I work for a large non-profit and they pay us pretty well for the type of job we do and have good benefits for working in lower-level non-profit positions, but in the greater scheme of things is not all that much, especially because my location is a city with very high cost of living. I took the job because I needed something, ended up really liking it, but now I'm getting priced out of it. It's impossible to find housing that actually is only 1/3 my income, and my partner and I want to have a baby in the next couple years, and I just can't afford to stay somewhere paying me the same as I could make at the gas station down the road.
Because I was hired later in '21, I likely won't be getting an annual raise with everyone else. I wasn't really surprised by that, but my manager told me what a typical raise to expect is during the next raise period – it's less than a dollar, potentially just under half a dollar – and my heart just fell. Because it's a non-profit that's pretty big, the higher-ups mandate what kind of raises our managers can give and I don't really think mine can do anything about the timing or amount of raise I get even if I tried to negotiate. I've talked to some other people with my same job and given the kind of pay they get it would be several years before I had a decent wage. (Our CEO, of course, makes nearly a mil every year. 🙂 ) It's just really disheartening because I do NOT want to restart job hunting and like my job, but I can't live getting paid like I do for the work I do. I've pretty much come to the conclusion I need to leave both the job and the type of job I have if I want to not be paying 60% of my income as rent anywhere I live here. If I could I would apply for some better paid jobs at the same place since I like it generally, but we have a policy that you have to have been in your position for a year to do that.
IDK what I'm looking for, exactly, just super disappointed. I feel stupid for having taken this job in the first place but it also feels stupid to leave it because even though the pay is low, other places pay worse for the job I do.