Taking a pay cut of £400 pcm

[PoesyCherish]

I'm not enjoying my job at all or the industry in which I work in. I applied for a funded masters last year which would enable me to retrain and get into the industry I want to be in (I've thoroughly researched it and there are definitely jobs out there post qualification). Unfortunately I was unsuccessful. The funding does seem to come up every year so I do have the option of reapplying.

My other option is to completely go back and start from scratch at undergraduate but that would mean having no money for 3 years and is not a route I particularly want to go down.

A job has come up that's entry level within the industry and if I were successful, should enable me to gain the relevant experience I need to strengthen my masters application. But it's a pay cut of £400 pcm. Due to the job DP has, a paycut of that level wouldn't put us into poverty and we'd still be able to afford all of our bills plus some luxuries and saving for a rainy day.

WIBU to apply even though it would mean a rather large pay cut if successful? WWYD?

It is a bit relative.

You say you can still afford luxuries nad savings... so yeah it sounds fine!

Pay cut from 4400 to 4000 not so bad.

£1400 to £1000 quite bad.

I would go for it if you can afford it. You might be able to make up some of that money with budgeting, freelance income, selling stuff, even incremental income type apps (swagbucks, qmee, shoppix) etc, it all adds up.

I was made redundant and had no choice but to take a pay cut but it's also a better job I'm in now and was well worth it.

I’d do it. Sounds like you can comfortably afford it, it’s in the industry you want to get into and will help if you want to reapply for the masters.

I would absolutely do this if my dh was completely on board. I would want a complete rejig of the household budget so there was clarity on where the cuts would come though.

I supported dh taking a pay cut of more like 1600 a month to work for himself, and he supported me to do a degree in mid life. Agreement on the budget is crucial so that yu understand what each other's non- negotiable expenses are. Eg dh would happily spend a max total of £30 on all christmas presents together. I wouldn't do that, but we agreed to stop doing presents for adults, and to camp once a year for holidays so that we could still pay into our pensions.

Sounds fine to me! You can afford it, by the sounds of it, even if it might mean you have to curtail some luxuries.

If it means that you get the career you want, I'd regard that as a good investment.

As long as there's enough money coming in to live at a standard that you and family are happy with then there's no reason why not. You don't even need to make the final decision now, you could apply for the job and then choose if you're offered it.

Being happy at work is worth way more that 400pcm, if this new career will make you happy that's the main thing

had a similar cut due to voluntary redundancy

took a couple of months, but definitely started to notice the difference

if you can find a couple of changes/sacrifices that cover that difference, you should be golden.

for us, was being less lazy with shopping - stopping getting tesco deliveries, and starting to shop at aldi, and b&m for branded cereals etc, shifting our gas/electricity bills, and DS2 stopping his extra football training (which he hated anyway). those changes meant we don't really feel the difference anymore.

@DiscontinuedModelHusband that's a good idea re shopping at Aldi etc

Tbh we just waste so much on utter crap - quick foods instead of cooking from scratch, changing our mind about meal plans half way through the week and then having lots of food wastage, too much alcohol etc it would actually be so much better for us healthwise too if we cut out all that sort of stuff.

We've also discussed cancelling our gym memberships and getting out walking/ on our bikes a lot more which would save us about £70 a month.

I think it'll be a lot of small savings which add up.