This particular job had quite a few drawbacks, beyond the salary. The only pluses were it was a job, and pushed all DH’s blue buttons (he is a blue, if you’ve ever read Taylor Hartmann’s book The Color Code.)
The drawbacks beyond salary included:
1. no medical insurance for the family, just DH. At $50k, we would lose medical from the county, and could not afford $500/month to insure the rest of us.
2. no money left over for food. i mean ZERO. while I could adapt, it would not be a pleasant experience and we would lose assistance from the county as well.
3. 75 mile per day commute. Given the only distance roadworthy vehicle we have, this translates to about $100/week + in gas, and probably twice that, because DH would run air conditioning both ways which cuts our gas mileage in about half.
In hindsight, should he have taken the first $50k a year job he was offered 4 months ago? Maybe. We would still have had money in the bank in case that job fell through, although it would have meant future unemployment would drop about $700 a month (right now, DH maxes out.)
So far, this is like the 4th or 5th $50k a year job he has turned down, so they are out there. We don’t expect he will make the kind of money he was making, even at The Rival Firm. He does not want to accept a job and keep looking, as he feels (IMO wrongly) that it is disloyal. If it had even been $60k, we’d have gone for it because it would at least have taken care of gas & medical.
We will keep applying and hoping things work out the way they are supposed to. One never knows. They may turn around and re-offer him $60k in which case he will be back gainfully employed.