How many hours per week do you work?

[phantom]

About 14-16, depending on how daughter's kindergarten schedule works and how I can manage the household chores. I'm a freelance web designer and it allows me to be very flexible with my schedule.

Have you been a freelancer for your whole career or is it a recent development?How did you get started with freelancing?

I ask because I'm a web developer turned iOS developer who would like to drop down from 40 hours/week to something closer to 15-25 in about a year or so. I like working and don't want to stop, but I hate how much of my time it eats up. Freelance seems like it could be my answer, but I worry about being able to find work. My web skills are still current enough that I could do both web and mobile work, so I figure that should help some, but it still scares me a bit.

[Outdoorsygal]

42.33 per week is my average (per my hours report)

[amastewa93]

Depending on what the week has in store, I work 40 to 60 hours a week. Because I'm self-employed, there is no overtime but there is also no one else to take care of what needs to be done. Every once in a while I get a 30 hour week (it feels like vacation).

[LivingAlmostLarge]

part-time and it varies. Now it's 5-10 hours, then it'll be 20-30, then 50-80 hours then back down. but i like it. My DH is a 9-5 at office and usually now comes home and does a 30-60 minutes at night and maybe 10-30 minutes in the morning to get stuff going. His flexibility is now the ability to work remotely completely and so he can now help with the kids. Yes it impacts us because he works then through the night but at the same time he can do a swim lesson or pickup from school whereas before we had no flexibility and he couldn't do one single thing.

So it's a trade off. Nothing in life is easy and everyone's priorities are different. I will say I like this lifestyle better. I like having him home and flexible than before where he wasn't. It allows me to work more as well.

Older generations also don't understand people who want to not work and make the most money.

[bjl584]

I don't think I ever stop working.
This week, about 81 hours.

[bjsint]

I am self employed and I work about 12 hours a day.
I am also 30 years old.

[~bs]

for salary positions, supposedly extra pay is built into the extra hours work... probably semi-true, but it incentivizes companies to extract as much as they can out of employees. If hourly +OT is the same as salary, then why not just leave it hourly and provide incentive for employees that do work longer than others or longer in general. So yeah, rationale on that is a bit thin.

I think it makes the most sense to work harder and longer while you're young and have a lot of energy. Once you get older, you won't want to do this (if it's an option for you). You will get tired. I used to put 70-80hour weeks into multiple jobs, then a single salaried job working similar hours. Would I want to keep doing that now? Hell no. I stated the below in the other thread

Would it have been possible for me to push myself to the limits in a chosen field or business and be retired RIGHT NOW (I'm 35) or become a multimillionaire RIGHT NOW? Yes.

But would that have resulted in additional happiness up to this point and going forward in my life? Probably not. What kind of person would I be if I was sitting alone upon piles of money, constantly stressed out, no hobbies, no vices, and not a pleasant person to be around? I've seen and worked with a fair amount of people that fit this description. They are at the top of their game, but like the saying goes, it's rather lonely at the top... They wield power, money, and influence, so people do tolerate them, but as far as genuinely liking them as a person? Not sure on that one.

I work 40hours/week + business that I devote free time to. Definition of free time is time I'm not working or having fun pursuing hobbies or with friends. main benefit of full time work, part time business model is that I can scale business up or down as necessary. And I have a steady paycheck, so don't actually need business activity to pay the bills or anything.

[TexasHusker]

I would guess 5 hours a week, maybe 10 the last couple of weeks during tax season. I've had to take a nap during the last two weeks to keep up.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I would guess 5 hours a week, maybe 10 the last couple of weeks during tax season. I've had to take a nap during the last two weeks to keep up.

Life is good! (lol)

[TexasHusker]

Life is good! (lol)

Ha. I honestly worked about the same during my last 5 years in corporate America.

[~bs]

I would guess 5 hours a week, maybe 10 the last couple of weeks during tax season. I've had to take a nap during the last two weeks to keep up.

that's awesome

[rennigade]

My FIL is self employed and he's never worked a day in his life.

[Atretes1]

I have worked crazy OT since late 2014. I've been doing about 197 hours every 2 weeks since 2015. In 2015 and 2017 I had more overtime hours than regular hours. I have taken about 5 to 7 weeks off of vacation off every year.

[Gailete]

When I was working as a nurse until my knees couldn't handle it, I constantly worked OT. At one point I worked 24 hour weekends and got paid as if I worked 36 and since they also needed me in a different position, I worked 4 days a week of 8 hours days. So technically 56 hours of work but paid as if I 67 plus OT! After a month of that they finally got someone to take over the 24 hour weekends.

Now I'm on disability because I have too many days I can barely get out of bed, much less jump out of bed, take a shower, get dressed and be on the door in 30 minutes then driving for 30-40 minutes to get to work and working 8 hours, and then the reverse drive home, make dinners, handle housework, etc. It usually takes me anywhere from a half hour to an hour and half to recuperate from the energy expended to take a shower. But I do run a business of my own, that I can run on my own time, with naps as needed, etc. If I wasn't dealing with the medical problems, I think I would be making oodles of money, but sadly that is not so. It helps pay the bills, keeps me interested in life, and gives me a reason to get up every morning. Most months after expenses, I have made, maybe, one weeks worth of pay that I made almost 20 years ago at this point.

I've always been a hard worker which is why I had so many college jobs. I learned real quick that to make ends meet, I had to work for it. Back in the days that I did all the OT one of my biggest problems was my ex that went to work less than a mile away, did his 8 hours and for that got to sit around read the paper and watch TV all evening while I got to work with a longer commute, dealt with groceries, cooking, laundry, dishes, cleaning, kids appointments, etc. HE would complain is the place wasn't kept up the way he liked it to be, not that he would help with any of it. It was my job along with the paid one!