Learning to walk before I run

rtandon27

@edinburgher - honestly sod the advice to pack it in!  - I know it's d@mn hard, but learning to cope with the carp is really the way to go!

The one thing I would say, is carve out time for yourself that doesn't involve alcohol, chocolate or screen time - even if you start with 10 mins a day! - I started with a physio exercises break & worked up to a yoga break - now that the weather is decent it's a walk to a green space and back (15 mins) and then 10-mins of Pilates in the evening - other people take smoke/vape breaks, I take me-time breaks!

badmemory

There is always the chance that any lower paid job could turn out to be even worse, which would not help at all.

South_coast

edinburgher said:

Or was your thinking in terms of reducing the mortgage to allow for job flexibility?  

Yes. IIRC you're pretty well set pension-wise, so I was wondering if you could punt the extras at the mortgage for a set period with a view to reducing the monthly commitment. It might not be the most optimal use of the money, but it might allow you to drop say half a day a week and live more now instead of in 20 years?

edinburgher

Therein lies the rub. Already asked work to reduce me to 30 hours/week, flat out refused.

edinburgher

A surprisingly, erm, Prolific day on the old studies

1) £20.38 withdrawn from Prolific

2) $15 of that was a type of AI "comparison" survey that I haven't been able to do recently for technical reasons. Fixed this in my settings, so feeling pleased with myself

3) Did an hour of overtime

4) Topped up my Dividend pie because it tanked today (looks like a company is merging with another, represents 4% of the portfolio)

5) Contributed to Mrs E taking the girls into Glasgow (cat café, Gregg's for lunch, mooch around the shops)
6) £35 of vouchers from Morrisons for completing a points offer

Watty1

Ed have you researched what happens to pension if you leave and start again somewhere else, presumably with another pension?  I don't know how many years you have left but I'm assuming quite a few as DD's are still young.
Hating your current environment just sounds a dire situation when you have to work so many hours.

SuperSecretSquirrel

Easy to chip in from the sidelines I know, and please feel free to ignore, but I don't think suffering a horrible job for years on end is healthy. Sure, hastily dumping the job in favour of something low paid that you may also end up hating could be a bit rash, but that's not the only option.

There are other good jobs that pay well and offer good pensions. Keep applying for things you like the look of and you might create an agreeable exit plan for yourself. Far preferable to sucking it up for years before eventually burning out or breaking down.

You probably need to keep an eye on how pension heavy things may or may not be heading for you too. I know myself how tempting the uplift is when paying into pensions, but at some point you need to work out how much is enough (or more than enough?) in a pension wrapper and start taking a "hit" on some of that free money for the sake of earlier access...

What is your DB worth by now? If claiming it from SPA, and expecting full SP on top, how much does that amount to, and how much do you expect you'll need? Sometimes a sub-optimal path on paper can be the best way to go.

Presumably the years of DB already accrued are "locked in"? A modern career average scheme not an old style final salary one?