Hello MMM. I was a regular user a long time ago, but I haven't been around in a few years. Some of the best life advice I've ever gotten came from this forum. I feel like I'm in a serious life rut at the moment, and I decided to come back for some wisdom. I'll warn you ahead of time, this will probably be a long post, but I'll keep it as simple as I can.
Basic Info- I'm 38 years old, married, with 3 kids. Ages 10,8,5. We live in a semi-rural community in the Northeast. Extremely cheap cost of living. We're both very tight with our families, and all of our relatives live within 90 minutes of where we are not and we see them all the time. Both sets of parents are in their mid 60's-early 70's and there are a lot of cousins that are close to our kids.
I've been at the same company for 11 years. When we moved here for the job, I thought we'd be here 5-6 years, tops. It's a decent community, low crime, ok schools, and my kids have a lot of connections here now. My wife started working at the same company a couple of years ago. I only make 55k and my wife makes 35k. Good benefits, decent 401(k). Live close enough to walk to work, doctor, dentist, all errands are within 5 minutes of our home. We live on a good street in a nice neighborhood. Our house is big enough for us, but certainly needs some updates.
I just don't feel settled here and wonder if it is time to move on, but can't find enough reasons why we should go. I don't have any advancement opportunities at my current company, and there aren't any other companies in my field around town. If we moved for me to jump a step up the ladder, the increase in pay would probably be no more than 25%, and it would almost certainly be somewhere with higher cost of living. I only owe 84k left on my house, but it's only worth about 130k. My wife and I would both like the kids to be closer to a city with more culture, but that obviously costs more money. Moving sounds like a nightmare right now. No one can sell a house in our town because the market is flooded here.
I've been interviewing for positions to get experience and see what's out there. I've had a couple of offers, but one wasn't enough pay and the other wasn't a good fit after looking more into it. We like being this close to our families, and I've read a lot from people that regret not spending more time with parents and family when they had the chance. I would definitely like to make more money, but that would certainly mean more hours, stress, and time away from my own kids. I don't make much now, but the job is pretty low stress 70 percent of the time. I have a gym where I work, I can go home or workout on my lunch, and everything is right here.
I also worked in the brewing industry for a short time prior to having kids. I brewed on a professional level, and I have a friend who currently brews for a well known commercial brewery not too far from us, and he is trying to convince me to open our own small brew pub in our town. I guess this is where the mid-life crisis part comes in, HAHA. This guy is really smart, and even though this is a tough business to get into, part of me wants to take the chance and start writing a business plan with this guy. I could stay at my current job while we tried putting things together. We've been meeting a couple of times a week, looking at buildings for sale, and talking to potential investors. This would be the risk of my life, but I feel like I'll regret it if I don't try to follow my dream.
I guess that's enough of a start. As you can see, I'm a mess. I encourage any life advice or questions I need to think about that I haven't mentioned. I'll continue adding to this as we go along. Thanks in advance for all the MMM wisdom that will come my way. I've missed this place!