Yes, because I am young, single and travel-itchy.
But $50,000 a year is doing pretty damn good from where I’m sitting (if you don’t have four kids and a mortgage, that is).
$50k = $3,000/month take home after taxes
1,100 rent
500 food for 5
270 car & life Insurance (wife runs into a lot of stuff)
150 cards/installment loans
200 gas
150 Tuition
$ 150 utilities/phone
=$120 /wk for miscellaneous stuff like kid expenses, clothes, smack, vehicle maintenance…and we’re pretty careful with the loot. $50k single income for 5 is tough. Like $10k/yr for a single doper if the perspective helps any.
As they say … when you look back in your life, you will never regret not spending more time at work, but you will regret it if you did not spend more time with your family. I made the right decisions in my career choices.
Not $10K. There are efficiencies in group living; adding another person to the home creates only a marginal increase in utility use (and food, if the added person is a kid). Plus there’s the tax benefit. So the equivalent may be more like $25K for a single Doper.
Here’s my take: family is the most important thing, and you have to decide how you honor your family. Stereotypically, there are two routes: the absentee parent who provides not just financial security but “the good things” in life; or the parent who provides his presence and a home, but not much in the way of material things.
I work insane hours for an insane salary. When I took this job, it more than quadrupled my salary. The money’s nice, and I get to do nice stuff with it. Plus, the job is challenging and interesting (most of the time). It’s also highly stressful. I think that my industry is the number two or three in terms of alcoholism (pilots are number one, and lawyers and doctors are two and three). I have missed family birthday parties and dinner; cancelled dates, sometimes last minute; hung up on friends because an emergency came in; missed concerts and plays and vacations.
I’m not married, no kids. If I were, I’d take the lower paying job in a heartbeat to be with them more. Yes, it would be difficult financially, but you don’t get back those years. It’s hard to be so strapped financially; that’s how my family was when I was growing up. But my mom was always around, and my dad came home for dinner every night. I didn’t miss what I didn’t have, but I would have missed having my parents around.
At some point, you are going to have to go after more money to pay off debt, save for your retirement, and possibly save for your kid’s education. If they chance is now, it’s probably easier on you to take a job like this while you are still young enough to do the rough hours and travel for a year or two. You may not get another opportunity later, and it will be easier to to get a higher paying position afterwards when you have already made that salary once. I say jump now, pay off everything you can, bank the rest, and start looking for the next job that will let you be home more often in a couple years. The economy is only getting tighter, and those young kids are going to get a lot more expensive later. Of course, this only works if Mrs. Montoya is fully behind it and willing to make up the differnce on her end. It’s a big investment for both of you, and that 3 days a month and three weeks a year will have to be a really intensive family time - you can sleep later.
$50k/yr in a part of the country where rent is running $1100/month is not going to keep you ahead of the bills forever.
Interesting. I am in the middle of this right now. I could probably get a job paying more but my current one allows me ample job flexibility. I make my own schedule, get to take time off to do kid stuff and in general I’m my own boss but with much better benefits than when I was self employed.
It’s tough to see friends with all the latest fun things, nice houses, new cars, etc. I tell myself I’ll have time for that when the kids are grown.
I think I might do it for one year, just to pay off bills and put some cash in the bank, but my initial knee-jerk reaction was “Hell, no!”
ivylass - his expenses are pared down
Monstro, ggurl, and Lok:You obviously have never lived in a major city or a suburb thereof
$50K for a single person, even in a suburb of NYC is doable, as long as you don’t do anything extracagant. But the OP is not single, and $50K for a one-income family is difficult, especially if there is more than one young child.
I think it is very insensitive of you to think that just because where you live $50K is a king’s fortune, that that is the case everywhere.
Inigo - don’t do it. You may end up with the greater salary, but like some of the others have said, what you’ll lose in familytime is not worth it
If you’ve been offered this job, you’ll be offered others. Hang in there. Have you tried Monster? 
Well, perhaps not insensitive, but at least unfamiliar with housing expenses in some of the more expensive states. Here in Massachusetts it is difficult to find a single family home for less than $300K (within, say, 40-50 miles of Boston). And even at that price, they are either “Handyman” specials, or else located in “pioneer” neighborhoods. That sort of money can take a large chunk out of one’s take-home pay. I’d rather see the question posed without specific reference to income so that the issue comes to the forefront: Is it better to just squeak and spend time with one’s family, or is it better to improve one’s income and spend time away from one’s family?
For a single person, I think it is easier. Time spent earning money, especially when one is younger, can be worthwhile.
[ul]
[li]Pros: Money invested earlier has more time to grow, whether for college funds or for retirement. One has more energy and is willing to endure more incovenience when one is younger; as one ages, creature comforts become much more important.[/li]
[li]Cons: Lifestyle choices and material purchases increase in direct proportion to one’s income. Or, if one is that sort of person, they increase in direct proportion to *exceed * one’s income. In short, if the money isn’t saved for important uses, then it just trading one’s time for material goods.[/li]
[li]Hi Opal (hoping this is the correct etiquette). [/ul][/li]For a married person, the human factor has to be considered, and this is a decision that should be made with one’s spouse. Is the spouse willing to endure this, and for how long? Spouses routinely endure hardships together for a common cause, and this could fit into that category, but it should definitely be an important discussion.
For a person with children, this starts to tilt my answer toward “No”. One’s children can hardly be expected to participate meaningfully toward this discussion. This is not intended as a slur toward those who are able to successfully function as single parents. But if both parents are available, the child will see this as a choice, rather that a circumstance of fate. I have a friend who worked an enormous amout of overtime when he was a young father. His daughters are grown and married now, and he still talks about how he never saw them grow up.
There is an old saying to consider here: “No one ever said on their death bed ‘I wish I had spent more time in the office’.”
I’ll join the “I’d do it for a year or two” crowd.
But, realistically, I’d shoot for that $80K, 10 hours a day, 5 days a week + emergencies, travel a week every two months job. That would be the best of both worlds.
Wonder if the people offering me $120 would be willing to pare down the requirements a bit if I’d take less?
I would say absolutely not, but I’ve never been in a position where I was barely scraping by, so I don’t know how desperate that would make me feel. But then, I also don’t have a family. If I were single in that scenario, I’d probably be all over it.
If I liked the job, yes. If it would help me get to where I wanted my career to be, yes.
And did you bother to actually read my post where I said:
And then I said:
And of course I finished by saying:
(Bolding added to aid in reading comprehension.)
IOW, while I did say that that amount of money would be a lot for me, I then acknowledged that that is not the case in other parts of the country, and then I answered Inigo Montoya’s original question.
I apologize, Lok
Accepted, thank you.
Unless you really can handle the travel and the pressure very very well, I’d say no. If you have any indication that when you get done with all that working, all you’re going to want to do is collapse and not deal with anyone, believe me, THAT’S what everyone’s going to remember later on, not that they had all the cool stuff.
(I speak from the POV of someone whose single mother worked all the time and really was just way too tired to deal with anything once she got home. Many of my fondest childhood memories are of my grandmother who was there and took care of me while my mother was working. YMMV.)
Insensitive? Are you really that sensitive, or did you mean to use a less fly-off-the-handle adjective?
FWIW, I have always lived in big cities and I know how expensive cost of living is in these areas. But I am single, childless, and live a frugal life (in general). And I have never made anything close to that much money.
Notice I did not say that $50K was a “king’s ransom”. I said I don’t see how you could be broke if you made $50K. There is a difference.
And now because of the explanation provided by Inigo, I can see how one could be broke making that much money. I thank him for politely clearing up my ignorance.
But to answer the OP’s question, I would not take the offer unless 1) I had a spouse willing to pick up the slack at home so that the kids wouldn’t feel too slighted by my absence, 2)the job is somewhat enjoyable and not too emotionally taxing, and 3) the job provided skills and experiences that would make me more marketable after I finally decided to quit.
Savings and retirement are important, and I would want to give my kids a life where ice cream isn’t a luxury and dinner at Denny’s is more than a once-a-year affair. So even if I decided the job offer wasn’t worth it, I would try to think of other things I could do to raise our standard of living. Like taking up part-time work as my mother did so she could pay off some of her credit card bills and so she could pay for my violin lessons*.
*She claims this was her motive, but I doubt it was since I clearly remember her donning that awful Domino’s Pizza uniform (I swear it was made out of paper!) years before I even picked up a violin. I’ll save that story for the “Guilt-Trip Lies My Parents Have Told Me and Continue to Tell Me” thread.
:smack: …squeak by…
goes back to mousehole…