Quit my HVAC gig 8 months ago for a $34k pay cut, just hit 5 years of work in 8 months
Was a commercial HVAC tech in Phoenix making $58k, hated it, switched to full time freelance illustration and made $24k so far this year, which is somehow more than my old take-home after truck costs and on-call weeks, so I'm curious if anyone else here has tracked the real hourly math after a switch and found the scary number was actually smaller at the old job?
But did you actually do the real math or just the fun math? Truck costs and on-call weeks are easy to point at, but you also gave up health insurance, paid time off, and a steady check you could count on every two weeks. Freelance gigs dry up, and a bad month at $24k pace means you're not covering rent, so claiming the old job's "scary number" was smaller only works if you never have a slow quarter.