I guess the money would be a relative thing. If you made 100K and the new job is 85K.. well, that's still a decent amount of salary. If you make 40K currently then going to 25K would be a bigger hardship since you probably need your salary for your living expense requirements.

In theory, it sounds like a cut in pay would be worth it to have a MUCH better quality of life. I imagine that maybe you could find some savings in your current budget like maybe not having to spend as much on a work wardrobe since working from home some is an option? The new company also is saying there could be some raise coming too.

I would do it in your shoes because TBH.. the after tax value of 15K probably isn't "as worth it" as you think. (also look at other benefits like health care... that could be more valuable at the new job).

It's really funny, I'm grappling with this right now because my job is restructuring.

At this point, I'm not willing to take a pay cut in any amount. I work from home and make a decent living so unless something comes up that is easier, has comparable pay with benefits (if there are benefits, then I would let a little $ go) then I'm not interested.

I think if you can afford it, you should take it.

I don't love my job, honestly don't even like it much, but the benefits FAR outweigh me liking/not liking it.

The pay is decent, the benefits are sub-par/decent, but the flexibility with work/life balance is outstanding.

I work just 15 minutes from home, I can work from home if I need to if a kid is sick or someone is coming to the house to do work. I can take an extra long lunch to go to a dental appointment, or get my drivers license renewed, no problem. I can last minute tell my boss that one of the skids has awards at school at 2pm and I'd like to leave for an hour to be present, and will be back, again no problem. With my DD2 when I was pumping, I pumped FIVE times a day while at work, again no issues from anyone.

The ability to focus on my family and life is the reason I'm still at this job...well that and DH works here too so we get to have lunch together every day

If you do decide to go for the lower paying job make sure you get promised pay increases in writing with a time-line and targets in place. Otherwise the promises are not worth anything and they can and will ignore them.

Is there a sideways move at your current company that would allow you similar flexibility for a role without a pay cut? Or if they knew you were thinking of leaving might they offer to ease your travel schedule to retain you?

I love numbers so if i were you I would be running through the potential new budget and seeing precisely where I would be having to cut back and then decide on the basis of that if it is worth it to me.

Personally I think that sanity is preferable to more money, but that doesn't mean that it will be affordable in your situation or that this job will be the only opportunity you get to ease your workload. Perhaps there will be something else similar for a better salary.

SO has changed positions/jobs twice with pay cuts to have more time for family. Weirdly, it feels like we have more money than we used to. Maybe because we actually have time to make home cooked meals more often? Not sure why.

I personally would do it.

If you truly hate your job you should move on to a new one. You can't put a price on happiness. From reading what you wrote you sound like moving on to less stressful job is really what you want. Good luck.

I would do it in a heartbeat as long as we could still survive off of the amount I was being paid.

Nine years ago I got laid off from the mortgage industry while pregnant with my son. I probably could have gotten hired somewhere else right away, but it was so stressful and I was looking for a way to get out of it even though the money was great. I was working 11-12 hour days and my daughter was in daycare, and with a baby on the way it just wasn't going to work out. I wanted to be home with my kids so I got into the restaurant industry and started working opposite shifts as DH so one of us was always home with the kids, and took a massive pay cut. Luckily my DH's business started to grow and we cut a lot of costs. We moved to a town where the rents were lower, I bought an older model car for cash so we only had one car payment, we traded in DH's truck for a smaller one to save on gas, we downgraded phones to basic texting phones, stopped eating out as much. There are lots of ways we all spend money we don't need to without realizing it, I'm sure there are lots of ways you can cut spending and not really notice.

The bottom line is that life is too short to have a job you hate. You can't dread going somewhere that you spend most of your time. And no job is worth a 70 hour work week unless it pays millions. My family comes first, and I work to live, not live to work.

15000 may seem like a big cut, but in return for the extra time that will not be eaten up by traveling may be worth it. I used to work at a job with weekly travel and it was exhausting. I may have had extra money, but I could barely get anything done because I wasn't around during the week. I had to send my mom off to get me a parking pass, because the office was only open during the week and even things like seeing a doctor were next to impossible because I was rarely around to go to any appointments.

I would do it. I would much rather make less and be happy than make more and be miserable. When my Supervisor retired a few years ago, DH was like why don't you apply for her job? I said HELL NO! Sure she made about $20,000 more than I do, but she also worked until 11 pm some nights, came in on weekends, had to deal with nasty people pretty much 24/7 and because of all this she was a miserable beeotch. Nope, I'm good with working 35 hours a week, passing off crazies and nasties to my supervisor and never working a weekend, holiday, snow day, etc.

Hell, if you find it a struggle you could even just pick up a part time job doing something fun? That's what I do, I judge horse shows for side money. It pays really well, and it's not even really "work" they are just paying me for my opinion and knowledge of the rule book basically

Your health is everything and stress does HORRIBLE things to your body.

A former coworker's hair was falling out while she went through a nasty divorce.
A friend had debilitating migraines. She found a new job and they went away.
I had "emotional diarrhea" for 6+ months after my pyscho exH beat the stuffing out of me.
I had out of control blood pressure so bad that my doctor was about to hospitalize me. And then I found a new job.

There is no price you can put on your health. I hope everything works out for you.

Money can't buy you happiness or good health....

Do what you think is right for you - no one else,