Can I live happily without a high paying job?
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So I'm unemployed and looking for a full time job after leaving college. Due to my personal situation (I don't want to go into it here, University is pretty much impossible) I have no qualifications or skills outside GCSE, and my A Level results were dire.
But I don't know if my brain's warped by the education system, but is it possible to have a 'content' life without having a career/being in a 'high position?' I don't want to have the latest TV or phone, I just don't want to feel financial pressure.
I don't mind working, say, supermarket jobs full time. I do plan to 'develop my prospects', but this isn't something I can achieve in the short term. I have to move out of home and sustain myself soon in the situation that I'm in.
This is all I want out of money:
-To rent a flat
- To go on holiday occasional ( to buy a £60 return ticket to European destinations and not have it burn a hole in my wallet)
- To have internet access.
- To be able to look after myself (get a haircut, eat healthily, buy new clothes occasionally, keep myself looking respectable all the time)
- To have a drink with friends once a week
I think actually, the biggest luxury I'd want is to be able to travel. I have friends in other countries that I want to see again.
I have this black and white attitude for some reason where I think I either have to HAVE A CAREER AND BE RICH or work in Asda in poverty. I live in London btw
Does anyone live this sort of lifestyle?
But I don't know if my brain's warped by the education system, but is it possible to have a 'content' life without having a career/being in a 'high position?' I don't want to have the latest TV or phone, I just don't want to feel financial pressure.
I don't mind working, say, supermarket jobs full time. I do plan to 'develop my prospects', but this isn't something I can achieve in the short term. I have to move out of home and sustain myself soon in the situation that I'm in.
This is all I want out of money:
-To rent a flat
- To go on holiday occasional ( to buy a £60 return ticket to European destinations and not have it burn a hole in my wallet)
- To have internet access.
- To be able to look after myself (get a haircut, eat healthily, buy new clothes occasionally, keep myself looking respectable all the time)
- To have a drink with friends once a week
I think actually, the biggest luxury I'd want is to be able to travel. I have friends in other countries that I want to see again.
I have this black and white attitude for some reason where I think I either have to HAVE A CAREER AND BE RICH or work in Asda in poverty. I live in London btw
Does anyone live this sort of lifestyle?
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Comments
Look at rents where you live and see how much they are, as a starting point.
I work 37 hrs a week @£10 an hour.
Although I share my income with someone else, I have no mortgage or rent so I think that balances out.
It all comes down to how cheaply you live, how much your rent or mortgage is.
So its possible, but it all depends on you really.
I used to have a very well paying job in the city but I wasn't happy at all because although I had a nice fat paycheck at the end of every month, the job felt pointless. I ended up retraining as a teacher and although my salary now is about half what I was earning, and my lifestyle reflects this, I'm so much happier.
If I could give advice to anyone at school/college, it would be do something you enjoy not something you feel you have to do. Oh and money doesn't necessarily equal happiness.
Not for a long, long time =P
I'm just sick of chasing a 'career.' I have interests that I could potentially turn into careers, but that's a longer term thing that I don't need a degree for (and will work on in my spare time). Really, if it turns out I can live *independently* on a lower wage, then my life will be a hundred per cent easier, because the last few years have just been me putting extra pressure on myself to 'do well,' making me depressed in the process.
So yes, it is possible. But, if you're anything like me, it's only short-term before you get frustrated at it (though I guess it depends on the job!)
If your contentment is the things you listed, then yes I dont see why not.
Unfortunatley we live in a world where corporations set the contentment levels. If you can see past the adverts and constant push of desires, then living a simple happy life is attainable.
In what universe is £10ph not a good wage? I would kill to be on £10ph
I agree with that. I'm on almost half that wage, same hours a week.
I'd barely be able to survive if I was living alone.
What is there to argue about? If you have useful advice, even if it's to counter my original post, please go ahead. This is why I posted this thread in the first place.
No nothing to do with yourself, it was in response to Empirical post.
Just kinda found it funny how he was saying £10 an hour isn't a lot, but then went on to say he doesn't pay any mortgage or rent. Never mind
@Yeah Yeah. There is nothing wrong with a lack of ambition but I would be wary of the fact you have trouble sticking at anything. A job in a supermarket may appear to be "easy," but what makes you think you would be any more content doing that after a few years than you would working a white collar job? Having said that, it is good that you have self-awareness and seem to understand the black and white attitude you have to the workplace is misplaced.
As for what you need financially from a job, depending on the rents in your area a low paid job may not be enough to cover what you think are modest requirements. As Espresso indicated, a flatshare is probably the way to go if you want to realise your dream of financial independence. Otherwise the weekly drink with friends is going to be a bottle of wine or a 6-pack once a month if you're lucky and you can forget about holidays.
So do the sums and then see what is out there. I did that 6 years ago and left a well paid full time job to work in a less pressured industry with reduced hours. BUT, I sold my home to move into rental with a disaffected friend, so I do have savings to fall back on for holidays and Christmas presents. Good luck though. Most of us don't realise the importance of balance between work/home life until it's affecting our health and/or relationships. It's positive that you recognise what would make you unhappy.
OP don't know what age you are but I would think by 30 or 35 you don't don't want to be starting at the bottom of your career. Of course as long as you live within your means and your chosen lifestyle then not a problem.
There are plenty of people who never settle down, own a home, have a family, etc Just prioritise what is important to you in life and work on that.
However I will say one thing, unless you plan on dying young think about what its going to take to support yourself when you are older. Pensions take decades to build up and the earlier you start saving the better.
Once you have your monthly total, break it down so you know how much you will need to earn per hour. That will be your minimum target.
You may prefer not to have what people consider "proper employment". You could work for yourself selling stuff on the Internet, from a market stall or whatever. If selling isn't your "thing", maybe you could offer a service instead. Building work, odd jobs, installing satellite dishes, window cleaning, PC repairs - the possibilities are endless!
Or you could have a "proper job" earning money for someone else, in return for a pittance, and experiment with your own business ideas at weekends and/or evenings.
Whatever you do, make sure you are happy doing it.
Higher salaries often mean longer hours and not being able to get away from the job, being available 24 hours a day and 365 days a year if there are any problems with things you are involved with.
but no money often equals stress, especially when you have other depending on you
The OP asked:-
I do not have a career and I am not in a 'high position'. Retail assistant on the railway requires no specific qualifications (testing done in-house). That seems to satisfy the OPs conditions. He asked it it was possible. It is.
I didn't say it wasn't a good wage I said it wasn't a high wage. It may be more than some earn, and it is more than I will be earning in the near future, but the OP was talking about high flying careers and in that context its NOT a high rate of pay at all. My job of selling tickets at a train station is hardly Managing Director.
Although booking office jobs are going to be rarer. He could still do multiple jobs on the railway and most pay MORE than I get. And that is just one industry.
However, knowing its a good distance from the minimum wage is why I included my hourly rate - specifically - so the OP could make up his own mind.
Which is why I was careful to include that information for the OP, so they could factor that in. And as I already stated, I support someone else which works out about the same as my mortgage did.
Not being personal but you lack the drive and ambition.
I never knew what I wanted to do or thought much about money. After working for a year though I had a rather definite view that I wanted to do something that I thought was worthwhile and offered some sort of future , (including financial security). I got a job doing hydrological surveys of various river systems in the UK.
Of course that suited me, but would not suit many. You might be a person who dislikes having a boss or being
bound by others' rules. Or you might want to personally care for people, or work with machinery, or in the open air or in woodland or in a comfortable dry warm office or in publishing or music or .... etc etc. You can not find out except by doing one. If you are very lucky you will take to it like a duck to water, but more likely that it gives you good guidelines to the sort of thing you do and do not want to do.
If you do decide that all you want is money, then your job will give you good experience to see what jobs people have that earn them a lot. There are plenty, - recruiting, data analysis etc. A word though: if you want money because you really want not to work but to have a pleasant lazy life, forget it. You will never be ruich by being lazy. If you want to be a bit lazy with not much responsibility again you will find out about it by working.
Don't fool yourself and just do what you think they say on TV that you ought to be like. It will be your decision not other peoples'. You will only find out for yourself what you want, by actually doing things. What abiout working in a large department store or supermarket. You will meet lots of people and get huge experiences. If you see somebdy stealing, or hear somebody lying to a boss and getting someone sacked, what will you do?
And you'd be wrong. For one with the hours you stated, £10 an hour is high paying job.