I’ve been pondering that question for awhile now. In my case, considering the amount of money that I have to spend on gas, “professional” clothing that gets ruined pretty quickly, snacks for children, various gifts and fundraisers around the school, and school supplies, I figure I’m only bringing home @ $100/week. Next year, of course, it will be even less because the state will be taking out 5% of my gross (not net) pay to pay for a retirement that I won’t be in the school system long enough to get. Unfortunately, my (gross) income bumps us into a higher tax bracket so that $100 per week isn’t very profitable when I consider the extra taxes that we’re paying to get it. If I added in the fast food dinner costs and the toll that they’re taking on our bodies because I simply don’t have time to do everything that I need to do in the evening in the spring (like cooking!), then I’d be DEEP in the hole.
My husband points out that the job is keeping him from having to pay $800 plus per month on an insurance policy for me, so I need to consider that in my pencilled figures. A bigger consideration for me is that I’m kicked, bitten, punched, and smacked around daily in my job and, probably sooner rather than later, I’m going to receive an injury more permanent and disabling than the bite scars that now cover my arms and legs. A colleague who is five years younger than I am and works out at the gym daily carried one of the smaller students I work with back to class when the student went all batshit crazy and had to be removed from the area. Heh. She told me that after that, she was seriously considering resigning because she isn’t sure how much more of that sort of thing that she can do, and she’s supposed to be replacing me next year. I would have helped her, but at the time I was in an altercation with a larger, much stronger student that decided to run away after smacking another teacher across the face, and I had to tackle him (twice!) in a grassy median in the parking lot before he reached the street, and my muscles and bones are one big ache tonight.
Yeah, I think I’ve reached that point where going to work is a losing proposition.
A1A South 