Pursuing FIRE is a fine balancing act. On the face of it, delaying your FIRE journey would seem like a bad idea. Who wants to spend longer tied to a job when they could be doing anything else?! But there are other factors at play here!
Finding a Balance
It’s tempting to go flat out to achieve Financial Independence as soon as possible, leaving you to enjoy the rest of your life in peace. But this approach can have significant downsides.
It’s important to find the balance that’s right for you. Up to this point we have been very much in the FIRE ASAP category. We’ve been working as hard as possible to save as much as possible.
While this has been successful so far, we’re still a significant way from FIRE status, and beginning to feel the full effects of burn-out.
Baby Way
If you’ve read our Baby Impact Assessment post, you’ll know that we’ve been considering the ways in which our first child is going to impact our financial situation.
Part of this exercise has involved fairly lengthy discussions about how much we each want to work going forward.
This post will focus on how Mr Way came to the decision to go down to a 4-day work week.
Over to Mr Way!
Current Situation
I am currently a full time employee, working 37.5 hours spread over 5 days, Monday to Friday.
As I explained in How to Kill off Ambition and De-Motivate Your Staff, I’ve increasingly become disillusioned with my current employer! I’ve worked there for over 7 years now and I’m becoming more and more frustrated with management.
It’s also important to know that I’ve always been a family man. I grew up looking after many younger cousins at family events and have always enjoyed being around babies and children.
The Plan
Because of the factors above, I am very keen to reduce my working week during Baby Way’s first few years. I don’t want to miss out entirely on these precious times and am keen to feel involved in bringing Baby Way up (no doubt with many subliminal FI-related messages!!).
Really, I’d love to stop work entirely but that would have a rather catastrophic effect on our finances! It would mean delaying our FIRE journey much further than I would find acceptable.
With our intention being to breastfeed Baby Way, there are obvious anatomical reasons why Miss Way will need to be the primary caregiver for the majority of the week for the early months at least!
Aside from being a key part of Baby Way’s early years, this decision will also give me more of a work-life balance. We’re hoping that this will help to ease the stress I’m feeling and make me a generally happier, more productive Dad!
As an additional motivation to make this step, Miss Way would like to carry on a small part of her work. This will allow her to keep her work tools sharp, easing the transition back to work when she steps her hours up again in future. As a mostly self-employed music teacher, she doesn’t want to lose some of her better students/choirs by stopping work entirely and handing them over to colleagues.
Combine all of the above and me going down to a 4-day week becomes a no-brainer.
Miss Way will have the full 5th day to work, while I take over childcare. Party!
Finances
Of course, pursuing FIRE, we also wanted to know the impact this decision would have on our finances. In Baby Impact Assessment, we worked out that my salary would reduce by roughly £500 per month. Clearly this will mean delaying my FIRE journey quite significantly, if maintained long term.
This is based on my current salary. I also happen to be very close to a (potential) promotion. This may or may not happen, but we live in hope!! If this did come about, it may well entirely cancel out any loss of earnings, meaning I could go down to 4 days without any reduction in overall salary (compared to today)!
While we don’t want to rely on this, I’ve been in constant dialogue with my employers and I’m really pushing to achieve this next step very soon. I’m hopeful that it could be possible later this summer, which would tie in perfectly with Miss Way starting work again in September.
Keep your fingers crossed for us!
FIRE Dilemma
Despite the positive outlook we have on this decision, clearly going down to a 4-day work week will mean significantly delaying my FIRE journey. As someone who wants to achieve FI status as soon as possible, this is a painful decision to take.
In this scenario, you really need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Is it worth slogging away now and achieving FIRE a couple of years earlier, or will we get much more pleasure out of life NOW by slowing down slightly and enjoying the journey?
Different people will have different answers to this question. For us, we think the latter scenario will make us much happier overall.
In direct terms, this decision will take my individual savings rate from ~60% down to ~35-40%. That’s without the potential pay-rise mentioned above.
The Employer
The next step is to mention this plan to my employer.
We aren’t sure exactly what the best way to go about this might be. At the minute, it’s my intention to delay this decision and see what happens regarding promotions.
Obviously the decision to go down to 4 days could work against me if/when promotions are discussed so ideally, this discussion would happen AFTER gaining the promotion.
Of course, this elusive promotion may never arrive. In this case, I’ll probably put in an official request for a 4 day week in August, with the intention of starting this in September ready for the new school year. This would allow Miss Way to start work when her pupils return to school.
But will my employer accept this part-time work request?
We can’t really see why not and will make sure the case is strongly put forward. It is very unlikely that the reduction in working hours would have a significant impact on the company. There are always other people who can pick up the slack and with careful management; deadlines should still be easily achieved.
Another option is to initially take the Fridays off as ‘holiday’ in September. This would give us a ‘trial run’ of the 4 day week and also delay the official decision. This would have the added bonus of NOT delaying my FIRE journey. I would still be on full pay, but would very quickly burn through my holiday allowance.
The Future
This is the plan for the next year or so while Baby Way is small and Miss Way is earning Maternity pay. Ideally, Miss Way would like to return to work more than 1 day per week. We currently have a couple of options for this which we’ll assess as we go and probably discuss in future posts!
There are still quite a few unknowns in the whole situation. Will the 4 day week be everything I hope for? Will Miss Way still want to return to work once Baby Way steals her heart? Who knows!
Your Experiences
So that’s where we stand right now. I’ve pretty much committed to reducing my working week now – at least in my own head! My employer doesn’t know about this yet so we’re still debating the next step.
We would love to hear your experiences and opinions, mainly on these points:
- Is going down to a 4 day week worth delaying FIRE for?
- How would you deal with telling your employer?
- The best long term option after year 1
When considering this decision, there were a few resources we found invaluable. We’re big fans of the Slow FI series by The FIoneers. This is a series of interviews with FIRE types who are consciously slowing down the FI journey to improve their current situation.
Another big influence on me personally was the ‘Choosing Family Over Finances’ series by Mr Burrito Bowl. This is a link to the most up to date article in the series which also contains back-links to previous parts. As a fellow construction industry worker, his story hit home for me.
Mr Burrito Bowl (sort of) went down to part time hours when Mrs Burrito Bowl’s maternity leave ended. It’s a complicated series of events which is still unfolding. The over-riding message for me is that you have endless options. You don’t just have to work 5 days per week because everyone else does.
These types of stories really helped me realise that another way is possible. A Way to Less, if you like!
Hopefully the first step will be working 4 days per week. Who knows what will come next?! I’ll keep you updated as it progresses!
I think you are smart. One of my best friends from college and work was on the corporate plane when it stalled on takeoff and crashed, killing everyone onboard. He was still a young man, with his whole life ahead of him and with two young kids and a wife he loved dearly. He lived everyday to the fullest, which is great because he had fewer days than any of us dreamed. It is a bad gamble to cheat the present in hopes of a better future. Sure you have to plan and save for the future but you can only live now, its all you have that is certain.
That’s a really tragic story, and a reminder of why it’s so important to enjoy every day. Thanks for sharing.
Good luck with the 4-day week request.
I think some people aiming for FIRE underestimate the importance of balance.
There’s no point in getting a brilliant savings rate and race towards FIRE if it’s unsustainable and making your life a misery due to sacrifices made. I think this might be one of the reasons why you see so many blogs which start with a bang and then disappear quickly with a whimper (although the hard work which goes into blogging is also underestimated!).
If I’m still with my employer when I FIRE, I would like to go down to a 4-day week but I can already envisage them being totally confused, when part-time hours are given only to women with young children.
Them: “Why do you want to go down to 4 days?”
Me: “Because the weekend is not long enough and I want an extra day to lie-in!”
Perhaps I need to think about how to answer that question less truthfully when the time comes!
Thanks Weenie.
I expect my request to be met with similar confusion! Working on a less truthful answer is a good idea, although if you’re already FIREd at that point it must be tempting to just be honest 🙂