Personal Finance

No. I am an elementary / special education teacher.

My salary is not even a near-decent compensation for the effort I have make every day to keep the most disturbed kids in line. Or the physical abuse I have to put up with, constantly.

I've been punched, kicked, bitten, spat on, had chairs thrown at me and stabbed with pencils and scissors so many times.

But since we teachers have "a really long summer vacation, how the fuck do you dare to complain about your shitty pay?"

Yet I try to fight the good fight and force myself to the school every day, since somebody' has to try to fix those kids before they're truly beyond saving.

I am extremely overpaid. I am also quitting soon and will most likely find an underpaid job, so I'm really trying to make the most of my extra money right now!

Would never say no to more. Could probably make more at same level. But am mostly happy / feel fortunate for where I’m at.

Hah. No. Not even close. I'm struggling with finding job, and measly minimum pay would be a live saver for me. I guess I'm not worth it.

Yes. My needs have been fulfilled.

I am. I make about 120K to work from home, and do maybe 10 hours of actual work a week. Rest of it I'm just dicking around on the internet or playing video games.

However, in my city, when I socialize, people seem to think I am living in poverty, wasting my life, etc. Apparently I'm suppose to be working 60 hour weeks to make 200K+, and live in a million+ dollar house and all that crap. IDGI, but that is the attitude in my city.

My dream was to be a professor, but I realize that making 60K and working 100hr weeks was not a recipe for being miserable forever.

No, I'm not - but it's complicated. I settled for a job with a lower salary than I'm used to because I wanted a mental break.

But, the employer pulled a bait-and-switch. After I signed the hiring agreement, they saddled me with a more advanced role that easily makes twice my agreed salary. I fought for a fair adjustment, but it turned into a perpetual "moving goalposts" situation.

So, after a year of doing a $175k-$200k job for $100k (mostly for the sake of my resume), I essentially said fuck you, pay me - or I'm out. They didn't budge, so I resigned. Here's hoping my next employer is at least slightly less greasy.

Satisfied enough, I guess. I make a little over half a million a year. Thing is, I burn about $30k/mo right now trying to keep my small businesses afloat (debts from mid-covid, payroll, medical benefits for employees). A little less than $10k/mo goes to my own bills, savings, retirement, health, etc. Rest usually goes back to the community or local charitable causes.

I take zero money out of my businesses and haven't for 3 years or so now.

What would be great is if I could get back to where the businesses are self-sustaining, but the last few COVID years changed so much that I'm beginning to doubt it's possible and at the moment I don't have the heart to just shut them down or leave the employees without a job.

But, I can't work 80 hours+ a week forever. I have a family too. I think it will help once the debts are paid off, but just trend/trajectory-wise it will still take some additional foot traffic and sales growth that I'm just not sure will happen anymore.

Living well on 60k. No student debt helps a lot.

I make about $150k but I also live in the San Francisco Bay Area so, while I'm comfortable renting an apartment and being able to save for retirement, I know I am far from being able to afford property. (I could move away but all my family is here.) So I'd say I'm currently satisfied only because I've come to terms with never having that complete housing security.

I was. I was making 100k AUD, able to support another through University and easily pay my relatively small mortgage.

With interest rates gone up, I'm paying 50% more for the mortgage, and bigger increase than that on food, gas, electricity, rates and hot water. We are on the edge of comfortable, though our budget still has a little fat we can trim. I don't like the effective pay decrease I've had this last while, so no; I would be happy going back to two years ago levels of comfort.

On my side, I am happy with my current salary.

When I started working, I was always looking for the next raise, because I felt like I was never making enough.

Now I feel like I have enough money to live a good life and save enough to feel safe, so pretty happy at the moment.