Better work life balance or grind for the money? (London)
Me and my husband are 40yo, we have two kids (10 yo, 7 yo). I worked in tech for 15 years with a £100k+ salary, got laid off and actively looked for jobs that were a bit slower paced as I was really burned out and not an outstanding performer in the FAANG world. Now earning about £50k (with my husband's encouragement) and much happier.
Husband currently earns ~£130k at a big tech firm, fully remote. He's amazing at his job and finds the work is really interesting and cutting edge, but it is long hours and stressful. He doesn't like it and is worried about missing out on time with the kids when they're little. He recently got offered a job at £65k at a charity (1 day in the office - 45 minutes commute) which he thinks sounds relatively interesting. It will definitely be less hours and less stress.
At this salary (+ mine) we'd be pretty much breaking even. We might be able to save £300 a month if we cut back on childcare and we took less holidays away. We are fairly well set up with pensions and we have over £100k in savings and investments on top of that. Our mortgage is average for London as we've overpaid in the past and we have a fair amount of equity (£330k mortgage on a £1m house)
If he stayed at his current role, and we cut back as planned we could probably save at least £30k next year, and then he would look again.
He is really torn on what to do. I am supportive either way - I would like us to have more money saved in case of redundancy, AI job losses etc but have definitely seen that he is unhappy, and would like him to relax more.
Should he take the charity job, or stick to his current role for another year?