Has anyone left their well paid job and been ok financially?

[Littlemiss74]

I’m unhappy at work to the point it’s affecting my mental & physical health. I only realised how much when I had a week off last month and felt so much better.

I’m 50 & don’t think I can carry on with this until I retire. But, i am well paid with good benefits. A quick look at the job market it’s clear i’d need to take quite a pay cut if I left.

My DH has just had an increase & has been told they want to promote him in 6 months which would be quite a bit more money but of course who knows in this uncertain world if that will happen.

My head is telling me I’d be mad to give up my job with the security it provides but my heart is sick of being anxious, treading on eggshells, run down and at the centre of office politics which I can’t stand and am no good at.

Has anyone been in a similar position and what did you do? How did you decide if the financial loss was worth it? I just don’t know what to do. Thanks

I had a job that required me to be on call 24 hours a day (on a rota with one other employee) and I absolutely couldn't stand it. The basic pay was good and I got substaintial bonuses every month as well, which meant I stayed in the job for longer than I probably should have. When I left, I felt so relieved I can't express it.

Obviously you need to calculate your finances, work out how long you could survive with no money if it came to that, etc, but don't undervalue your mental health, your sleep, your physical health...

You could always ask your doctor to sign you off for a while if you need time to think.

Thank you @Miller2021 I would love to experience that relief. Did you worry about not having the same level of income?
I have stayed there far too long because I have felt trapped due to the pay etc as I know i won’t get that doing the same job elsewhere. I don’t even know if I want to do the same job but I don’t know what else to do.
I guess the first step is to sit down with my DH and go through all our finances. We are comfortably off but we are not that careful with money so we can tend to fritter on things that aren’t necessary. Perhaps we’d have to learn to be better at this and then it might be ok.
I think I worry that I’d be letting my family down by leaving and going to something less well paid but I’m not a happy mum right now so something needs to change.

I’m sorry to hear you’re going through this. I’d personally be reluctant to leave a well paid job. Is there anything you can do to improve things? With your age, I’m wondering if the anxiety and difficulties are linked with the menopause? Could you cut down your hours temporarily? Or take a longer holiday?

I found I "needed" must less once I was happier at work. Holidays, meals out, takeaways, generally treating myself became less important.

@Littlemiss74 I did worry about the drop in income, but it didn't plunge me into poverty - I was still able to get by and just treated myself less. I had been spending a lot of money on weekends (drinking a lot, etc) to try to relax in my down time, so that naturally just stopped happening once I was generally happier.

Agree with what @DetailMouse says about needing fewer treats - if you give up this horrible job, every day of stress-free living will feel like a treat!

Thank you @Miller2021 - that makes alot of sense. I think that we could manage if I had a lower salary, it would need to be a case of doing things differently and looking carefully at what are spending. We would not be in poverty, we might just need to spend less on birthdays, xmas, food shopping, clothes etc. It can be done I’m sure. Where I work there is a lot of talk about the cost of things and how they are putting money away into savings, paying for kids uni fees, teenagers cars, etc etc. All very nice if you can do that but that’s not essential to live is it.. ? Does everyone do all those things?

When I look around my house, there is so much ‘stuff’ that we really don’t need & was probably a waste of money. There are ways we could cut back if we had to.
I do worry a bit about pensions, I’m currently in quite a good scheme.

I should point out that it’s not that I don’t like my job, I do, it’s the anxiety brought on by working for a manipulative, unpredictable character,that I can no longer face. The mind games and politics are off the scale. And yes @BeeLady15 I am definitely menopausal but this has been going on for many years and it’s only now I’m seriously thinking I can’t go on like this.

Do you have any perks at work like a career break? You could have a longer break (probably unpaid) and this would give you time to decide what you really want to do.

Or reduce your hours? See if there are other roles for you at work?

A good pension scheme makes it a shame to leave because of one person.

I gave up my job a few weeks ago ( not well paid though ! ) for similar reasons. I have found it harder then I imagined to find something else. I have job offers but perhaps not jobs which really excite me and the jobs I was excited about I have been rejected again and again. It's demoralizing to say the least. I guess it does depend on your sector though and what options you have.

[quote Miller2021]@Littlemiss74 I did worry about the drop in income, but it didn't plunge me into poverty - I was still able to get by and just treated myself less. I had been spending a lot of money on weekends (drinking a lot, etc) to try to relax in my down time, so that naturally just stopped happening once I was generally happier.

Agree with what @DetailMouse says about needing fewer treats - if you give up this horrible job, every day of stress-free living will feel like a treat![/quote]
Definitely agree with your last sentence. I have been off work about 5 or 6 weeks now and am having a lovely time to the point where I think I will struggle to go back at all.

"Where I work there is a lot of talk about the cost of things and how they are putting money away into savings, paying for kids uni fees, teenagers cars, etc etc. All very nice if you can do that but that’s not essential to live is it.. ? Does everyone do all those things? "

I guess this completely depends on what you're used to. My parents were never in a position to pay my way through uni or buy my first car, so I did it myself. But I never expected any different, and I grew up around people who didn't expect it either. It is not essential.

When you say "the anxiety brought on by working for a manipulative, unpredictable character", that reminds me - my husband did the same thing about 2 years ago, left a job he'd been in for 12 years where the MD was the most evil piece of shit I've ever met. He took a pay cut of around £8k to get out of there, and has since worked his way back to his previous wage at a different company with a nicer boss. He was much happier instantly, even with the pay cut, and has no regrets.

OP, I was in a very similar position to you. Felt trapped in a well paid job that I hated, because thought I'd have to take a big paycut to go elsewhere. And even though we didn't 'need' the money, its difficult to give it up as you feel you've worked hard for it. I ended up being able to find a different job for lower pay (not massively lower take home though) and it was the right decision - I wish I'd done it years ago