I May be Taking a 25% Pay Cut!!

Working two jobs is stressful, but that’s where I am at right now. I have one job as an insurance agent and the other as bookkeeper. Currently, I save right around 25% of my gross income. So, a 25% pay cut! What will this mean for me?

Here is what’s going on:

I have worked my bookkeeping job for about 7 years now. For the most part I love the people that I work with and the job has just become part of my life. However, over the past couple of years I have just felt bored with the job, I felt like if I didn’t do something about furthering my career now then I would be stuck there forever.

In April I learned of a financial office that was hiring. This is a small office that does accounting, insurance, and financial planning for many of the local businesses. I had been working on my accounting degree and have had a personal finance obsession for quite a while, so this sounded like the perfect opportunity for me.

I put in an application and not long after that I was called for an interview. The interview went well and I was sent off to get my Property and Casualty insurance license. I happily took this job and started out three days a week selling and servicing insurance policies. I went from three days a week at the bookkeeping job to two days a week still getting paid my old salary. (I still did the same amount of work.)

In August one of the girls from the insurance office had some issues and quit. My boss then desperately needed to me to pick up an extra day, so I did. I was now spending one evening at bookkeeping, one full day, and a few hours every other weekend. For the most part the hours I worked came close to the amount I had put in for two full days. I remained on salary.

Recently, I have begun delegating less important tasks at my bookkeeping job to another girl that is there to help me out. This way I can keep up with the more important duties. They now want to take me off of salary and switch me to hourly pay.

I have no hard feelings about this. I completely understand now a days businesses are looking to cut costs and I work less hours than I once did. So switching to hourly will basically cut my pay in half for this job, cutting my overall pay by 25%.

Here is what I am thinking:

Even with the 25% pay cut I still think I would be able to save money. Not quite as quickly but my goals are still doable.

BUT – HAVING TWO JOBS IS STRESSFUL!!

When I am at one job I think about what needs to be done at the other. I would much prefer to quit one or the other.

These are my options:

1.)    Keep both jobs. I would still take the pay cut. But I could work all weekend on the weekends that the girls go to their dads so that I could get in extra hours. (Doesn’t sound appealing)

2.)    Quit bookkeeping and pick up an extra day at the insurance office. If I did this I would bring in almost what I would at the other job after the pay cut.

3.)    Quit bookkeeping and concentrate the extra free time pursuing online ideas. I have been applying for staff writing positions, so if I could land one of these it would help to fill in the income gap. I could give it a try for a few months and if didn’t work out I could then pick up an extra day at the insurance office.

I am leaning toward dedicating the extra time to my online ideas. I could get by with my income from the insurance job for a few months. I have enough money saved that if I really needed to I could dip into that.

I wasn’t planning on going down to one job until November, but life happens. And working two jobs is stressful. Maybe this is my wake up call to become more serious about my online income goals.

{Photo Credit}

What do you think?  Any advice?