Hello, everybody! Today, I wanted to give you an update on my journey to financial independence and tell you about a decision I’ve made that’s not a typical FIRE decision.
It’s probably not the most popular path on the path to FIRE. I’ve just asked my employer for the ability to transfer from full time to part time. And I’m THRILLED. I feel liberated and excited for the future.
Why did I decide to make this decision?
This has been something on my radar for years. It’s not something out of the blue for me. I’m wanting to retire early anyways so I’m clearly not someone who wants to work for the rest of my life.
I’m someone who is constantly baffled when I look at everyone around me. I wonder how they seem completely content with coming to work every day. You rush to get ready in the morning and if you’re lucky, you eat before you get out the door. Then, you show up at the office at 7:30 am and you don’t leave the office until 5pm. I constantly wonder how everybody seems so fine doing this EVERYDAY. It’s the same thing. EVERYDAY. Do other people struggle to find the motivation in the mornings to start work? Do they sit there after 3 hours of work and think, great…I have 5 more hours of this?? Are they annoyed when they get off work and realize, “Great. I’ve literally got an hour of free time before I need to eat dinner. And then after that, my evening is basically done? No? Just me? Okay well that’s a lot of how I feel about the typical 40-hour work week.
I feel like I spend the greater percentage of my time and my life working for someone else. I’ve put a price on my life and it feels absolutely soul sucking to me. There has to be more to life than working 40 hours a week for someone else.
So, after working at a 40-hour job for the last 5 years of my life, I decided that I don’t have to accept the cultural norm. I don’t have to go along with everybody else’s definition of “normal.” If I’m unhappy, it’s up to me to change my situation. Nothing will change if I don’t change it myself. Everybody else might be content and fine with how society runs but that doesn’t mean I have to play along with the silly game. I want more out of my life. I don’t want to die and have been miserable in a 40 hour a week job just to collect a paycheck.
Making My Dream a Reality
Once I made the decision that I wanted to work part time, the next step was to have the conversation with the boss. Thankfully, in my last performance assessment, I had briefly touched on the topic of working less hours so my boss wouldn’t be completely shocked when I brought it up. The department I work in is overloaded with work and in need of more people. So, I was hesitant that my boss would reject my idea to go part time.
Instead of just picking up the phone and calling up my boss, I scheduled a Skype call with him a few days in advance. In the meeting notice I sent him, I merely mentioned, “Looking to discuss the possibility of working part-time.” By scheduling this in advance and giving my boss a heads up on this, I hoped it would give him time to let it sink in a little bit. Perhaps he would reach out to HR to be prepared with any questions he might have or things he wanted to discuss. Whether giving my boss this heads up actually helped, I won’t really ever know but I can say that the conversation went well. Thankfully, my boss was very supportive and understanding of my desire to work part time. He agreed right away without me having to do much negotiation at all.
Hooray! So what will working part time look like for me?
What will my days look like?
My part-time days will consist of me working 4-5 days a week still at about 5 hours a day. Overall I’ll be working an average of approximately 21 hours per week. I settled on this schedule due to some simple HR policies (health insurance and years of service/vesting). I’ll get into some of the fine details to look out for such as initiating the conversation with your boss, health insurance, years of service/vesting, and setting boundaries in your work schedule if you want to go part-time yourself.
I plan to enjoy the mornings. Wake up, read a book and sip my cup of tea outdoors in the morning sunshine. I’ll write for a little bit. I’ll lift weights or get a nice run in. The point is, there will be no rushing out the door to work.
Then I’ll get a few hours of work in for the company and not feel like I want to rip my hair out (Jury’s still out on that. Maybe I will still hate it? Who knows if I don’t try it?)
In the afternoon, I’ll do some wood working, more writing, more reading, hiking, working out, photography, and house renovation projects that have been put on the back burner! I’ll have the time to do the things that make ME happy instead of using my most productive energy for someone else.
How will this affect my path to financial independence?
Making the decision to go part time comes with some downsides. Or does it? To me, none of these are downsides and they are all things I’m perfectly willing to accept for the freedom that comes with working part time.
My pay will be reduced equivalent to how many hours I’m working. Therefore, my savings won’t be accumulating as fast as they previously were. However, this is something I’m more than willing to accept because my time bank will grow! I will have so much more time in my day to accomplish projects that truly make me happy. AND, the best part, most of these projects are things like this blog and other work that will allow me to create extra income.
I will be giving myself the time to explore these options. My dream for FIRE was always to have ways to make my own side or passive income and now I will be able to start those. Going part-time will also allow me to pay for my bills instead of quitting my job and having no income. So, I can sleep at night knowing my bills are covered!
What about your health insurance?
Most people that I mentioned to that I was looking to go part-time immediately freaked out and said “You’re going to lose your health benefits though!” Thankfully, I’m lucky enough to work at a company that has very good part-time policies. I won’t lose my health benefits by going part time and I will end up paying lower premiums for my health care.
I will also still be earning years of service at the same rate if I was working full-time. Therefore, I will still be able to vest at my original 3 years of service date which is good for my path to financial independence. However, if you are interested in working part-time be sure to look at your own company’s policies as they could be different from mine. This factored into my reasoning for working 4-5 days a week instead of working 2-3 days a week.
Things to Think About if You Want to Go Part-Time
Health Insurance
Health insurance is something you will want to be sure to look into before you decide to make the transition to part-time. In many companies, you might lose your health insurance when you switch to part time or there might be a specific number of hours you need to meet to keep your benefits. This likely varies by companies or state so be sure to do your due diligence and find out what will happen to your insurance benefits before making the decision. You can check with your HR or find your HR’s policies to find the answer.
If you do potentially lose your health benefits, maybe you could be covered under your spouse’s plan?
If all the other options fail, you can always purchase health insurance through HealthCare.gov. Click here to learn more about their options if you work part-time.
Thankfully, I work at a company that offers health benefits to part-time workers. Therefore, I will work 21 hours a week. The amount of premiums you pay for health insurance at my company is based on a tiered system. Therefore, my premiums will actually be reduced to a lower tier because my salary will be reduced which will put me in a lower tier with lower premiums. So that’s a great benefit! (Note: 21 hours a week sounds like a weird number, but my company has a cut off where if you work 20 hours, you actually have to pay 50% of the total cost of the premium (employer and employee combined costs) which is a significantly more amount of money! So, I will be working 21 hours instead of 20.
Years of Service/ Vesting
Another thing of importance to look at if you were to transfer to part time is years of service. After digging into my company’s HR policies, I found information on how years of service is calculated. I contacted my HR representative to confirm what I found and they actually didn’t even know the policy on how it was calculated.
Someone who works 40 hours a week gets 4.5 points for each week they work. Someone who works part time earns 1 point for every day they work at least 1 hour. In order to get 1 year of service, you need 100 points (all these points are made up for the sake keeping things anonymous, but they get my point across). Therefore, if I was to work 5 days a week, I’d get 5 points and if I only worked 2 days a week, I’d only get 2 points.
Therefore, since I haven’t reached my 3 years of service and that is required to get my full vesting match, I will plan to work 4-5 days a week. That way, I don’t slow down my ability to get my employer match.
However, your company might have a different way in which they calculation years of service in order to be fully vested (if you aren’t already). I found the answer for my company deep in some HR documents. Therefor, be sure to do your digging or ask an HR representative before making the transition if this is something you are working toward.
Less Money
Working part-time naturally means earning less money. Be sure you calculate or think about this reduction in salary. Will you still be able to cover your monthly bills? If an emergency comes up, do you have extra savings or a little bit of extra income to cover the costs?
Will You Actually Work Less?
This can be one of the most important pieces of information to know and only you know the answer. Will your company/coworkers/manager respect your reduced hour boundaries or will they still expect you to get the same amount of work done as when you were full time? This is important because you don’t want to have the same full time responsibilities when you are part time. You are getting paid a reduced amount and your level of work should reflect that. If you don’t think your job will work like that, then take pause before making the switch.
Working part time definitely requires setting boundaries, not being afraid to say no to projects, and missing out on potential meetings. This all comes with the territory and if it’s not something you’re willing to accept, then maybe part time isn’t for you.
What’s Next?
I plan to keep posting on how part-time is going as well as how the side gigs are going. I’m so excited for what the future holds and I haven’t felt like that in quite a while, so I know I’m on the right path for myself.
Wishing you all nothing but the best!