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It’s not just women, men want to spend more time with their families too. In a study of 4,000 men across Europe, it was found that 58% of male breadwinners with children would take a pay cut to work fewer hours, says The Conversation. 57% of male breadwinners who aren’t fathers also said that they would take a pay cut if it meant that they would get to work less.
However, if you’re like these men and want to find a way to spend more time at home, you know that it can be difficult. If you are the highest earner or the sole earner in your household, reducing your work hours or spending more on family time can put you in a shaky financial position. You can still make great memories with your family with the free time you do have.
Record Your Memories on Your Smartphone
If you don’t get to spend as much time with your family as you’d like then recording the time you do spend together becomes far more important. Make it count by taking photos and recording videos of you, your children, and your partner together so that if you’re unable to go on a day out again for a while, you can look back at these images and feel happy about the time you have spent together.
You don’t need a fancy camera to do this, as the cameras on most smartphones are high quality. The bigger issue is space and whether you have enough for it. High-quality photos and longer videos will take up more space and if you play mobile games or use large social media apps such as Snapchat, then you may run out of space on your iPhone. This article about iPhone storage space from RefurbMe does explain that you can free up space by deleting data from the messages app, deleting data from your Snapchat cache, and deleting offline data from Safari. Remember to do this before you go on your day out.
Create Photobooks as Gifts
If you don’t just want your family photos to live on your phone or computer, then you can have them professionally printed as a photo book. A photobook is just a collection of images that have been printed on quality paper before being set in a beautifully designed book that you can look through whenever you feel. You can also customize these books by putting a message on the front.
You can buy a photobook and print the photos yourself, or you can go to a professional photo book printing service. There are quite a few but PhotoWorkout says the best photobook services are brands like Shutterfly, CanvasPop, and Mixbook. As many of these services have apps and browser versions, you’ll be able to put your book together whether you’re on your phone or laptop.
Save Money for Family Days Out
Money is often the biggest hurdle when you’re planning a family day out. You may not be able to take a day off from work because you need the money, or you don’t have any extra money to spend on the day out.
There are two ways to deal with this. The first is to think of new ways to save money. One method is the penny saver which is where you save higher amounts, so on the first day, you save a penny, on the second day you save two pennies, on the third day you have three pennies and you keep going like that. At the end of one year, you will have saved $650. The other way is to look at budget days out. Money isn’t so important with making memories as you can find fun things to do that don’t cost much. The Money Saving Expert’s article on budget days out in the UK suggests things like using kids eat free discounts, free in-store activities, and going to free museums. There are many events like these in other countries too.
Ask Your Boss for Better Hours
Another option is to ask your boss for better hours. If work is leaving you too tired to spend quality time with your family or you feel that you aren’t getting paid enough for the many hours that you put in, then speak to your boss.
It’s not always easy to ask your boss for a raise or to change your hours, but it can be done successfully. If you’ve been working at the company for more than a year, then this will have given you a chance to show that you are a good worker. By doing good work you have shown the company that you’re an important employee and so they may want to give you a salary increase or better hours so that you will stay employed with them. If the company turns you down, then try asking when you could review your hours and pay again and what you need to do to make that happen.
Learn a Skill Together
Strapped for cash and time, there are activities that you can do with your family that doesn’t cost much. Learn a new skill with your family so that you gain new knowledge and save money by choosing not to spend on a day out.
Some skills that are great for you to do together are gardening, art, and learning how to read, write, and tell stories. Gardening allows your children to spend more time with nature and to learn about ecology, art allows them to be creative, and children love hearing and writing stories too. All of these skills can be free.
It may seem as though you don’t have much family time, but you can still make great memories, without having to quit your job. Just become creative with the time and you can all have fun together.
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This content is sponsored by Sarfaraz Khan.
Photo: Shutterstock