Recently my husband made a drastic career change and left his well paying, stressful job to go back to his working roots and take a job as a Stevedore, (glamorous name for wharfie) which is what he was doing when we first met 14 years ago. To say I was nervous about his decision is a big understatement. The pay cut was over $30K and the job entails shift work and weekends so it was going to be a big adjustment for the whole family.
In his past job he worked in an office in Brisbane for a large international company and was under a lot of pressure on a daily basis. He left for work at 5am and got home most days at 5.30pm depending on traffic. He was never able to take the kids to school or pick them up and missed after school activities unless he was on holidays. He would get home from work and would still be on the phone, exhausted and grumpy. He would be in bed by 8.30pm and was pretty unsociable. We got used to this routine and managed to live a pretty comfortable life, not having to worry about our finances, never having a budget and being able to buy things when we wanted. But he wasn't happy. He missed spending time with the kids and hated the stress that came with his position. When the opportunity came to go for the new job we discussed it in detail and thought of ways to cut back on our spending to try and manage the pay cut. In my heart I knew he would take the job but in my head I was screaming "This isn't fair! I don't want to go backwards!"
Of course I would never have told him not to take the job, obviously I want him to be happy and I want the kids to be able to spend more time with him but it irked me that our lifestyles were going to change dramatically. Don't get me wrong, I am not a materialistic person, I actually hate shopping and never spend money on myself, but I just felt scared and anxious about what we would have to cut back on. Both of my kids do a lot of activities, piano, drama, surfing, football and gymnastics and I don't want to tell them they have to cut back on what they love as we can't afford it any more. We have had to do the 'cutting back' talk to them explaining why we can't stop at the shop after school and get Slurpees twice a week, why we can't do our regular takeaway night every week and tuckshop is now once a fortnight instead of weekly. Gosh how tragic!
Really, as I type this I'm realising how pathetic this all sounds and how lucky we truly are, we all have our health, we have an awesome house and new pool and we can still afford to eat everyday so I should just shut up and eat a spoonful of concrete! But I guess we all become accustomed to our little luxuries and when we are faced with losing them we naturally become anxious and stressed about the lifestyle change.
The one other thing that is going to be hard to adjust to is having hub home when I'm not used to it, like today for instance which is my day off, I normally love spending time pottering around the house enjoying the peace and doing my own thing but he also has the day off and is hanging around like a bad smell! This is probably the thing that is going to be the hardest to get used to if I truly admit it! We actually went shopping together today for the first time in years without the kids and it was weird. (We could actually cruise around the shops without screaming our heads off to stop touching stuff!) I guess it's something that we will get used to but it may take awhile.
So on the upside of this new job, hub is already appearing less stressed. He took my son to Oztag on Monday and my daughter to gymnastics yesterday which meant I was able to work later and also get the groceries in peace. I am also writing this post which means I am getting more time to myself as I would normally be cleaning the house today and rushing around like a maniac but he managed to clean the house yesterday and even scrubbed the showers (swoon) so things seem to be working out so far.
From this point onwards we are watching our pennies and we may even do a budget to stick to (dreading) and I even went to Aldi to do some shopping last week (hated it) and just generally being a bit tighter for the time being to see how we go but generally I think we are going to be ok.
Sometimes it's ok to go backwards and it may even mean that we will all be happier going forward.
Katie
xx
PS the one thing I told him I'm never giving up is my Foxtel so my trashy tv addiction is all safe for now!
