[00:00]

But as soon as you get that, hit that mark, for the most part, your happiness doesn’t grow much with your salary. Now, I know there’s been a huge amount of inflation in the last couple of years, especially since COVID. So I went and found an inflation calculator to figure out what the equivalent of $80,000 in 2018 is now in 2022.

[Intro]

Hello and welcome to The Career Shakeup Podcast. I’m your host, Kristin Szalajko. I’m a certified professional career coach who specializes in career exploration. I believe everyone deserves a meaningful career they love. I know it can be hard to find that career, and that’s why I’m here. I’ve developed an easy formula to help you identify the right career path for you. Let’s shake up the way you view your career. I’m going to challenge you to look at careers in a brand new way. Whether you’re stuck in a job you don’t like or just starting out on your path, my goal is to empower you to take control of your career.

[00:57]

Hello. Welcome back to The Career Shake Up Podcast. I’m your host, Kristin Szalajko. Okay, I have to start out with a funny story that happened yesterday. I was using Marco Polo. If you don’t know what that is, it’s kind of like video voicemail where you can send video messages back and forth between you and a friend. And I tend to do that, especially with my mom friends and my working friends because we can never connect. So that way we can jump on, send each other a message when we’re free, and then they can respond.

Anyway, I sent my friend a message, and I’m telling her that my husband is going to start working on his side gig business. And what she heard was he was working on his psychic business. And so she was so sweet and responded like, oh, wow, I can’t believe he has psychic powers. Like, how does that even work? And she’s asking me all these questions, and I’m just like, rolling because I didn’t say psychic, I said side gig. Anyway, that’s a funny story for today.

So just to kind of catch you up on where we are, we have been doing a series about the steps to finding the right job. The first step is finding your why, which we covered clear back in episode two. And the next step is to understand the six key elements and what those mean for you. So what I want to do is today we’re just going to kind of break down another of the key elements. We’ve already covered four of them. We’re on number five, which is to meet your basic needs. So we’re just going to kind of jump into what that means.

[02:22]

So meeting your basic needs is actually the one key element that most of us typically consider because money is the one thing that we always are looking at with either the title and the salary, right? And so this is something to consider, but there are a few more things that you need to take into consideration when thinking about meeting your basic needs. The reason this plays a part is if you think about all six of the key elements. There’s engagement, skill, feeling like you’re making a difference in the world, and working for a good company. Even if all four of those things are working for you but you can’t pay your bills. You’re about to get… You can’t make a payment on your car payment. And so now you know, you don’t know if you’re going to lose your car and you can’t even make it to work. All of that plays into your happiness, right?

The fact that your job is not providing for your basic needs, that’s going to play a huge role in your happiness at work. And so meeting your basic needs is necessary because when our basic needs are not met, there’s just a lot of pain and stress that comes from those.

[03:27]

So let’s start out before we really talk about money, let’s point out that money can’t really buy happiness, right? We kind of all know that, but to a point, it can. And just like I just talked about, if we can’t pay the bills, we can’t pay our car payments, the lights are getting turned off because we can’t pay our utilities, money will make a huge difference in our happiness.

So there’s been a lot of studies done on happiness and money and how they’re connected. And essentially, when you’re living in poverty, money makes a huge difference. But once your basic needs are covered, our happiness level with money tends to taper off. And so Gallup did a study and it’s called there’s a Gallup Healthway Well Being index. I’ll link to that in the show notes. But essentially what they did is a study of kind of like how money and happiness are linked and where is money cap off. At the time, the study was done in 2018. The last time they did the study, around $80,000, was the salary that was determined to be sort of the top-off. If you don’t make up to that, you’re probably stressed because you’re not quite paying all the bills. But as soon as you hit that mark, for the most part, your happiness doesn’t grow much with your salary.

Now, I know there’s been a huge amount of inflation in the last couple of years, especially since COVID. So I went and found an inflation calculator to figure out what the equivalent of $80,000 in 2018 is now in 2022. So the equivalent now would be a salary of $94,000. So if you haven’t been making $94,000, of course it’s different per family. Some people have had a kid, some don’t. But that’s the general mark you want to get.

The reason that money doesn’t buy happiness is just our happiness doesn’t come from things we think about. The six key elements, all of those things play together into our happiness. And money is a small puzzle piece, but it’s not the whole puzzle. And so we don’t want to over-focus on money.

I know lots of people that make a lot of money, but their job doesn’t fit with their life. It’s consuming them. They’re so anxious, they can’t enjoy life, right? That’s not worth it. And so that’s how money is. And so money can buy experiences which certainly bring us happiness. I’m not naive enough to say, well, I can go on a vacation with this money, and that’s not going to make me happier. It probably will, right?

Going on a boat or a yacht would probably be enjoyable, and we would love it, but only to a point. At some point, all the material things aren’t going to satisfy. And really, you can look at celebrities. I think they’re such a great example. There are many celebrities, obviously. You have millions of dollars, way more than I could ever even fathom to have. Yet their lives don’t seem happy. They seem messy, and there’s a lot of messed-up stuff happening. And sometimes they’re just human. They’re living. Just like the rest of us.

I don’t know if you know this song, but there’s a song by Justin Bieber called Lonely, and the lyrics to the song are essentially that everybody knows who I am and yet I’m still lonely. I don’t really have a friend to turn to, which just points to the fact that we’re still human and money doesn’t solve all of our problems. So keep that in mind with the salary that you’re looking at for your chosen field.

[06:24]

Okay, so let’s break down into money. So one, you need to obviously have enough to pay your bills, like I just said. So I want you to actually do the numbers. Figure out what your baseline number is. What do I actually need? I mean, I want you to get a pen and paper if you don’t already have a budget, but you need to figure out, what do I actually need, how much money do I need to pay the bills. So at least have a baseline. Like, okay, let’s say it’s 75,000 a year. That will pay all my bills. Now, you know, I have to make at least that. Anything extra is just bonus. Cake, right?

And kind of take into consideration not only what you need now, but what are you going to need in the future. Inflation is going to happen. Maybe you don’t have any kids now, but you plan to have kids down the road. They cost money, right? Animals cost money. Whatever the case may be. So you may, over time, need your salary to grow. And if that’s the case, are you choosing an industry that allows your salary to grow? Some jobs are pretty well capped off when you start, there’s not a lot of room for growth in the salary or it’s going to take many years to climb the ladder. So just take that into consideration.

Another thing to think about is that you want to make sure that you are being paid fairly based on the market. So if everybody around you is making $80,000, that’s kind of the going rate, but you’re getting paid $60,000, you’re going to really feel like you’re getting taken advantage of and you’re not reaching your full potential and you feel like the company’s not treating you fairly and it really takes a toll on you.

So my husband recently got laid off. He worked for a startup and they just couldn’t afford employees anymore. They weren’t growing the way they hoped, and so they had to start cutting employees. And unfortunately, my husband was one of them. But before that, he took a pay cut.

His initial job, he was already getting paid under market value, but he thought it’s a startup. I believe in them, so over time, my salary should be able to grow. So he was okay with this pay cut, but then even though he’s already getting paid under the market, then before they did layoffs, they cut everybody’s salary by, like, 20 grand. I mean, this is a significant cut. And then they expected them to keep working just as hard, if not harder, to get the company to grow. And that takes a big hit to your morale. I don’t want to keep working if you’re not going to pay me what I’m worth, if you think you’re going to milk everything out of me and you’re not getting paid, so you need to make enough money to pay your bills, but you’ll also want to make sure you’re getting paid fairly, because that’s going to matter to you, and that’s going to matter to your happiness.

Another thing to consider when it comes to money is benefits. What do you need for benefits? How much vacation time do you need? What kind of health insurance do you need? And that’s really different for everybody and what everybody wants is different. But just know again your baseline and what it is you’re considering so that when you’re looking at different fields you kind of know what’s being offered.

I would highly recommend though…So even if you find a job that pays what you need, have other sources of income because as we all know, like my husband, he has been laid off, right? Salary can just be taken away just like that. So you want to make sure you have these other sources of income, have side gigs, have stocks, real estate, whatever the case may be. The more you have of those, the more comfortable you feel, the safer you feel. And money is not such a risky thing. So I highly encourage you to do that.

[09:45]

Another part of meeting your basic needs comes down to commute. How much are you willing to travel? So nowadays we have a remote hybrid in person. You need to know what you want. Now I think this is a very heated debate on whether we should all be remote or all hybrid. I currently work remote mostly because my company is in Florida so I couldn’t drive to work every day. But I can see the benefits of both hybrid, of in-person, and remote. So I guess all three. But I think sometimes we tend to preach real hard and shove down somebody else’s throat what works well for us, but someone that’s got a family. It may work really well for them to be home because they can take care of their children. But on the flip side, maybe the kids are in the way and they can’t focus so it’s not really serving them anyway.

But maybe there’s somebody that doesn’t have kids and being home is really lonely and you’re just not getting the social interaction you need. So going to work works for them. Some jobs, like a nurse obviously you can’t do from home, you have to travel. So just be kind and gentle to people as they make their decision on remote or hybrid.

So when we do have to commute, you need to take into consideration how much you’re willing to travel. Are you willing to travel 20 minutes? An hour sometimes? It depends on the time of the day. We’re willing to dedicate our patience level for traffic, our budget. How much can we afford? I have a coworker who drives. I’m not sure exactly how long it is, but it’s got to be somewhere between an hour to an hour and a half. One way to work every day. And she told me once her budget was for gas just to and from work and I was like oh my gosh, my mind was blown. But for her it was worth it because there wasn’t a lot of great paying jobs near her and she just loved this job so much. That was something she was willing to do. But you have to take that into consideration.

Another thing to think about is location. Some jobs are only located in one area or just a handful of areas. So you may have to move. Are you willing to do that? So, for example, Hollywood, right? A lot of the jobs are in California. Not all films are made in California, but a lot of them are. So if you’re going to be an actor, the odds are high that you may have to move to California or there are very few cities that you can move to do that. Right? Broadway. You got to go to New York. That’s just where Broadway is. Country music. Nashville. Right?

But if you want to be a college professor and you live in a really tiny town and there’s not a college around, that’s going to be a problem. So you’re going to have to move. Another one would be like radio. To be a radio DJ or to be on the radio. There are very few radio jobs available. And that’s one of those industries where to break in, you got to just go where the opening is, which means you might be moving a lot across the country, which is fine, if that’s what you want. But that’s something you have to consider when taking a job or when saying, okay, this is the right job for me.

[12:42]

Another element to consider is the environment. What do you want your environment to look like in the job? So it needs to be healthy, it needs to be enjoyable, but everyone has a different preference. Do you want to be in an open workspace? Do you want an office where you can close the door? Do you want a desk job? Do you want to be able to move around? Do you want to be indoors? Do you want to be outdoors? Do you want to work for a big company, or small company?

There are many options as there are people or opinions. I should say there are as many opinions as there are people. And there’s no right or wrong. You just need to know what you’re looking for. I had one client who was so inclined to just get up and move. Like, the idea of a desk job just was like something she couldn’t even imagine. She wanted to be a mechanic or a baker or she had a long list of potential jobs, but all of them were active and working with your hands and creating things. And so those are the types of jobs that would have been best suited for her. So you just need to know what you’re looking for.

[13:39]

The last thing to consider is job security. How long can you expect to stay in this job? Some fields, I think marketing is definitely one of them, you have to move on to move up if you plan to climb the ladder. Sometimes you can’t stay where you are. If you want to climb the ladder, you’re going to have to jump ship so that you can move up.

Companies used to have it set where you could just work at the same company forever and climb the ladder. They had training programs for you. That was just the expectation. But nowadays that’s not really… we’ve kind of shifted away from that. The average person stays at a company for like five years three to five years, I think that’s the number. So people are moving a lot, so you want to make sure that you’re comfortable with how long you’re likely going to stay at a place and when you’re going to have to move to get a pay raise or climb the ladder if that’s what you want.

But also, how long do you expect to stay because that industry is secure? Some industries are constantly changing, going under. Retail has changed a lot over the years. Retail still exists, but it’s certainly changed.

Technologies are constantly changing and so just be aware of the volatility of your current industry or what you’re choosing. Another one to think about is startups. The startups are fun, they’re exciting, there’s a lot going on, but there’s definitely a high risk there, which, my husband, for example, worked at a startup. Didn’t work out well. We kind of knew that going in. Right? And so how much risk tolerance do you have? Some people have more risk tolerance than others. You just need to know what’s right for you.

[15:13]

All right, so those are all the elements to meeting your basic needs. You have money, you have benefits, your commute, your environment, job security and location. So take all of those things into consideration when looking at different possible jobs. If you can find something that checks off all of those boxes and then we can move on to the other boxes, you’ll really find a lot of satisfaction and it can really open up your options going forward.

So that’s all I have for you today. You can find the show notes for this episode on my website. It’s www.kristinszalajko.com/episode11 just look in the description for how to spell my name. I know it’s tricky and I’m sorry. I’ll have all the links from anything I talked about here. And also I have a brainstorming guide that has just questions that kind of asks you about each of the key elements, including this one, about meeting your basic needs. You can kind of just go through and think, OK, what am I really looking for? What do I really want? Which gives you a baseline to compare to other jobs. So thank you for joining us today and I hope you have a great week.

[Outro]

Thank you for joining me today. I hope you found value as you listened. If there’s anyone you feel could use this episode, please go ahead and share it with them. Also, you are likely listening to this on the go. When you find a quiet moment, could you be so kind to leave me a review that will help others find me as well? Be sure to come back for our next episode. Same time. Same place. Have a great week.