Advice re switching to part time

milliemonster

Agree with almost everything that has already been said, I am looking to do the same although not in the same fortunate position as you (as in I still have a mortgage, debt and little savings lol!) and I am planning to go to 18hrs from full time which will mean a salary drop of 60%, but all this will mean for us is it will take longer to pay off the debt as we won't have enough to overpay at the rate we currently are, however my sanity is more important and I am sick of the rat race and I am only 37!

I have 2 kids who are at school but I can't wait to have the time to spend with them when they are home, in my garden, doing my crafts, just walking the dog etc without all the stress of my current job (started work at 6am yesterday and was still on the phone to my boss at 8pm last night grrrr!)

Yes we will have less money, but fortunately, 2 years of cutting back and paying off our debt has helped me to learn to budget properly, learn new hobbies (apart from shopping lol) that don't cost, and realise what is important in life, this all happened when I lost my mum at 64 2 years ago, who had saved all her life, worked hard and never spent anything so she could enjoy her retirement, but never got there. I don't want that to be me, I want my time back and am willing to give up the luxuries to have that, as long as we can pay the bills (which we will be able to) then I am happy

Good luck to you whatever you decide xx

Savannah02K

Thanks so much for all the input folks, it has been really useful and I've picked up a few ideas: will try living on reduced income for a few months and see how that goes, will explore when will be best time in tax year to actually try and go part time and then check my tax, and will make sure I have store cupboards well stocked for intial shock! I work in a large company so am registered on website for job alerts, so far all the part time jobs have been 'too' part time but I'm hoping something will come up. I'll have to drop a grade as the argument will be that my grade is really only do-able full time which is why I'm so permanently shattered and disillusioned! At least if I can get part time here I can get the same holiday/sickness benefits. Not sure how much longer I can stand it tho ...........

Thanks again, it's been inspiring!

Almo

Hi Savannah,

I've recently gone part time at the ripe old age of 26 and it's great. I do 3 days a week at my 'employed' job and the other two days I do some private tutoring and work on our small business. When I worked full time (in this position) I was constantly miserable - I had severe Sundayitis every week and was constantly knackered and grumpy. The change to 3 days has been amazing. I have more energy, save money by not resorting to convenience food and something appears to have changed in my tax as I've lost only half what I though I would - I must have gone down a tax bracket. I know our positions are not identical - effectively I do still work full time, it's just that some of that is self employed, but if you have no debts or mortgage I would suggest taking the leap.

mumcoll

It was the best thing I did, 20 years ago when I was 33. We had to be more careful but can honestly say we haven't had any major problems due to the drop in salary.
I have worked part time in various jobs and now do 21 hours over 3 days in a housing office and 11.5 from home. Although this is nearly full time, because I don't 'go' to work for the home job, I can do it as and when.

Since then we have gone through my husband losing his well paid job and having a dramatic drop in salary. We've survived that too. We paid our mortgage off this year, have no debts and are starting to build up some savings.

Good luck, it makes a massive (positive) difference to your life.