Most of you will be aware of the pressures on me at the moment. I have come up with another option to deal with this which is go part-time to finish my PhD which might take some of the pressure off. I was wondering if anyone has experience of being funded and changing to part-time and how this affected the financial side of things.

I've bad experience I'm afraid. I was full-time PhD student funded over a decade ago, and fell seriously ill long-term. I wanted to change to part-time (continuing full-time was impossible), but the funding council (EPSRC) wouldn't support this option at all. I couldn't afford to self-fund (no savings and too ill to work), so ended up having to drop out.

Basically check with your funding authorities very carefully before doing this.

I'm now a part-time PhD student in a totally opposed discipline. And funded, thanks to AHRC.

I went part-time after my daughter was born. Officially there is no part-time option here, so, officially, I intermitted for one year then came back full time. But actually I went 2 days/week the first year then 3 days/week the second year continuing unfunded into April of my 'fourth year'. So I had no funding for one year and full funding for the next.

Different funding bodies have different policies regarding going part-time and whether you can change - you'll have to check with yours.