I have hit a major stress point in my PhD which I have been doing for 4 year part-time while working. The problem is that I work in a low grade public sector admin job to fund my PhD. In a culture of cut backs and short contracts this is now my fifth year on redundancy risk. As more staff go and pressure mounts up I come home every evening exhausted. I also have been planning my wedding this year, trying to complete a librarian chartership, renovate my house and have also been asked to write a chapter of a book. I don't want to quit my job, as it may lead somewhere eventually into a career, it pays the bills and I do vaguely enjoy working in my sector. But at the same time I really want to be an academic. I spent 9 years at university working on my qualifications and to quit now would consign me to a (in the short term) an assistant role. The stress of trying to do everything at once has resulted in poorly written papers that constantly get rejected. I'm trying to do my thesis in the five minutes between the dinner boiling over, my work email going off and my 1.5 hour commute. I don't have time to engage in hobbies, trying to even meet a friends for a drink on friday night must be planned like a military expedition. I basically have no time to do anything and it is always the PhD that gets consigned to last place as everything else is more urgent. What are other people's experiences of trying to balance having to work and do a PhD?