I go into this cycles of not liking where I live. I have a few reasons but the most objective one is that my earning potential is severely called by living here. My line of work is fairly niche and although some companies are happy to offer remote work it still has to be done within commuting distance. So thanks to that my job pays MW (although it is within what I used to do and why I keep it). We can't move because if children and custody arrangements. But it's so hard to accept that we'll always struggle financially when I could be easily making triple of what I'm making somewhere else. (I also have no friends and dislike how isolated it feels but that's a different matter).