Working part time

Barney

I'm thinking of going part time iff possible at work ....thinking 3 days a week ...it's not cos I don't like the job just I would like more time to do what I want to .....

Has anybody done it and any pit falls , I have no debt or mortgage just usual bills 

I was thinking with the £12500 you can earn before tax I would pay less tax anyways 

Caffeine_Vampire

It's how I do it. No kids though.

Legionreturns

I work part time. 

Sadly, I have 3 part time jobs to make ends meet at the moment! 

70+ hour weeks 

HAL9000

I did this about three years back. Went down to four days initially and later on to three days. I was fortunate to be in a position where I didn’t particularly need the money - however I didn’t feel ready to retire. I was also fortunate that there was usually overtime available should I want it on my new days off.

Pros:
 More free time
 Felt less tired
 It was possible to go places on weekdays when they tended to be less crowded

Cons:
 None

I think though that it’s important to have plans for your newly-found free time else there’s definitely the danger of getting up progressively later and later, then vegetating in front of the tele all day. Daytime TV however is enough to completely put you off of doing this - at that time it seemed to consist entirely of Jeremy Kyle, Loose Women, and that orange antiques guy.
 
 

horse

Some possible cons to watch out for depending what the work is:

Being expected to get more than 3 days work done in the time (or still get.your head around the detail of a full time job in the reduced hours)

Catching up on the emails and events which have gone on whilst you were off, before you can get on with things

Perception of colleagues and management

Whether they expect you to effectively still be on call or not

Obvs hits.pension hard as well as income

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Very much depends on the work and the employer whether it works well or not imo

thecolourbox

Interesting discussion - I've been approached about a job which although in a similar field to what I currently do (and dislike) it seems actually quite interesting and different. However the sucker is that it's only 20 hours per week. The pay works out about 75% of my current wage, for 50% of the hours.

Initially I thought it could offer an opportunity to get a second more enjoyable job with less pressure (as I'd only need to make 25% of my salary back up) but I think what Mr Horse says above is a concern - will it be a full time job but only paid for half time? Will I end up doing more than 20 hours to keep afloat?

That's a big thing I think you'd need to check for yours really, as very quickly that extra time you think you'd get for yourself could become a point of frustration if it is taken up by the work that doesn't get finished in your new part time hours because your company will give you too much...

p90fool

I work 18-20 hours a week and would never go back to full time. 

Lots of people will tell you that you need to be disciplined with your time off but I don't particularly feel the need, as the reason I work part time is because I have better things to do. 

If you don't have better things to do with your day than go to work then you may as well just stay full time and make money. 

Caffeine_Vampire

Dad got his death sentence at 62, he was dead at 64 and nver saw his state pension. He worked like a bastard all his life and the job killed him. He said he only wanted 10 more years. 

I'm taking my 10 now. Incrementaly.

EricTheWeary

I celebrated paying the mortgage off by going down to three days. At the moment I work Wednesday to Friday. Probably not the best timing as we then had a pandemic but oh well. 

I often thought that part time people were better workers, that they were more focused and just cut out the water cooler chatter, the organising the Christmas do,etc. Getting the car serviced, going to the dentist, waiting in for a plumber, going to meetings at the school...al these things can happen on your non working days

And yes it’s easier to be more focused but harder to know what’s going on at work beyond your own caseload, harder to keep up with professional development, meetings eat up your time. Every Wednesday morning is like the Monday morning from hell because it’s my first day at work and everyone else has had two days extra to send emails, come up with crises. 

But a lot of this will be job specific I guess. 

The majority of my team at work are 3 or 4 days per week ( primarily women with school aged children) so it’s fairly normal. My health colleagues all work a 9/10 pattern so even many of the full timers aren’t there every day. 

monquixote

I think being able to work part time without hassle is dependent on the type of work you do.

If you work in a factory, or a shop floor, etc and when you aren't there there is someone else there to do what you otherwise would be doing you can go part time without hassle, but when you have the kind of job where the work is still there when you are away like some kind of customer relationship manager, or a team leader then it's more likely that people are going to be calling you on your non working days.

strtdv

My wife works part time (60% so 3 days a week plus 60% of normal on-call work), while I actually work work slightly more than full time, but work condensed hours (my normal working day is 8-5 and I work 8-8 on a Thursday but have Tuesdays off).

The benefits: 

Less work = less stress

We only need childcare 2 days a week

More time for family life

While you get paid less, my wife went down a tax band with working part time so less of a difference than you'd think.

Things to beware of:

Less of an issue with a 3 day week, but from talking to people who work 4 days a week they often say that they're squeezing 5 days work into 4 days.
Some things take a certain length of time whether you're 60% or full time eg my wife organises the rota and leave for her current job, and this tends to require some work on Thursdays and Fridays when she's not actually working.

Overall it works well for us, and I can't see either of us ever returning to a 5 day working week

boogieman

horse said:

Some possible cons to watch out for depending what the work is:

Being expected to get more than 3 days work done in the time (or still get.your head around the detail of a full time job in the reduced hours)

Catching up on the emails and events which have gone on whilst you were off, before you can get on with things

Perception of colleagues and management

Whether they expect you to effectively still be on call or not

Obvs hits.pension hard as well as income

---

Very much depends on the work and the employer whether it works well or not imo

This was my wife’s experience when she went from regular hours down to a three day week (she was an NHS nurse specialist). She also spent several unpaid hours each week liaising with her colleague who worked the other part of the week, just keeping each other up to speed. The biggest pisser though was that her line manager refused to let her work three straight days; her working week was split Monday, Tuesday, Thursday which made life pretty difficult. She grew to hate the job eventually and took early retirement. 

Supportact

As others have said it depends on the job and what your priorities are. For me, I realised that the time was more important to me than the money or the career. It wasn't a job I loved though, and I'm using the spare time to pursue other things that are important to me. Having gone down to a 3 day week I'd never want to go back to full time (unless maybe I could get paid for what I'm doing anyway which is unlikely!)

Supportact

Also regarding the money, I always found that you eventually just adjust to the income you have so long as basics are covered. I'm not really into expensive stuff though outside of music gear.

Grunfeld

Barney said:

Has anybody done it and any pit falls , I have no debt or mortgage just usual bills 

Yep, did it about seven or eight years ago.  Dropped down to 2.5 days a week.  I actually rather like my job (most of the time) but just don't like doing it all week.  Now, at 11:30 on a Wednesday morning I'm done and my weekend starts. 

Obviously it's a significant change in that income but I still prefer having the time. 

VimFuego

I did it self employed, started about 10 years ago. I worked mornings only, gave me the afternoons to spend time with mrs F. Took me a little while to build up the sort of client base that were happy with me only grafting for them in the mornings, but once that was done, it was the best 10 years of my life. OFC, that's all over now, not sure what I'll do going forward. 

TheMadMick

I went down to 2 days a week for 15 months before retirement. However, I was able to take most of my pension and my overall income didn't drop. I can thoroughly recommend it.

LastMantra

I used to work mornings 8-12 which should have gave me lots of time to do stuff, but by the time I'd walked home had a bath had some lunch it was about half 2 (if I wasn't rushing) and I couldn't be bothered doing much. Plus most people were still working so had nobody to play with. Used to just work extra hours a lot even though I didn't really need the money.
Good to be able to crank my amp while the neighbours were out though.

strumjoughlamps

This is my first week of going from 37 to 22 hours pw. Obviously a money hit but with my PD getting how it is I'm glad I can work in my current employment at all, although they have moved me to the transfer station.