18. Can You Afford to Work a 4-Day Work Week?

Can you financially afford to work a four day work week? This is something that many people, whether they're entrepreneurs or employees, really haven't thought of, and yet it's one of the main reasons why they can't work a four day work week. Let's start first with the employee. Now, many people who I know that are employees will tell me, Wait, I can't work a four day work week, boss won't let me. Okay, so there's certain rules, and I've certainly worked in places where the way things go is that's simply not an option. And yet, sometimes these same friends of mine, when they're, let's say, in between jobs, they lose a job, they're about to start a new job, and I'll say, Well, why don't you take some time off? Oh, wait, I can't. I need the hours. Now, they don't really need the hours, they need the money. And so they've not set themselves up in a position where if they had the opportunity to take more time off, that they could do so. Even more specifically, many people I know work jobs that have shifts and they can get five days or four days a week.

And the boss doesn't really care as long as the shifts are full. So again, if that person was making enough money, or to put it a different way, the flip side of that, keeping their expenses to a certain level where they could afford to live off of four days of income, then suddenly that might be an option for them. But because that's not happening with their finances, it never pops up as an option. And there's this sense of, oh, well, somebody else gets to do that. I don't get to do that, or that's not available to me. As somebody who plays a lot of beach volleyball and has a lot of friends who are beach volleyball players and surfers, one of the things you find that's a commonality in people that really love the outdoors, specifically surfers and beach volleyball players, is that they figure out how to get to their beach. And so sometimes that might mean they don't live in the fanciest place. They might not drive the fanciest cars. They might not spend all a bunch of money at happy hour, but they still figure out what's most important to them, and they make room and time for it, and they certainly make space in their budget for it.

And that's, of course, not unique to just surfers and beach volleyball players. So in the case, again, of the employee, it's first to set yourself up to where at least if you were given the option that you could do it. In fact, many employers, if you say, Hey, can I take a day off without pay? They might not mind. Especially if it's a less busy or a slow part of the year, they might be thinking, Great, that would be awesome. I could cut my expenses during my slow season of the year. And then sure, go take your days off, work three days a week, whatever it might be. So as somebody who lives in Florida in the United States, we have a very busy time of the year where during the winter, things are very busy and people are working really hard. And come summer, things slow down. I have a lot of friends that simply work two to three days a week during the summer when things are most relaxed and there's not as much opportunity anyway, and then they hustle more and do more things during the winter. Now, as the entrepreneur, there's even less excuses because if it's the case that you decide when you work, what's stopping you?

Admittedly, there are certain parts of your business model that might require you to be in the office at certain times and it might even be the case that Friday is not your day, or it might be the case, for example, that you work five days for six hours a day, which is 30 hours, let's say, instead of four days times eight hours. Okay, but overall, financially, if you can put yourself in a position where you're able to do that, you can enjoy it. I know so many entrepreneurs that go from stressful season in the on season to the off season. In the on season, they've got a bunch of money coming in and they got no time. But then during that on season, they say, Oh, you know what? I'm finally making money. Let's live it up. I'm going to spend a lot of money. Then when their off season comes, say, Man, I've got all this time and I got no money. I got to hustle. I got to make things happen. They'll tell you, Man, I'm trying to make things happen during the toughest time of the year for me. It's very difficult. Whereas over here during my season, I can make so much money.

And with a little bit of balance and a little bit of planning, it'd be very possible to make both of those work and have some moderation in each and have time for a four day work week or whatever it might be that you're looking for. I hope you find this helpful. If you want help starting to create your four day work week game plan, go to 4day gameplan. Com. That's the number 4 day game plan plan. Com, and you can get started for free. As always, I look forward to helping you make more money in less time doing what you do best. Thank you.