Freelance vs. steady part time

amother

Aubergine

Mon, Sep 18 2017, 11:09 am

Hi! I have a dilemma and hoping talking it out and hearing others perspectives might help me come to a decision. some background: I have a degree in psychology which is basically useless without a masters but I do not want to go there. I stopped working 3 years ago when my oldest was born and bh we are able to live fine on my husbands salary alone but it has been very difficult for me to be SAHM and so we decided I would start working again.
Like I said my degree is useless but I do have training in a very specific field which I can work in as a freelancer and the pay is very good but it is unpredictable and often last minute so I would need to have someone hired to watch my kids full time even though I may be home 3/4 of the time. It is also a hard field to break in to and I am not an aggressive pushy person so I worry I wouldn't make it in in the first place. On the plus side the flexibility is amazing and it is quite important to me as I have young children and it would be hard to rationalize losing special time (ie school functions, days off) with them when I do not need to do this for the money.
I always figured I would try the freelance thing for a few months and if I see it's really not panning out I would check out other options. Now I got a job offer that would be amazing if I didn't have this freelance opportunity in my head. It is 5 hours a day in a chesed organization. Nothing crazy exciting- it's mostly office work but it is steady and stable and for a worthy cause. The pay is nothing amazing (just for reference I would make more in 2 hours work freelance than in a week at this job) and obviously I lose the flexibility of deciding what days to work.
Any sage advice from any women who have maybe been there or even not? I need to give an answer in the next couple of days....

Mon, Sep 18 2017, 1:39 pm

Personally, I chose a regular part-time job over freelancing because the benefits (predictable pay and hours, other employment benefits, no need to "hustle") outweighed the lower hourly pay. However, in my case, the part-time job is as interesting as the freelance work.

With the part-time job offer, will you earn enough to pay for childcare? Will your kids be in school soon (which totally changes your child care situation)? Is there room to advance in either job? Are other stresses and expenses, including travel, equivalent?

ETA: Could you try freelancing for a few months while doing the part-time job?

amother

Aubergine

Mon, Sep 18 2017, 4:47 pm

cm wrote:

Thanks you make a lot of interesting points the most important of which is this particular part time job is not very interesting or challenging so I think I will pass for now and keep trying the freelance route unless another opportunity drops in my lap