How Could I Work Less?

I find balancing living with a chronic illness and working 5 days a week to be difficult. I live alone, so all responsibility for myself and my home lies on my shoulders.

I'd like to live a little more of my life while I'm still young. It feels really hard to take that risk though, with the financial and energy restraints of a chronic illness. You never can know when things will get bad again. So... I work and save.

Anyone have any hints on ways to ease up to 3 or 4 day work weeks? How about doing that sort of work week without stress?

Just throwing ideas around. Thanks for listening.

I've never specifically focused on going gluten free. I tried SCD for a couple weeks and was dropping weight so dramatically I had to stop. I've been checked for celiac's disease twice and definitely do not have it.

Personal intuition is that gluten free would not help my particular case. But your "massive success" in your profile gives me a smile. I'm glad to see people finding solutions!

I'm with you Thoreau. My finacee and I have great parents who have let us return to the nest after college for a while (she didn't go to college so hasn't left home!) All of my other friends are getting married and buying nice houses and 'living the dream.' (Read: probably in debt up to their eyeballs.) I've said for a long time if I could change anything in my life it would be no Crohn's and second would be a four day work week.

We are both extremely frugal. Nevertheless the company I work for is busier than ever and I work from 7AM until 7 or 8 PM each day. Then going home and cooking and eating late it's hard to sleep! Then I wake up during the night worried about how far behind we are at work! I was up from 2:30-4:30 this morning! I'm getting furthur behind typing on this forum :)

I see two reasons that this isn't the 1950's when the wife can stay at home and the man is the only one working (or vice versa if you're into that) which still applies to your single situation:

1) The money went a LOT farther back then. A dollar ain't what it used to be and it gets worse everyday. Can't do anything about that.
2) Those people had one family car and didn't have an iPad, two iPods, smartphones, McMansions, and all the other things that so many people would probably self combust if they had to live without. This is what we can do something about and we try to live as far below our means as possible. There are two employees here who make minimum wage and their cell phone bill runs at least $250 every month, some months $500. I'm a mechanical engineer here and my bills are less than both of those employees, house payments and all.

Your idea of "work and save" is a heck of a lot better than the polar opposite alternative. Have you thought about a career where you could do a four day week? Dental hygienist? Dentist? Something like that?

Post Edited (Levi) : 6/27/2012 6:20:09 AM (GMT-6)

from my own personal experience, I find one can live alone very cheaply. Do you own a home or rent? Obviously, there are certain expenses you can't bring down, but entertainment can be next to nothing, clothes shopping, booze/cigs/vices... cut 'em back! Do you need to work 5 days a week? Can it be 5 short days? I work Mon-Fri. from 9:00-2:00- I am very lucky to be able to work part-time. You're also young enough so that changing fields shouldn't be an issue- if your current job requires you to work 40 hours or more per week, it may be worthwhile to think long & hard about whether or not you can stay in that field. If all you do is work & save, then you should have enough $$$ stashed away for a cushion, if you choose to look for another job, etc. Good luck- it's HARD to balance work & a chronic illness.

I wish I could cut back too but I can't afford it. In my opinion, it all has to do with whether you are from a well-to-do family. If you're not, you're stuck working your life away. Sorry to be a downer. Just my opinion.