Can I afford to job-share?

[threeckat]

Age: 32
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 32

Annual gross income from employment or profession: 72500
Annual gross income of spouse: circa 20000
Type of employment: Public Servant, self-employed

In general are you:
(b) saving? €1100 pm

Rough estimate of value of home: €300k
Amount outstanding on your mortgage: €240

What interest rate are you paying? ECB + 1.15% - €1250 pm

Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc Nil
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? Yes

Savings and investments: €5000
Do you have a pension scheme? Yes
Do you own any investment or other property? No
Ages of children: Nil

Life insurance: Mortgage protection €50 pm
Outgoings:
Eircom: €90pm
ESB: €50pm
Petrol: €50pm

What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?

I have a good salary, but have a stressful job that involves long hours of tedium. It’s hard to distinguish one monotonous year from another as my life consists of the drudgery of work followed by the drudgery of home renovation in the evenings and weekends. It’s not exactly how I envisaged my thirties, so I’ve been considering changing my work-life balance and applying for a work-sharing scheme, whereby I would work a three-day week for 60% of my current salary. That would reduce my gross salary to €43,360.

I’ve slogged to get to my current salary level and am baulking at giving up €30k. I’m looking for information on what is the monthly take-home pay from a €43k salary (including the public service pension levy). I’d appreciate advice on what is the minimum salary I need to service my obligations with a degree of comfort. My partner earns circa €20, but her income is sporadic and can’t be relied upon for bills, mortgage payments, et cetera.

 

[Guest116]

You might just need a few months off - can you take a career break of some sort. Sounds like you are burnt out. You have a good salary so cutting it by 40% is a big decision.

Can you work from home to make your week a bit easier?

 

[threeckat]

Thanks for the reply, I guess I'm just trying to get a handle on how such a major change would affect me financially. What would be my takehome pay and am I missing any obvious consequences of taking such a cut.

There are other options open to me and I recognise that in a climate where people are losing their jobs, that I am fortunate to have such avenues. I've considered a career break, but I have commitments (elderly parents) which curtail my ability to travel for long periods.

I'm considering the work-share option as I think it would be better than a temporary fix and would offer a better work-life balance. I don't mind working, I just would prefer to be in a situation where it wasn't the dominant factor in my life.

 

[Guest116]

You should check the impact of the recent budget on your take home pay - it will be down anyways. So then you are looking at further decreases in the next budget (December?, maybe earlier) so you will be down more.

There are lots of online net pay calculators you can use to figure out the changes from taking the pay cut...