tl;dr- Everything in my life is great, but I don't make much money. Should I try to switch jobs and possibly ruin a good thing?
I have everything going for me right now. I have a two year old son and a great wife I love. We bought a house that's 3 miles from our respective workplaces, and our son's day care is a wonderful, nurturing place a mile from our house. No debt other than a mortgage (less than $900 monthly payment). I have a teaching job at a school for kids with LD's, but class sizes are so small that it's a very relaxed environment. I'm home by 4:30 each day to play with my son. No weekend hours, two weeks off at Christmas, an entire summer off, completely paid health care, no being on call, the whole nine yards. I get to live like an early retired person for about three months each year, which is pretty impressive.
The problem is that I get paid $34,000 per year (5th year teaching), and I don't see that salary going up by more than 1-2% per year. There's not really any room for advancement because of the size of the school, and I have no interest in administration even if that was an option. My wife makes about $43,000 per year in a slightly higher-stress teaching position. Both of us are in our early 30's, neither of us are in pension systems. We're currently saving around 15% under 10% of our income in retirement accounts plus another 5% into principal on the house, which according to the "shockingly simple" article means we'll be retiring in our early 70's 80's early 70's... which seems crazy. We take home about $4100/month after retirement savings and spend somewhere around $3500/month ($40,000/year). We know we can make some improvement, but since a quarter of that is our mortgage payment, I think we deserve only a mild face punching.
So, all that to say I’ve started to consider pursuing a higher paying job so that we can be saving more for retirement, emergencies, and medium term goals (our two cars are 14 and 9 years old, respectively). Our current situation is fine financially, but there are many different events that could seriously change our math. Having another kid, for example, will probably eat up most of our $600/month slack, causing us to cut back further on retirement savings, leading to Very Bad Consequences in the long run. The general Mustachian wisdom strongly suggests that I should be trying to bring in more income. However, other general Mustachian wisdom (spend your time with family doing things you love, don’t let a job run your life, focus on being there for your children) would suggest that maybe I’m better off keeping my low paying job and my summers. A higher paying job would almost certainly involve a longer commute, longer weekly hours, and no summers to spend having fun with the kid(s).
The other option would be trying to find summer employment or trying to pick up a side gig on the weekends.
So, the question is: how much (financially) is it worth it to have a job that lets you lead the perfect life?
On a more practical note, I’m not sure which higher paying job I would try to get. I have a Masters degree in Chemistry but can’t stand chemical research, so I guess chemical or pharmaceutical sales? I looked into pharmacy school, but that would put me out of work for three years and cost me close to $100k, so not happening. Any suggestions (other than the 50 jobs over $50k article) would be appreciated.
Edit: Budget
Expenses: (excuses in parentheses)
Mortgage: $821 (400 principal, 303 interest, 118 escrow. 93,500 and 15 years left on a 119,900 house at 3.875%)
Day Care: $520
Car Insurance: $60 (Actually paid $700 for the entire year already)
Gasoline: $80 (mostly seeing family on weekends)
Electricity/Gas/Water: $270 (thermostat at 68)
Internet: $40
Ting Cell Phone: $67 (4 lines, 2 of which we're reimbursed for by in-laws)
Doctors/Dentists/Medicine: Varies wildly, but probably around $150
Life Insurance: $73
House repairs/improvements: Varies wildly, but probably around $150
Subtotal $2231
Now for the face-punching stuff:
Grocery store/Target/Wal-Mart: $400
Eating out: $160 (includes subsidized lunch at wife's school)
Weight Watchers: $18 (to counteract the previous two entries)
Netflix: $8
Entertainment: $30 (one or two date nights per month)
Other Shopping/Misc. $150
Total: $2997
Well, that's embarrassing- all of our "typical month" averages only add up to $3k but our spending has been around the $3500/3600 level. Something always comes up- February featured serious plumbing bills. I've attached a screenshot of our spending from January/February farther down the tree.