Leave / holidays while contracted

[jmo21]

Lately my contracts are quite short, say 3 months, but usually get extended a lot.

So I take a holiday at the end of each time period and happily take the extension as well.

[kaiser78]

Each to their own. I only take time off in contract for the bank holidays and christmas to new year. Any other holidays I take between contracts.

I personally dont see the point taking time off during a contract and losing money when you dont get paid between contracts. I know one contractor friend who will literally work anywhere and on anything so long as they arent out of work. His choice or commitments I guess.

That said, Im selective about which contracts I want to work on so dont have this obssession that I must got straight from one contract to another.

You or your limited company ? I still get paid in between contracts, my ltd company doesn't.

[JamJarST]

I don't take "leave" but I do make it clear I am unavailable to my current client/s for one or two weeks.

[Alias]

WKS

[James10]

I used to feel that any holiday I took lost income for my limited, and I would always pay myself as much as possible each month.

Come to the conclusion that I don't function nearly as effectively if I only have Bank Holidays plus a few extra days off, and that taking the maximum from my company every month was stupid, since I was leaving myself no safety net, while being vulnerable to swings in income should problems of any kind occur.

I now do a revenue forecast on 44 weeks of income to my limited, so 8 weeks without income, including statutory holidays. In addition, I pay myself as if my rate is 85% of what it actually is (based on the above 44-weeks) just in case I am ill, need to take extra time off, get unexpectedly benched, sudden decrease in rate etc etc.

This results in a smoothing of my personal income on a month-to-month basis, a decent amount of savings in my personal account, reasonable pension payments, a good amount of holiday and the ability to pay myself a "bonus" at the end of the financial year if the holiday allowance and/or safety net hasn't been used.

Not been benched in over four and a half years luckily (though been close to it, and yes, I have been at different clients on different projects), so have been able to do the above relatively easily.

All IMHO of course.

[SarahL2012]

Usually try to go for end of contract. Proved a bit difficult with client at beginning of year as got holiday all booked and then they asked me to extend 6 weeks - and got in a huff when I said yes, but I'd be away for a fortnight.

Also been a pain this year because other half is banned from taking holiday during Olympics / Paralympics in case the lights go out and they need an engineer to fix stuff. So we booked a holiday in September on the basis current contract was due to finish at the end of July and then within a week or booking they asked me to stay until the end of September. Still going away though.

[the_rangdo]

I just take holidays when I want.

Personally I prefer it during a contract as it means I haven't got to faff around finding a new contract on my return. As my current contract has now been > 2 years I wouldn't have had any holidays otherwise.

It started off as a 3-month contract, I just told them I had a holiday booked and got them to extend the end date so it was still 3 'working' months.

[jmo21]

Usually try to go for end of contract. Proved a bit difficult with client at beginning of year as got holiday all booked and then they asked me to extend 6 weeks - and got in a huff when I said yes, but I'd be away for a fortnight.

I hate that attitude.... yeah we'll give you a paltry 6 weeks, but how dare you already have holiday booked.

I've never encountered that though, never had anything but "that's absolutely fine" in this situation.

[ACYork]

My wife started talking about me not taking breaks while I was on a contract - nipped that one in the bud sharpish!!! Nothing makes life worse than feeling locked in.

[JamJarST]

My wife started talking about me not taking breaks while I was on a contract - nipped that one in the bud sharpish!!! Nothing makes life worse than feeling locked in.

Nothing makes life worse than a wife ;-)