I have a very well-paid job that I hate. AIBU to take a less well-paid job that I might like? Trouble is, I am main breadwinner

[NotSoFortunate]

I loathe my job and my boss. I loathe the field I work in. I have no interest in what I do.
Unfortunately / fortunately I am very well paid. I am also the only salaried person in the family. DP is SAHP.
I know I am lucky to have a good salary (£100k + bonus + car).

I feel desperate but our lives have grown around the salary. AIBU to jack it in and try and find I job I might like on 50-60% of my current salary?

OF COURSE YANBU

and--- dont rush- get a career coach, do some resrach and get the new jpob first

Could you leave and earn more? Someone on here was saying they set up on their own and trebled their income. Also I set up on my own when I left my last employer and I was already earning as much as my salary in my spare time working for myself. Some women do that - leave a well paid job, found their own company and treble or more their income. Don't assume leaving work to something you love pays you less. For many of us it pays us much much more.

I was going to say something similar.
If you earn over 100K then you must have good qualifications or good skills and experience or good brains.so you could perhaps set yourown.
Or a combination like a lower paid job with lower stress and hours plus some extra private work.

But even if you go for the 50K thats still very good salary and your health worth more.

Depends on if you can live comfortably on a lesser salary. We scrimp by every month on an ok salary. Tbh it's not fun. By the time all the bills are paid and essentials like food we literally have £20 spending money a week for fun stuff for the whole family - more than some I know. It's grim always talking about money, discussing what we can and can't buy. We can never have a holiday, kids can't do any clubs, car is an old banger.

You need to have a serious ist down with your Dh and work out what wage you need to pay all the bills, food ect.

Would it be more bearable to go part time in your current job? That is my plan. I figure it is doable to stick with it if I am only doing three days a week- you could get £60k for three days, and have some work life balance. Then your dp could look for pt work too, or not, depending on what you agree

It depends where you live.

If you live in London, you probably should consider moving out and getting another job.

When will your partner be going back to work?

It might be a bit romantic to think you can easily swallow a 50% salary decrease, so I'd try and live on half your wage for a few months and see how you get on. If you can do it, great, plus you'll have a little nest egg from what you've saved.

My partner is planning to be a SAHD for at least another year. We are in London but I could not do my job in another part of the country. So I suppose we could move to Kent or Essex but I am not sure we would save much once travel time is factored in. I could go freelance but as main breadwinner, it scares me too much. If we had one steady salary coming in, going freelance would not be so scary. I guess that's the trade-off. Good salary and security for a job I hate. Thanks for the food for thought.

You spend so much of your time at work, it is a huge part of your life to hate and having such negativity in your life isn't good for your health and happiness, so I would definitely re-assess your situation :)

Chat with your DP, maybe the both of you could work and figure out new childcare arrangements? Hopefully finances allow, but surely you and your partner would rather have a happy life than a big ban account. Good luck!

YANBU but it's important to plan what you do next to make the most of your situation. What about exploring going part-time / reduced hours? Might give you the time and space you need to work out what you want to do next / explore freelancing / job hunt, while still keeping your options open.

OP - I suspect you may do a similar job to me. I was in your position and went contract. It gives me a completely different relationship with the organisations I work for and more £. The industry I work in has v little job security (and redundancy payments aren't what they were) but, as a contractor, I sign up for 6 months at a time. I usually choose to stay somewhere if I am enjoying my work but I know that I can can always move if I get restless.

Depends on how the salary drop will affect the family really.

Don't underestimate how shit life can be if you're permanently skint!

I think it depends on a lot of things.

YANBU to want to be happy in your work.

In our family I'm the SAHP. I have put my own career on a total back burner, been out for 7 years now and I will need to retrain to go back. The agreement that DH and I have always had, is that he would have some years to go hard at his career while I was holding the fort at home, with a view to him being established and senior enough by the time I want to go back, that he can be the flexible one while I train and get my foot in the door somewhere. Part of that is him earning enough to pay for some bomb proof childcare while I am training.

If he was to turn around tomorrow and say 'Alibabs I want to take a 50% salary cut, you'll have to go and find a NMW job to help balance the books' I would feel very let down, because I would feel that he had had two bites at the cherry while I had none.

You need to talk to your DH, and the two of you need to make a new plan. If that means that you stay in your job for another couple of years while you restructure your family and budget then so be it.

Dh gave up his job last year and took a lower paid one with no car. It's like having my husband back. He's enthusiastic and motivated about work again and is so much happier. We've adjusted our finances a bit but we've got used to less money. I say go for it.

I think it all depends. I guess it's how much you hate your job and how a salary cut will affect the rest of the family.

I'm not so happy in my job but I have a great package for my field. I have been negotiating with an ngo who are offering a job I'd love to do. I'm not going to take it because the pay and benefits cut will mean I'll have to take my children out of their private school where they're both very happy and doing really well. Plus dh would need to go full time which would negatively affect our family life.

If I were childless, I wouldn't hesitate - like others said, life is too short . But I'm responsible for other people and need to do what's best for the family unit.

Some of those salaries make my eyes water.

Not good if you're not happy and your quality of life is poor.

It must be so hard when you are committed to big mortgage payments, private school fees and so on. I wish you well and am so glad it's not me.

You must feel very torn at times and that is not good.

Absolutely - do it. You could still have a very comfortable lifestyle on 50-60% of your current gross. Have you got savings you could live on for a short interim time? It's very difficult to put enough energy into job hunting when you are having to put everything you've got into a demanding work load.

Yanbu you can't put a price on happiness.
If you can afford to do it without incurring debt then go for it.
take it a step at a time.

I think there is a fallacy in believing that less money also necessarily means less stress, less work, more career satisfaction or work/life balance.

I know plenty of people who earn £40 - £50,000 and still have long hours, high responsibility, high stress, hate the work they do but feel unable to quit due to need to pay mortgage, bills, costs of retraining, etc.

I am not saying don't do it but just make sure you do your research and sums. Talk to real people in the field you wish to switch to. Are they happy, fulfilled, what are the pros and cons of doing the job? Is there career satisfaction and stability?

Good luck!

OP another here warning that the grass is not always greener. I walked away from my stressful management job took some time out and went back to the same industry but at a lower level. I now know that the stress was caused by the senior management team and my frustration at their blocking and other tactics so I am better for that. BUT I still work the same hours (for less pay) as this is in my nature so my family don't see more of me I am just a nicer person when they do. Will this work for you with the added pressure if less disposable income?..

The later posters make very good points. £40-50k can still be high pressure, lots of extra hours, no work life balance.

Getting out of London was the best thing I ever did, but workwise that was about a change of organisation and a decent new boss rather than geography or pay packet. My salary actually went up, living costs and stress levels went down. I was earning massively less than you to start with, but the improvement in my life was not a direct trade-off with salary change.

What does your DH think? And what could you actually do to earn 50/60k - as others have said, might that be better raised doing what you do part time rather than a full time, lower paid job? And what about kids, depending on how old they are? (If not actually what do they think - how do you think it might impact on them.)
We have a not dissimilar set-up to you - DH works in well paid job that he dislikes (I work p/t now kids at school, but freelance, and my financial contribution is minimal). At the moment, he/we think it is worth it - everything about our lifestyle is good apart from his job (and his job has several major advantages - namely compressed hours, fair degree of flexibility, easy commute). But we do talk about making the kinds of changes you're talking about sometimes, and I can see how it might work.

Yes, the mumsnetter who earn £100k plus tend to find life easier not harder than those earning under that. Leave and try to earn double. It rocks.
Leave and more to some low paid thing you'll always regret and you'll be on mumsnet credit crunch threads in a year or two trying to find how to shave £5 a week off your shopping.