Mums - How Do You Make it Worth It to Work?

shop-to-drop

I'm another on nights (at Tesco) it's worked well although losing sleep does suck.

I work 2 nights a week, 15 hours and clear around £130-£140 a week. 10% staff discount which is worth another £700 a year, pension, yearly bonus, and other benefits. I've enjoyed it too and there are plenty of opportunities for overtime and very flexible if you need to rearrange hours or take unpaid time off. They are currently asking staff if they want term time only working hours. I would recommend although you do need to be prepared to work hard so not for lightweights or wingers.

Also to add when the children are older and you want more hours/responsibility there are also lots of career opportunites for the right candidate so not necessarily a dead end job.

Person_one

shop-to-drop wrote: »

I'm another on nights (at Tesco) it's worked well although losing sleep does suck.

I work 2 nights a week, 15 hours and clear around £130-£140 a week. 10% staff discount which is worth another £700 a year, pension, yearly bonus, and other benefits. I've enjoyed it too and there are plenty of opportunities for overtime and very flexible if you need to rearrange hours or take unpaid time off. They are currently asking staff if they want term time only working hours. I would recommend although you do need to be prepared to work hard so not for lightweights or wingers.

Also to add when the children are older and you want more hours/responsibility there are also lots of career opportunites for the right candidate so not necessarily a dead end job.

You spend £7000 a year at Tesco! :eek:

shop-to-drop

Person_one wrote: »

You spend £7000 a year at Tesco! :eek:

Yep more than actually. Family of five, not just food though, electrical items, household, clothing etc. It soons goes if you buy a few large ticket items especially around Xmas.

guruchelles

Wow, amazing answers everyone. Thank you.

What I'm hearing is that it works best if you have a family member to care for your children and/or you can get hours when your OH is at home.

My problem is that, although my DH works office hours most of the time, he works away once every couple of months for a few weeks at a time, so if I got a job with anti-social hours I'd be in the poop. I have no family who can babysit.

My older children are 11 and 9, and my youngest 18 months, and because I was a SAHM with the first two as well I'm in the weird position of actually having very little work history. I had a nice job before I had my third son, but it's not something I want to go back to. I do have a good degree (graduated 2008) and a lot of voluntary work on my CV now. I put in a lot of hours volunteering in breastfeeding support, but I can take my son with me to that.

Also, my DH earns so much more than me, so it makes more sense (we think) for him to earn what I could in a month of part time work by doing a weekend overtime. We're lucky he has that opportunity.

To be honest, I've never really know what I want to be when I grow up. I'm quite happy to stay at home for a few years, but I do sometimes wonder if I'll ever have a career or if I've just missed the boat on that one.

kirstle99

Hi

I am a mum to 2 boys, aged 5 and 1 (one at school & one at full-time nursery). I work on average 28 hours a week. I am lucky I have a mum friend who takes my eldest to school for me, so my day consists of drop him off at 07:50, drop youngest at nursery when it opens at 8am, then get to work for 08:15. I finish at 3pm most days so I can do the afternoon school run.

DH works 50 hours a week and is often asked to cover holidays so I never rely on his days off (his working day is also 7:30-5:30 so he can't help me there!)

My work have been really good with my hours actually, and i'm lucky that if I needed to change they could probably accomodate it. Im also lucky in that when I need time off for school hols, we have an abundance of part-time ataff who need more hours so it evens out.

Our tax credits pretty much cover the nursery fees for the youngest (give or take £5 a week) so at the moment it is worth it to work for me.

peachyprice

Person_one wrote: »

You spend £7000 a year at Tesco! :eek:

That's only £150 a week, for a family of 5 that's about what I spend in Sainsbury's,I don't think it's that outlandish TBH.

Dunroamin

peachyprice wrote: »

That's only £150 a week, for a family of 5 that's about what I spend in Sainsbury's,I don't think it's that outlandish TBH.

Just for food?

choccybuttons

It doesn't but I have a very niche job that I won't be able to get back into if I leave. So I compromised, dropped hours down and looking at the long game. Doing a job I enjoy and trained many years for. Once I get them all in school it will be easier so only 5 years to go lol

jackomdj

I went back to my old company so able to make it fit.

When I had one I did 3 days a week, she was in the on site crèche.
After the second I went back for 2 long days, so only dropped 2 hours but paid 2 days of crèche fees rather than 3.
When old enough they both did 3 days (ie non work days) at preschool, attached to school, I had to pay or this as used the free sessions to pay towards crèche BUT thought it was important as they would go to school with these children.
Once eldest at school she did after school club on my 2 work days, plus a friend dropped her to school.
Once they were both at school I changed to 3 school hour days, except Monday am where the friend dropped them off.
Early last year I changed roles and needed to add an extra 10 hours. So now I do....friend drops off Mon am, I collect from school. Tues & Wed I drop off & they are in after school club for 2 hours, Thrs I drop off and pick up, Friday I am off but they finish at 1:30.

Holiday cover is a whole other issue, my parents cover some, they go to a local health clubs holiday club, I buy so extra holiday and I work longer hours (oh does drop off to holiday club so I go in early and pick up later as I have paid for it) so holiday club week I usually only put them in for 3 days.

OH is a contractor so he does not get pix holiday, so it falls to me as it would cost too much for him to have time off.

Counting_Pennies_2

I don't.

Now the children are in school, we are buying some buy to lets and I will be managing them.