Work is offering voluntary unpaid time off, my question boils down to should I take it. Offering is only one whole day per week (not broken up) ongoing with the ability to cancel anytime but needing to cancel after 2 months.
Background, monetarily we're fine. Husband and myself have been WFH since late March and kids are 5th and 1st grade. We regularly have a savings rate >50% though mine is the bigger of the two checks. Candidly I just received a promotion and don't know where to stuff the latest firehose of cash. My job is safer than many industries in this pandemic though of course nothing is failproof, husband's is also probably pretty safe but they did do a COVID furlough that impacted his dept (just not him). While taking unpaid time you continue to accumulate vacation time, keep health benefits, bonuses aren't impacted, etc. Monetarily it's really a no brainer and that's before the fact that I could convince my brain to think of the stimulus check as making up for any shortfall in my check, which I don't even need as I just filled my 401k for the year so my checks are already bigger now than they were last month.
Kids are doing 'ok' with ELearning, though 1st grader is turning into a bit of a bear since we don't normally allow so much screen time. Would prefer to alternate with other hands-on projects but of course, have to work during the day. I don't *need* the extra time, I *want* it, which is what has me hesitating.
Optics wise, I'm mid-level management in a big company and probably still ~5years out from FIRE (though could be considered ultra lean FI already). They did this one other time during the 2008-2009 great recession and positioned it as a way to help avoid layoffs (their approach this time as well). That time it was structured differently and I took 2 weeks consecutively and added to my maternity leave. I was an individual contributor at the time and obviously had just been off 3 months so no one really missed me.
Can I take it? A lot of me says this is the benefit of FUmoney and living below my means. But part of me also says it be dumb to risk income and job stability at a time like this. HELP?!?