Working Moms - How Do You Use Your Leave?

I dont have any leave. :( I get 5 days of vacation per every 5 years I am employed, and Im only in year 3 of my employment. If I had some pto I would probably do the same as you and save it up, you never know when it might come in handy.

GIrl!! you are so lucky to have the time built up. I work 40 hrs a week. If the kids are sick, I have to stay home, take them to appts ect. So I am down to 3 hours sick leave and 19 vacation. The harder I try to save.. the more my three children use it up. Husband has a job where his job is a team, and with him gone the team can't do their job, so his boss SERIOUSLY frowns on him taking off for doc appts. He has over 90 hours vacation and a ton of sick. SO NOT fair!! urg. Take a day if you have that much. :)

you're a hoarder, lol. that was cute. :)
i don't know how you manage to save up so much time! for real! :) before i had my child i had SO much sick time, but now, i can't KEEP sick time, man! seems like every time i turn around my son's sick, has an appt, or i have an appt. i always feel guilty taking days off work b/c there's always stuff to do, so i can relate to that part. i think it's good to probably keep a WEEK in there, but 2 wks - yup - HOARDER! i'm totally kidding, i just thought your phrase was cute, esp since i don't have any time! :)

well my position is a little different because we can only carry over 40 hours into the new year, and it has to be used i think within a month or we lose that too. so yes, from my perspective, you're a pto hoarder lol. like you, i also get 5 weeks per year, and it has always been plenty to do everything i need/want to do, and have extra days in case someone gets sick. of course, i only have one child, who happens to be very healthy (thank god). i take a day off for halloween, when i always take him up to work in his costume (as do a couple other people, so no, i'm not a wierdo lol) lately, i have been taking one week a year for a "vacation" - whether it is a family vacation (which is only about every other year) or just me time. last year i took a "me time" week off, and ended up having a family emgergency, so there was no me time at all. ocasionally i will take my son for a M. and me day and go to a children's museum or park, (he is in preschool so i can still do that). not sure the last time i took a "me" day and actually got it lol. might have to do that soon! (i have no problem doing it, but it just seems to never happen..!)

We typically do not do vacation - in fact this is the first year since we've been married (9 years in August) that we are going on a vaction.....at the beginning of the year I try to figure out with my parents (who live about 4 hours away) some long - 3 or 4 day weekends - we can all take so I can take the kids to their house or they can come up here. Other than that I'll just play it by ear the rest of the year, maybe take a long weekend here or there. Sick time is mainly only if my kids are sick - I don't take too many sick days myself. Thankfully I do sometimes have the option to work from home, however it's really only if the kids are sick enough they really will just lie down otherwise I can't get too much done!!!

edit to include: I also make sure there are a few days not used just incase something comes up.

I get 5 days every 6 months. that is 5 days for vacation, drs visits, funerals, kids stuff. 5 days. total. i use it like saffron

I work for DoD, but have been here for under 3 years so I currently earn both Sick and Leave time at the rate of 4 hours every pay period (2 weeks) which adds up to 13 days of each per year. Once I've been here for 3 years it'll change to 6 hours per pay period (in December, yay!) which will be 19 1/2 days of each per year. We can save time up to I believe 30 days of each type of leave & after that it's use-it-or-lose-it. I currently have 63 hours of annual leave & 32.5 hours of sick time available. We do however have 'Family Days' 5 times a year which is where the military personnel are given the extra day off, but civilians have to use leave, which we all always do. I am lucky that my supervisor lets me use sick time for those 5 days every year. I absolutely take days off just for me during the year, my husband & I have termed it 'calling out sex', haha. I've never taken a full week all at once since I've worked here but this August I'll be taking 3 days in a row off for a stay-cation. I get nervous when it gets down too low, also, but if I waited until I had 80 hours of each I'd almost never take any time off at all!

At the end of the year we get paid for any unused sick time. If we have 8 hours left, we get paid for 4. It's frowned upon if you use all your sick time unless you have a doctor's note in your file. So, I'll usually save those up. It's nice to get that extra check in January.

Also, since my husband works in retail, he cannot take any time off in December, so if there's an emergency with the kids, it's me. So I hoard for that reason.

I never take a day just for me. In late November, I like to a day off to go holiday shopping with hubby when the kids are in school - I guess that's like a day for me. I take time off to chaperone field trips.

I save what I can for the holiday season. I usually take extra days at Christmas, my birthday is the 29th, and if we dont have Christmas with my family (a 4 hour car trip away) I take it for my birthday instead. We also like to take a few days in the summer for a small vacation and we take time the week after Labor Day to go to the Kansas State Fair. I never just take a day off without something fun planned unless it's a kiddo sick day, or this past winter I had 2 days of being snowed in, which was kind of fun.

I have 5 weeks a year too but mine is use it or lose it. I can't carry it over. I start using mine in January for my son's birthday. I always take a few days off around his birthday and we do fun things. Last year I took him to Disney the day before his birthday and the zoo the day of his birthday. I always plan at least a week at Christmas. I add extra days around Memorial Day/Labor Day, 4th of July and Thanksgiving to either get a week off or at least a 4 day weekend. I plan to take my birthday and husband's birthday off. We typically take one week to visit family in the summer. The remaining days I leave open for whatever comes up through the year...a random 3 day weekend etc. This year we moved so I took off more than a week for that.. I would have rather of worked than move :-)

We get it at the beginning of the year and it is use it or lose it. I use part to go on vacation and the rest for when I really need to go home. I can work from home on snow days and when the kids are sick so I don't save it for that.

My dad could carry over everything he didn't use. When he retired he got full pay for over a year using ETO. What is strange to me is as a child I remember taking a lot of trips. Makes me wonder where he got so much.

We were talking about this at my women's network meeting at work. The best vacationer I know (who does not have children) said that she NEVER leaves a single day on the books. At the beginning of the year, she very carefully plans every vacation day - she takes 2-week trips abroad, long weekends, etc. She prepares people in advance, gives plenty of notice to those who need to cover things in her absence, and wraps up everything she can so that she's not answering a Blackberry in Italy. She is a senior executive and it was SO refreshing to hear from someone who is totally unapologetic about using every single hour of vacation that she has earned. Her message was a vehement "STOP being vacation martyrs!" one.

OK so what do I do? I earn 4 weeks plus 3-4 floating holidays a year. I usually take a week in September when school starts, a week in December for school vacation, use half days and full days here and there for personal business or stuff for the kids (field trips, doctor appointments), and a few days (up to a full week) in the summer for a family vacation. Usually when school starts, I have a few hours of the kids being at school for a day or two when I get a hair cut and/or a mani-pedi. That's probably it for the extent of time that I use just for me.

We can carry over up to 5 days but they have to be used in the first quarter of the next year. My boss is not at all a stickler about leave though - he knows I always have days left over and doesn't care when I use them (or not), so if I really had 5 weeks (4 plus my rollover from the prior year) and used it all in quarters 2-4 he wouldn't fight me on it.

Use it for YOUR Birthday.