I'm a little confused, though. You only make 73K right now, and your GF thinks you can't possibly earn less than 70K. Are you spending everything you make now, or are you saving any of it? If you are saving it, and you should be, are you saving at least 6K a year? I mean, this is a forum where saving is a priority, but quality of life is important, too. Maybe a detailed budget is in order!
Well, currently this is our rundown:
$2,057 (Mortgage, taxes, & insurance)
$125-150 (Electric)
$200-300 (fuel to work or job sites budgeted)
$150 (pet food and medicine)
$120 (mobile phone and insurance)
$75 (auto insurance, liability only)
$400 (baby supplies, food & diapers)
$107 (quarterly water bill)
$132 (personal loan)
So very loosely, $3491 a month in expenses.
Other things I paid this month:
$300 (hospital bill)
$179 (Credit card payments)
$500 (to old apartment complex for lease buyout (I owe one more payment of $489 and then I'm done))
$189 (fast food, lunch at work, dinging out. This has always been an issue)
$317 (home supplies and other home improvement things like paint)
$1485 in additional expenses that will eventually go away once we start scrimping and knocking out debt.
Her situation is worse:
She takes home roughly 200-300 every two weeks working 5-9 at best buy when they give her hours.
She has a 250 car payment and 130 insurance bill on it alone. She owe more than its worth, so we have been considering to get her on my car insurance which brings it to 100 a month. Her car, I will probably take the payment over so she can stop stressing about it. It's really a POS and will not pass inspection again this year. Last year I put $3500 into it to keep it on the road. I'd rather just unload it if we could.
I figure this, I've been paying my old apartment complex 500 a month since we moved for breaking the lease. My last payment is next month and I'll have that back. If I take a pay cut its not much different than our situation now. Worse case, I do more flooring jobs or work pt somewhere , I just need to get out of this situation.
I try to explain this to my GF. Current job: 73000 x .75 = 54750 after taxes and insurance. Divided by 52 is 1052 a week take home, I took home 1030 ea week here or 2060 every two weeks.
New job: 67500 x .75 = 50625 after taxes and insurance. Divided by 52 is 973.55 a week take home. 1030 - 975 = 55 dollars a week difference. Which is the cost of gas alone.