Prioritizing Well-being: Why Quality of Life Trumps Income

My wife and I recently took a voluntary $20,000 per year reduction in income – after taxes.

And, I promise, we’re not crazy.

Can Quality of Life Matter THAT Much More Than Money?

Before you question why we voluntarily chose to do this, you have to understand the full situation.

My wife was in the US military and her job required her to work very long hours and irregular schedules. Weekends and holidays did not exist in her line of work. Planning for events, holidays, vacations, and a social life was difficult because her work schedule would usually only be released 4-6 weeks in advance.

Add to that the possibility of deploying for 6 months at a stretch and it quickly became evident that at this stage in our lives, our quality of life was more important to us than earning more money.

I know a lot of people can’t afford to take a $20,000 a year pay cut, and it’s not easy. Fortunately, we started planning for this drop in income well over a year ago and we were prepared for it.

To prepare ourselves for this drastic change in income, my wife and I paid down all of our consumer debt, trimmed unnecessary expenses from our budget, and began living well below our income level. After doing this we added more money to our emergency fund, and began investing a little extra in our retirement accounts while we had the available funds to do so.

My wife recently began her new job, and is very happy with her decision to try something new professionally – and so am I.

I am glad my wife and I have a very open line of communication and planned for this a year ago – when we still had the time to prepare for it.

Unfortunately, not everyone has a chance to prepare for a drastic decrease in income. If you have to deal with a similar situation, I hope your story ends as well as ours did. If you are not able to prepare in advance for a drastic drop in income, I hope you will be able to find a way to handle your new situation. Later this week I will write about how to deal with a sudden and drastic drop in income.

For some people, they have no choice but to work a job that they don’t like and that put a lot of stress on them. Taking that drastic of a pay cut isn’t a feasible option for most people, but it’s important that you focus on your quality of life as much as possible.

If you have a job that’s putting a lot of stress on you and requires that you work terrible hours, it could be putting your physical health at risk. If you continue to have a high level of stress for a long time, it can drastically increase your chances of having a heart attack or being diagnosed with severe health problems, like diabetes. Stress is more than likely going to cause you to put your job before your health and extended working hours tends to lead to poor eating habits.

Not only will you be eating poorly, but if you have a high-stress job, you’ll find that you have a lot less mental energy when you get home or on the weekends. Workers that report high levels of stress tend to burn out more often, which can lead to depression.

I’m not saying that you should quit your high-stress job, but I do think that you should do whatever you can to put your quality of life before your job or money.

Note: This is not intended to say anything bad about the military. My wife and I both served and are proud to have done so. For both of us though, we reached a stage in our lives where we wanted something else.

Related Post: How We Manage Our Money on a Daily Basis