Making money is great, but a lot of people say that if you love what you’re doing, you’re in an even better position.

I argue with that and will make a convincing argument that doing what you love for a living could be a bad thing.

The reason doing what you love isn’t a good idea is because you may spend too much time working instead of being able to split your responsibilities is a reasonable way.

I love blogging and running a side business, but that doesn’t end at 5pm. It doesn’t end at 8pm either. In fact, most of the emails I get come between 2am and 7am. I’m not up during that time, but I used to wake up to my phone dinging with emails and would occasionally respond to them. That is way over the line, but it’s very tempting.

If I was doing this full-time, I would still be tempted to work whenever the emails came in and vacationing would be difficult when it would only take a minute to handle an issue or respond to an email. Why not do a little work, it will help my business grow!

With most jobs, when we get home, we don’t have to worry about work until 9am the next morning. Most people don’t check their work emails at home and overtime typically extends only as far as work that can be done in the office. With my current job, I don’t check emails while on vacation and I definitely don’t make phone calls.

With my side business, I don’t have any real limits. Even on vacation, I respond to emails and do a little work (including writing, which I’m doing on a Sunday evening), and as much as I love this, I need to set boundaries and make it more like a normal job.

Maybe I am just bad at prioritizing and need to set better boundaries. But maybe this is common for things people are passionate about and isn’t limited to my specific situation. In that case, maybe doing what you have a passion for is better left for retirement or as a side gig.

Readers, would you rather do what you love or have limits doing what you simply like?

The job I started this summer comes with a lot of perks. In addition to the standard insurance options that most jobs have, there are a few things that are unique. We have a fridge full of Red Bull, Tropicana orange juice, and Snapple. I also have my own office, which is more of a coincidence than anything else. There are three desks in the room and the other two are vacant (one person left the company the day before I started).

But the one perk that stands tall is half-day Fridays. Each week on Friday at 1pm, everyone packs up for the weekend and goes home. It’s definitely the perk that I appreciate most. It lets me start my weekend early and gives me half a day to do anything I want. I’ve used that time to run errands, and for those who run a side business, half a day a week makes a world of difference.

A typical day runs from 9am to 6pm, but based on the hours my friends work, this is totally reasonable as rarely do people work from 9-5 anyway. So while I’m still putting in my 40 hours a week, I think it’s an easy trade-off that most people would take.

Mike from The Financial Blogger works 4 days a week and it pays huge dividends as he has built a blogging empire as well as a budding advertising company with his spare time. When work gets in the way of a side business or vice versa, it creates a big problem. Two incomes are extremely valuable, and risking one for the other is not a good idea.

It’s really hard to put a value on the half-day Friday. It means I don’t have to take vacation if I am going out of town for a mini-vacation and it reduces the number of personal days I might have to take to run my business. I’d definitely rather have that time than another $5,000 in salary, but at what point would I be willing to work those extra 4 hours a week? $10,000? More?

I’m trying to think of a perk that rivals this one. Being able to work from home is another great one that saves the time it takes to commute each day plus lots of other costs depending on the family situation. Not needing another car could mean huge savings for a family.

Readers, is my perk the best ever? What great perk does your work offer?