

I was made redundant last October, and took the winter off to help DS settle into school,(he was on mornings only until Christmas)

BUT and this is the important part, when he went to school, I strolled back into a part time school hours role, the agencies were delighted to have my experience on their books because I had not lost my skills, so to speak. I joined the company I am at for a two week gig last year and I am now in my eight month.

Our Finance Director was a tad chauvanistic and made it clear to the agency that he wanted to return to workers, who had never really stopped working. IYKWIM

So it is not always about the money, more about the mental stimulation.

Hope this makes sense.

That's a good point S88AGH, but unfortunately I can't work around dh as he never stops working, hence the good salary. He usually only makes it home before ds' bedtime 2-3 times a week, and at least once or twice a week he doesn't get home until after 10pm. He's also studying for a doctorate in business so he's often busy doing that at the weekends. Plus he's quite active in his church so he serves at the altar at least once a month and goes to parish council meetings.

I'm going to sound a bit wet now, but I think I should make it clear that I'm fundamentally a very lazy person, so any lack of enthusiasm at suggestions doesn't mean that they're not good suggestions. I like to spend time with ds, but preferably not all the time, I like to use my brain but don't get agitated without a challenge, I really hate housework and cooking. Basically I would quite like to swan around not doing very much and being the sort of self-obsessessed lay-about that the more active mnetters sneer about at the school gates.

Having said all that I wouldn't mind a career change, in fact I was considering going back to university when we move back to Ireland. I'm not sure that there's all the much point making a change now as we're only going to be in London for another 2 years at the most.

Do you have any suggestions about how to go about investigating other careers TheArmadillo? I would quite like something that will use my brain (I do statistical analysis of market research data at the moment), something with some kind of social aspect (not working at home on my own all the time) but not emotionally draining, ie not dealing with other people's stressful situations. I was considering going back to university to study engineering of some sort, perhaps civil or electrical.

I think I would agree with you LGJ that it's worth not making any profit for a few years to make it easier at school age. But I don't think I'll stay in the same industry after we move and ds starts school, in fact even if I don't go back to university I may not work for a couple of years as I think we may be building a house, or doing serious renovation work and that together with settling the family in and making new friends would keep me occupied reasonably well.

I suppose technically only half the cost is yours though because the children are half your husband's... and working because you prefer it is good enough reason and to help you do better later etc. May be you could increase your hours again

bran, if you don't mind a bit of travel, you could use the co-op if you weren't working. Much cheaper than £400/month, and good for his socialisation.

The other thing is, though, if you keep working, it keeps your hand in, so if you want to work in Ireland, you can. (I regret giving up work only because it will make working again much tricker if/when I decide to do it ...)

would love to advise you on careers but having not had one yet (am at uni) and with no idea of what I want to do, I wouldn't be any good

learn direct free careers advice

Also if you are thinking about going back to university is there any job that would give you useful experience for a course you want to do?

I'd forgotten about the co-op NQC, that would definitely be worth considering. When I was returning to work I remember wishing that it was closer to me as it's such a good idea, but if I wasn't working there wouldn't be quite the same time pressure for drop-off/pick-up so it could work. Does it have a website with all the info?

I have considered that half of the cost of nursery is dh's Xenia, but on the whole I consider costs and income as a family unit rather than split by each of us. So the difference in family income between me working and me not working (and not using nursery) is £5.06. I could increase my hours, but I did find that I was very tired with the early starts, and increasing my hours would mean a return to that as my work would prefer me to be physically in the office.

I'll have a browse of that site, thanks TA it looks interesting. I might also start a new thread asking about careers advice books/services.

bran, there's no website for the co-op. Call me if you want to chat about it.

The real difference is more like £405.06, really, though, if part-time nursery would be the substitute. Or £105.06, if a part-time co-op place would do.

Are you getting all the benefits you're entitled to? Are you using childcare vouchers? They help a bit.

My company don't do childcare vouchers , apparently it's too much administration for the numbers of employees who have children. I've been nagging dh to sort it out at his company but he's been too busy to talk to the accountant about it.

I'll definitely get in touch with you in a couple of weeks NQC, I've been thinking about going back to the Museum of Childhood again now that it's reopened. Are you interested in meeting up there?

Oh, god, childcare vouchers would actually save your firm money, from what I know - they save some tax money on the ££ you send off as vouchers.

I know, I don't know why they don't do them. The company was bought by a Hong Kong based company a few months before I went on adoption leave, and they've had a very rapid turnover of staff ever since mostly because of the change of ethos in the company. Almost all the very senior staff were either paid off or stayed with the previous parent company. The current company has spun it as removing hierarchy and having a flatter, more egalitarian way of working, but in fact it means that a lot of the knowledge and experience has been lost. This is especially noticeable in HR, where we lost the HR director and his job is now down by his assistant who only had about 2 years experience and is really struggling. She didn't even know the procedures for flexible working applications, I had to send her a link to the govt website. I think setting up a childcare voucher scheme is beyond her.

Hmm, the laws and habits in the Far East are dreadful, afaik. DH has staff in Singapore (not the same, I know!), and one of them is pregnant. He told me that his firm doesn't require that they give her any special treatment etc beyond the statutory minimums there, which is something ludicrous like a few weeks' pay. Oh, or he could just fire her for being pregnant, if he wanted . (He won't! He wouldn't dare!)

I've thought about it more, and even if just your DH uses nursery vouchers, assuming he's a higher-rate taxpayer, that saves you about 80 quid a month (as he would pay £200 pre-tax to cover £200 nursery cost, rather than the £280, or more, it would cost him with tax, iyswim).