Each week the NZ Herald's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's how to make a career break financially possible. Hosted by Frances Cook.

Taking a career break sounds like a luxurious treat for the millionaires amongst us, but actually, it's more common than you realise. It also doesn't have to be financially ruinous.

There are lots of reasons to take a break, and research from Hays recruitment in 2019 gives us an insight into that.

They found that 64 per cent of women and 49 per cent of men take at least one career break in their lifetime.

For women the biggest reason for a career break is having a child, coming in at 41 per cent, followed distantly by travelling, at 14 per cent.

It's quite different for the men, with travel being the biggest reason at 25 per cent, followed by studying or retraining at 21 per cent.

Whatever the reason, a career break can be something you turn to your advantage, or it can hurt you.

Sometimes you need a breather in order to work out the next best step. Otherwise you can get so deep in the weeds of day-to-day life that you don't take the time to strategise your next best move, and miss out on opportunities that could be better for you than what you're doing now.

But it can also be tricky getting back to work after a gap, and you also don't want to totally torpedo your finances while you're away.

For the latest podcast I talked to Kate Reddington from Sorted.

If you have a question about this podcast, or question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/FrancesCookJournalist/ Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/francescooknz/ and Twitter here https://twitter.com/FrancesCook

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