Downshifting and saving

sibay

Over the last few years I felt there must be more to my life than a working week and weekends with the family. This has became especially poignant after family illness. In 2006 I began to think more seriously about work-life balance. I have enjoyed the freedom that working at home one day a week has given me and wanted to take this to the next level. My firm, and in particular my manager, have been extremley supportive and I could not wish to work for a more forward thinking and fair employer, especially when it comes to diversity. After spending a deal of time considering the options, my wife and I agreed that we could manage on a reduced income and still live a reasonably comfortable lifestyle. I set about my application with my employer and making adjustments and chages to our outgoings. Out went the cable TV, the broadband link was reduced, the second car went, the utilities switched where possible and our budget scrutinised (much of this down to advice on these forums). I continue to try and find more cost effective alternatives and reduce our living expenses to a minimum so that we have the most amount of disposable income possible. I now work three days a week and have a four day weekend. My wife is working ten days a month so we can now share the responsbilities of life more evenly. I have created a blog on blogger.com and intend to keep an account of how I spend the two extra days I have have been afforded so as to help keep a mind on why we made these changes. In the early weeks they are likely to be taken up with catching up on chores and DIY tasks but as the weeks progress I hope to make some real lifestyle changes.

The way I look at is that I have been given four days a week to enjoy with my wife and family and I don't intend to waste them.

Managed some good savings this last month including: -

Switched gas and electricity using https://www.uswitch.com from Powergen to Atalantic - saving £10 per month
Switched from eSure to the Post Office for my car insurance, saving £60 per year. Used https://www.confused.com for that.
Cancelled my basic NTL TV package, bought an arieal and freeview box (ebayand Amazon), installed them and set it all up myself - saving £140 in the first year then £240 per year thereafter
Switched from Argos pet insurance to Tesco, saving 1p per month, but I got clubcard points!
Saved £50 on the cross trainer from https://www.ebay.co.uk instead of buying from Argos
Saved on some Xmas presents after seeing the clearance stock at Amazon
Had a clear out and have around 50 items to ebay myself
Found time for DIY rather than paying someone else to do it.

My blog is here http://mydownshift.blogspot.com/ if anyone is interested but I'll try and post on here with any more savings I make.

Love the site, best of money saving to everyone and keep up the excellent work Martin.

lisyloo

Good luck to you.
I have pondered this myself.
The problem is that with many jobs you need to be working 5 days plus.
I think you have been very lucky with your job.

Would you mind telling us what you and your wife do for a living, in the interests of considering a more flexible career.

System

I shall be reading your blog with interest. I am fortunate that i am a stay at home Mom/housewife and there are no great pressures for me to go out to work but i do find i still have pressures on my time and money that arent easy to shake off. I found myself going into town today to buy a thankyou card - to realize on the way back i could have checked out my local shops first.

sibay

Thanks both of you for your replies to my first post. A nice surprise.

My wife went back to work a couple of years ago as a Legal Secretary and chose to work part-time after taking eight years out to bring up our two girls.

I have been working for large companies without a break in IT for 20 years and in August was able to negotiate a three day week, obviously taking a two fifths pay cut. I work as a project manager and our resources are managed on percentage availability is so it simply means I am only available to manage projects at 60% each week. My boss is looking to employ someone else for the remaning 40% of the time (ensuring the headount allocation is fully utilised).

Thanks for your interest,

lessonlearned

Well done.

My husband and I decided some time ago to do the same and had started making preparations, sorting out finances etc and thinking about downsizing to a smaller house.

He has very recently been diagnosed with MS (my thread is on the Silver Savers Board) and this has made us more determined than ever to put our plans into action - only now it will be sooner rather than the originally planned two to three years from now.

Like you he has been in IT for many years and is looking for a complete change.

I shall read your blog with great interest. I know that more and more of us are becoming disenchanted with the rat-race and would jump at the chance to change our lives.

My advice to anyone contemplating downshifting for a better quality of life is to go for it - you never know what's around the corner (as my husband's illness has shown).

Good luck.