I feel like a little background would be helpful with this post. I am a single 26 year old male with no kids. I graduated college with a degree in chemistry and a little over 6k in debt and it’s paid off now. I have worked at a coal plant for just over a year where I work a rotating shift. For example I work 7 days on day shift, 7am-3pm then 2 days off then I rotate to evening 3pm-11pm for 7 days, 2 days off, then 7 days of midnights 11pm-7am. This does not include all the overtime that I am forced to work. While I do make good money, this past year over 60k, I feel like I am being overworked and it’s not good for my health.
In the next month there is a job opening that my friend is trying to get me to come and work at. It is straight day shift and I would only work 4 days a week and the job atmosphere is much more relaxed and the schedule is much more flexible. The only reservation that I do have is that I would be taking an estimated 20k pay cut. I’m on the fence about this decision to take the job if it is a possibility because I have been working and have saved 30k so far and was trying to reach my goal of 55k so that I could travel for 6 months before going back to school. Would the pay cut and move be worth not saving the amount of money that I was wanting for an overall better quality of life?