How many hours a week do you work?

[Goldy1]

How many hours do you work, and how many is too many for you to create issues with work and life balance? I think family time is important. I know some who do not seem to place a high emphasis on it and would prefer to work more hours for a lot of money.
I just heard about how people are working too hard in Japan and falling over dead at work. That is totally crazy, and very sad.

[cooliemae]

Sometimes it isn't about how many hours but when those hours fall. My wife and I only work 40 hours a week, but she works M-F mostly 6-2 and I work W-S mostly 3-11. It's been nice because we've been able to take care of our son without having to resort to daycare, but it takes its toll on the two of us. We generally only see each other long enough to talk briefly about what our son did that day, give each other a hug and smooch and then off to work we go!

So it's not always about how many, but when they fall!

[DebtFree&Broke]

My husband is self-employed so he works around 60 hours a week for not a lot of money, it's a sacrifice you have to make when your self-employed. If he was making a lot of money he would cut back his hours closer to 40 so he could work on his projects at home.

[disneysteve]

I corrected your spelling for you.

I work (or at least I get paid) for 34-1/2 hours per week. My actual hours vary somewhat from that number. For example, I don't get paid for my lunch hour even though I often spend a good part of it working. On the other hand, I used to work 10 hours on Monday and we cut it back to 8 but I still get paid for 10, so it balances out.

[Blessed]

My spouse works 40+. i only work 8-12 hours a week for pay. MY real job is all the other hours budgeting and keeping this family and home running smoothly.

[bjl584]

I work 2 jobs, so currently I work about 68 hours per week.

[twest]

I work 40 hours and hubby works 65 hours. I agree with what cooliemae said about how the hours fall. My husand and I only see each other about 1.5 hours per day and that can take a toll. That is another reason we want to get our finances in great shape so he can go to 40 hours a week hopefully soon and he will be able to see me and our son more.

[97guns]

Zero.

[bjl584]

Zero.

Aren't you a landlord? Surely that takes at least some time.

[MonkeyMama]

40 hours per week.

3 months of the year we work about 50 hours per week - I do get paid overtime. The rest of the year probably averages out to less than 40 hours per week. Summer is kind of slow - November I will barely go into work at all. My employer cares less about the hours I log and just more if I get the work done (but also an element of being accessible for clients during normal work hours).

For my industry I have it pretty good. I've appreciated the schedule with young kids. I think when my boss retires I will likely go part-time. I don't mind working a little more when the kids are older, but I am used to friends telling me "they are lucky they only work 60 hours a week." I am just not interested in that kind of work/life balance. "Part-time" often looks a lot like "full-time," so why I am thinking of going that route if my only other options are "work insane hours" in the future.

ETA: I am salaried - have always been paid overtime. I have turned down jobs where OT was not compensated - so not necessarily an industry standard, but some employers are more generous.

[EconDiva]

Zero.

Zero?

What do you do all day?

[97guns]

Aren't you a landlord? Surely that takes at least some time.

maybe 5 minutes a month to look at my bank account, actually last month was 10 minutes, had an air conditioner go out, anything smaller and the property manager handles it. any horror story you've ever heard about land lording does not apply to me.

[97guns]

Zero?

What do you do all day?

whatever i want, right now laying on the bed surfing the web.
going shopping now, coming home to watch the oakland A's
then the giants start an hour later. got a pretty full/hectic
day ahead of me.

tomorrow gotta take my dad for some groceries, pretty rough

[BuckyBadger]

I'm salaried, so I work until what I need to get done is done.

I try to keep things balanced, but an normal week would probably be 50 hours give or take a few hours. Some weeks it's worse, but some weeks it's better. I've probably never actually worked a 40 hour week though. 45 hours would probably be the shortest. No clocking in and out, either, so lunches are often taken at my desk depending on what I've got to do. Sometimes I have to work on the weekends but I try to limit that as much as possible.

And since I'm salaried I don't get overtime or anything like that.

But I make good enough money and I like my job enough that it's pretty much worth it. Usually. Sometimes I get a little tired of it, but I really can't complain.

[feh]

Salaried, but I rarely work more than 40 hours/week. Spouse is not working.