Part time with long commute to full time and short commute. Help me decide!

[motheroreily]

I currently work 30 hours a week. For 3 days I leave the house at 720ish and am back at 1900ish. My child is with a childminder during this time. 1 day i don't work and 1 day i drop my child at school and pick them up and work from home.

The 3 long days are hard for me and my child who is 6. Im also a single parent with no extended family.

I've been offered a more local job. This will be working 5 days a week and will involve being out of the house from 730 to 1700 everyday. But now I'm wondering if this is an improvement on my current arrangement. I am considering asking for slightly reduced hours which i can afford and perhaps working an hour less a day.

Ahh i don't know. Is my current situation that bad? Im worried about the unknown

Which job has better pay / benefits / pension and prospects?

With full time you’d be paid more and would reduce wasted time travelling.

The full time job is slightly more money (about 2k) but my travel costs will be greatly reduced. Currently about £4,000 a year. Both are fixed term contracts but that's the norm in the area i work

£2k more per year after tax plus £4k travel cost savings? £6k net more a year is quite a lot IMO.

Looks like the full time option is the better choice at face value. More money, a reduced commute and more consistent time at home seem to be worth the trade off of losing the day off, but only you know if that is the case for you.

Take job with short commute

Definitely full time.

Nkt onlybwill you get extra hours in the eve, but they'll be better hours as you won't be as tired

Hi, I just had the same choice, slightly different details but essentially 3 days a week out of the house 7-7. I made the choice to work much closer to home (10mins!) full time. I had the difficulty that it meant my 3 year old DS had to go full time at CM which is hard for him and me BUT! I'm there for breakfast, pick up, dinner, bath bedtime etc and I'm not zonked from the commute. I do think it was the right decision

Thank you all so much. It's so helpful to see other opinions. Only 3 other children in the class have parents that work full time but I guess they have different lives to me. I'm not that friendly with the other parents anyway they wont miss me