Even when I was looking at graduate programs, I was looking at ones that would allow me the flexibility to have a family later on. I chose a career track that was challenging, but not high-powered, as a result.
I also buy way too much stupid crap.
Interesting. My Director at my last job (one of the Big-4 accounting/consulting firms FWIW) felt that having kids and a family drove him to be more successful. Otherwise he said he would probably not put up with the bullshit.
some not so good choices, but with some mitigating factors:
- Refused to continue to live at parent’s home and have them pay for college.
- Mitigating factor: Went on to get degree myself, while working full time, but still had to take on student loans to get MBA.
- Husband is a slacker, smoker and drinker: does not do well at holding down jobs, smokes and drinks consume a lot of $$. I apparently did not crack the whip hard enough, often enough, or at all. Thus this trend continues to give me heartburn and hold in lots of resentment.
- House remodeling - added a 2nd story, replaced all siding, windows, doors, stud walls (well 90% anyway, a couple were actually plumb), wiring, plumbing and all interior walls.
- Husband keeps quitting his damn job. Did I mention that?
- I’m a bit of a job hopper for a few reasons: I get bored pretty quickly (fortunately it is because I pick up skills quickly), I get disillusioned pretty quickly (probably a problem of high expectations) and people suck. This has made advancing a bit challenging, as I don’t stick around long enough to move up a step.
- Damn husband anyway.
- Almost forgot - now that I see how shitty the higher level jobs are (CFO level) I am not too sure I want to go there. For any $.
Edit: I realized after submitting that it comes across as very harsh towards husband. I love him dearly, and cannot fathom spending my life with another person. But he recently quit his job and I am a bit pissed/resentful about it right now.
Whether someone works more or less with kids really depends on how his family is structured.
I have no desire to work, and I’ve basically never worked in my life (paid work, I mean, lord knows I spent years volunteering for various causes)
Ten years ago I dropped out of a master in social/work psychology/ergonomy because of depression and general sense of a meaningless life.
I just wish I had more money to buy books and to travel a bit, so I finally began to work a bit (I’m an artist, I used to draw ten years ago then stopped, and got back to it this year).
I/we live a frugal lifestyle, in a rural and cheap area, and we tend to a huge fruit and vegetable garden, hens, goats, and I’m able to make from scratch or preserve pretty much any foodstuff, so we are able to get by nicely (meaning, all bills are paid on time, we eat good food, we go out from time to time) even though our income is about 17k USD/year. Globally I’m really happy with my life.
I got a degree and a job in a field I cared about rather than a field I could have made a bunch of money in.
I allowed myself to be lazy in and therefore dislike the maths and sciences. I think I could have been quite a good surgeon, for example.
Oh, and I’m profligate with credit cards, that doesn’t help.
I don’t know if this counts since it’s more temporary, but I pay a massive amount in tuition. Multiply that by 4 years and it’s a huge chunk of change. When I start my residency next year I’ll be making enough to start paying off that tuition as well as live, but probably not much left over to save. Depending on if I choose to continue my training or not, it will be at least 3 years, possibly up to 6, before I will be making a comfortable salary. Sadly, a large part of that will still be going toward paying off loans. I have no complaints, though. It’s fun, I enjoy what I’m doing now and I anticipate enjoying the rest of my career, and I feel pretty lucky for it.
Not willing to put up with the hassle it would take to make more money. SO and I make plenty to have a nice middle class life. I don’t want the expensive stuff enough to put up with the jobs I would have to have in order to pay for them. SO and I agree, we’d rather have weekends free and evenings that belong to us, rather than try to get the higher paying, higher stress, higher time commitment jobs. Power just doesn’t do it for me.
I don’t like to work too hard. I really don’t like conflict. And the kid thing - I take time to lead Scouts, drive kids around, all that stuff. I also decided when I was young that “twu luv” was more important that grad school - or even just finishing my B.A. (though eventually, I did do that).
Kids are sort of the double edge sword. Its much harder to say “fuck it” when you have kids and decide to be happy with a McJob. At the same time, those little darlings are both expensive and time consuming - so short of a stay at home spouse or a nanny - you are going to find yourself cutting your career options in favor of paying the orthodontist.
I left my teaching job when I had my 3rd child, nearly 13 years ago. I knew that I wouldn’t go back, but didn’t plan to become a single parent just a few years later, with 4 kids (two teens, two under 4).
Man, I was busted for sooooo long. My ex wouldn’t pay child support and we had to get by on my extremely limited income for 2 years. Finally the divorce went through and the support got established, I worked 3 or 4 jobs for about 3 years and got on my feet.
Now, I’m still technically poor, at least poor enough to be within 150% of poverty level in my state, but things are so much better that I don’t FEEL poor. I bought my own house. Love my jobs. Raising my kids in an emotionally healthy environment. Even though my income is less than half what my ex and I together made, I have much more financial freedom.
I could make more money if I went back into teaching or got a second degree, but right now I’m pretty content to get by. It’s nice to be able to take off when I need to (well, at one job anyway) and to be here when the kids leave in the morning and get home in the afternoon.
Heh. No one has ever accused me of being an overachiever.
Near-total lack of motivation. That’s it. I’ve been a persistent underachiever since kindergarten. Some of it was ADD and depression, but a lot of it is simply that I don’t value the things many people I know do.
My main goal in life is to be a parent, someday. I think I will be very good at it. A typical ‘career’ that sucks up my time and energy has never sounded appealing.
In my mid-20s now, I’ve never felt the urge to pursue formal education, or move forward/upward in any field or career I’ve found myself in. I’m intelligent, and have had plenty of privileges and opportunities in life, but mostly, I’ve chosen not to take them. I did get certified in yoga and massage recently, so that’s a small step towards more earning potential (now I have to sell myself, however…)
I’m not fussed about it. Money isn’t very important to me, and prestige not at all. We didn’t have much growing up and I don’t plan to ever have much. Working is good for you, I will probably work to earn money until I die (hopefully at a ripe old age). But at the moment, I really do need to cut expenses (changing living situations would be the best way), and try to make a little more money. I’m looking at apartments and just got a part-time job I enjoy, that will probably turn into full time with benefits, so that’s progress as well. It’s all baby steps with me.
Comfort.
I could be a LOT richer than I am now, but I’ve always preferred my comfort over money. So, when I had the opportunity to take a much higher paying job in Silicon Valley, I decided not to, since I would have had to take a big step down in housing (at least temporarily). When I was offered a much higher paying job locally, I turned it down because I would rather wear shorts to the office than make any extra $20K/year.
Also, I do a lot of work much,much cheaper than I could. I could easily charge $150/hour for work that I charge $50/hour for, because I just think that the going rates are ridiculous. I also do a lot of work for free.
That said, I do all right. My house and cars are paid off.
Well, initially I would have to say because I wasn’t allowed to go to college. I wanted to go, but my parents, who were both high school drop outs, thought it was a waste of time and were very controling. They insisted that I get a ‘good factory job’ and I’d be set for life. :rolleyes:
Yeah, low paying jobs with huge wear & tear on my body. I’m set, alright.
So now, at this point in my life, I am making decent money. Not RICH by any means, but my pets keep me poor. I have never done the math but I bet I spend at least 1/4 of my income on the dogs & cats…
I just started grad school, and I have a stipend but it really isn’t much money.
Ultimately I chose a field that doesn’t pay very well, particularly considering how much education is involved. Biomedical research doesn’t pay very well for the first 10-15 years of the career – technician, grad student, and postdoc salaries average something like 30k, 25k, and 40k. Since most people work 60+ hour weeks, I’ll be earning a whopping $14/hour after a decade of education.
After that, I’ll enter the tenure-track lottery where I have a chance of getting a faculty position with security and a comfortable (but hardly lucrative) salary. But most people fail at that…
Still, it pays better than being a classical musician, which was what entered college for. But I sometimes envy my friends from high school, who all went into engineering where they earn more than twice as much and get to go home at 5pm.
This. I am not richer because I like my lifestyle. I can’t stand true financial insecurity, but once the nut is covered, I am pretty content.
For the last several years we have lived off my salary and saved my husband’s. I am having a baby in the next month or so, and when he comes, my husband is going to quit his job and stay home. Our life won’t really change, but our income will go down even more. We both feel like the stress of two careers, juggling daycare and work, is not what we want. We deliberately got ourselves used to a much lower-income lifestyle in order to purchase that time.
I:
x Had a child while in college, but his father has a very good job and child support is actually greater than my current income
x Went back for teaching over what I think I really wanted to do. Love teaching, though, so here I am.
x Teachers aren’t in high demand here, so I ended up with a part-time hourly job for a private company that pays less than public school – and we take the kids public school won’t.
x Refused to work for my dad…so whenever I say anything about money, he says, “You’re the one who wanted to take a dumb job like teaching.”
x Also: I wouldn’t trade my degree in polisci for anything. Best four years of my life. It shaped my thought processes, my reasoning skills, my vocabulary…there is no way I would’ve enjoyed college had I majored in…finance…or…business.
x My desire for comfortable housing and good schooling for my son means that I may have less to spend than others, but I refuse to be a single mom stereotype.
Count me in as another person without ambition.
I’m not an under-achiever. I’m just an achiever. I get stuff done and that’s it.
My business partner makes almost twice as much as I do and I am in on the decision for him to make that much - or rather for me to make this little - because he works 24/7 and I work 8/5 and that’s how I like it.
I put in my millions of hours at the beginning to build the business and I complained the whole way while he said “we have to work this hard so in the future we can take it easy.” Well the future is now and I am ready to take it easy and he is wanting to work more more more. Fuck that.
The business would be more productive if I learned more and worked like a maniac, but I can’t and I won’t.
Oh and I also never got into the habit of saving as a youngster. I was into paying off debt then buying new shit with cash. So I’m savings-poor too.
I don’t think I’m poor, but I’m definitely suffering negative financial consequences from my own POOR CHOICES!
I got into debt, could no longer afford to repay that debt, so I stopped. Now I can afford it again, so I’m repaying it. But I’m still a demon to hear my credit report tell it.
I can blame my parents for lack of financial education, since I don’t remember one single discussion of any import pertaining to money and how to spend it.
Or, I can blame school, since I don’t remember one single class discussing money in the real world…just that checkbook math some teachers occasionally try to teach.
Or, I can blame me, for being an impudent young person with more wants than means, and not being patient enough to wait for that ratio to reverse.
It’s hard to nail down.
Because I am dumb, dumb, dumb.
“Go to college!” I was always told. “You’ll find a job soon after with no problem!” I had no clue what I wanted to do, or what I was good at. I just grew up with the impression that feeling was okay, and that a degree = money, regardless.
Under my aunt’s influence, went to a private four year college, wracked up $42k in debt from that. Came out to an economy in Michigan where I really couldn’t do much with my major (International Relations.) I only kinda sorta speak Japanese and Spanish, not fluent in either enough to get a job.
Moved to California with my then-boyfriend in hopes of finding something better, possibly landing a teaching gig with a company I was interested in. It didn’t really pan out, I was depressed and I could not find anything there with my degree. The best job I had was $25 an hour for 8 hours a week.
Moved back to Michigan. Got a decent part time job for $10 as a tutor but decided that I needed to go to grad school to go into a marketable field. Had to give up that tutoring job for one with more flexible hours. Went from a job that I loved to one that I am miserable in and making minimum wage.
I never had any family support, monetarily. I wouldn’t accept it even if it was possible. My aunt once told me “Yeah, you were the prototype. We let you do all the things wrong so your sister could learn from your mistakes and do it right.” I think she was half-joking but I never wanted to put a bullet in my brain more than that day.
I think that it might go up from here, the feild I’m going into is in demand, even in Michigan. It’s just going to be another two years of being miserably poor, making $150 at most per week, living with my dad, and living off of food stamps.
I thought I was doing everything right, I wish I had known what I do now.
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I don’t have a lot of ambition. I’ve had good opportunities come my way, but I often feel like I was either pushed into them or fell into them by accident. I don’t purposefully seek them out.
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Lack of self-confidence. I’d be making more money as a professor, but I don’t have the emotional stamina to compete in academia. I’m a flake.
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I entered the job market at a really bad time. If I had come out of grad school just a few years earlier, I’d probably be making about $5K more than I do now. But I started at my job right when the economy burst. No more COLAs or merit raises. For years I was stuck at my base salary, which was so embarrassingly low that I lied to my mother when she asked how much I made. Even with the raise that I finally got earlier this year (which I’m very grateful for), I’m still underpaid compared to most of my co-workers.
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I don’t really care about making money. I remember when I was a teen and I told my sister I would be content on $10K a year. I was very stupid; I barely survived when I was making $12K. But still, I’m frugal and just not driven by money and material possessions. Despite knowing how poorly paid I was, I never once asked my boss for a pay adjustment. Because I just didn’t feel any pinch. Now I’ve got more money than I know what to do with. I don’t feel like I need any more.
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I like my job. It’s a good gubmint job. I won’t go as far as saying it’s safe and secure–no job is like that anymore. But it’s relatively safer and more secure than anything I’d get in the private sector. And I get to work regular hours and enjoy lots of vacation and sick leave. Hopefully I’ll have a comfortable pension when I’ve put in my 30. The private sector might pay me twice as much as I’m making now, but I’d have to put up with more crap than I’m willing to. No thank you.