Job Opportunity Dilemma: Love Location or Love Cash. WWYD?

Because I respect quite a few of you.

Decision time.

Current: I LOVE where I live. But I hate my workplace. Have a day each month where I have chest pains at work. No longer anchoring, now running the newsroom and took a 20k pay cut. (It was that or be fired). Unsure if we’ll even be “open” in two or three years because of having other nearby stations just doing the work for us. Again, I love the location. I don’t take vacations because, well, living here is like vacation.

Opportunity: Boring market BUT the people watch. Anchoring again. No beaches. No mountains. But the compensation would be what it was when I moved to current job — I’d get the 20k back. Rental house would be about 7% of my monthly income. Dirt cheap to live. Pretty sure this place will still be doing news in 20 years. Instead of buying and trying to sell later, I plan to just live cheap and build up cash to invest during the next recession in either real estate or stocks. Oh… and legal sports betting. Haha.

Everyone in my life says take the opportunity. In a decade, I’ll be 60. At that point, hoping to have built up enough abundance to truly do what I want.

JFC, now that I write this out, I take the opportunity. I’ll hang up and listen.

Got a week to decide. Also, no debt and kids are outta the house. Just me.

(Seriously, thank you).

 

How far is it to somewhere interesting? A four hour drive (or cheap flight) is tolerable. But if Dullsville is the biggest thing going for 700 miles, I might have to think twice.

 

^^^^
I grew up in Chicago, then spent a few years in BFE. I have no desire to go back.

 

My “home city” and one of my kids would be within 5-hour drive. A flight and drive to my current location would be 4 hours or so.

 

Current job situation, even in "paradise," ain't worth the chest pains and other crap.

I've been there a couple of times. Miss those towns, but sometimes you just gotta move on.

And you're a "glass half full" guy. Go do the anchor role you love again. Nothing is forever there, either.

 

Sounds like there's a lot in favor of the new, boring market.

Especially if there's no chest pains and more $$$$, plus you love what you'd be doing.

There always will be chances to seek out excitement. And the sports betting ...

 

Agree with all of this. Plus, an extra $20k can allow for a couple extra trips a year, to wherever.

 

Location doesn't matter if it's impacting your health, including your mental health. And with the massive salary increase coupled with lower cost of living, you can afford travel to more exciting places.

No brainer to me.

 

Not to be alarmist, but your chest pains bother me. They could be hitting you because of stress or anxiety, which is the best case scenario.

As many of us who are getting older know, life is shorter than we thought. I wouldn’t want to live the best of my remaining years in a soul-sucking job just because I like the location. With the extra money of the opportunity, you’ll be able to travel and see your kids — and maybe upgrade that La-Z-Boy recliner.

Go for it, and never look behind.

 

I did get the heart checked out. Was told the heart looks okay - probably the stress and stress/eating over the job doing its thing.

 

Take the job. Happiness (and money) worth it.

 

Maybe you're the boring one if you think the place is boring.

Shouldn't have to say it ... but take the fucking money and the face time and the lack of chest pains ... which I'm 99.9999% sure you want to do.