I sort of fell into accountancy as I didn?t know what else to do after my a-levels but I never enjoyed it and have always wished that I had gone into something else instead. The trouble is the more I progressed (and earned), the harder it seems to walk away from such a stable, secure profession - everyone told me I would be mad to give it up, especially after working so hard to qualify (I qualified by home study during evenings and weekends for the best part of 5 years).
Anyway I went on maternity when I had DS nearly two years ago and since then have been working part time at a much lower level so that I can spend as much time with him as possible. It's not brilliant money, but it is very flexible and fits in great with and allows me more time with DS.
Until I had DS two years ago, I worked as a management accountant and earned about £50k a year. DP at the time earned around £15k but without me knowing ran up about £15k of debts (on nothing in particular - going out/bets etc) so was able to contribute very little towards bills etc . DP now earns about £25k (and we have sorted most the debts now) and I probably earn about £10k at the moment so obviously things are a lot tighter than they were, but we seem to be managing okay and are what I would describe as comfortable. We are not panicking about paying the bills and have enough to do the things we want to within reason. Luckily I had quite a lot of equity in the house so we have a relatively small mortgage (£800 pm) and neither of us are really fussed about holidays abroad or nice cars etc. We are both quite happy with a night down the pub/nice meal with friends and the odd weekend away. We are also very lucky that I did very nicely out of some share options in my last job so have a nice sum tucked away for emergencies which really takes the pressure off.
I really don?t want to go back to accountancy. Apart from the fact that I don?t enjoy it, there are very few part time positions around so it would probably mean going back full time which I couldn?t bear. Aside from which we are hoping to have another baby in the this year (going through IVF at the moment). Although we obviously would be better off financially, by the time you take out the nursery fees (especially/hopefully for two), the difference isn?t a big as it seems. And I keep wondering what exactly we would do with the extra money - don't get me wrong, we'd find a way to spend it no problem but I don?t think it would change our quality of life.
My question is, what do you all think? Most people (aside from my sister who is very supportive and totally gets where I am coming from) think I am mad to walk away from such a good career. I know I would never regret not going back to accountancy but I also realise by doing this I will probably never earn that sort of money again. I'm fine with that, but some posts on here make me feel like I am copping out?.
I realise I am very lucky to have some choice in the matter and that a lot of people have to return to there previous job to make ends meet.