Q&A: Should I take a pay cut to keep working from home?

A new reader question on The Joint Account.

[A Couple Minutes] Press play to hear a few minutes about our week, financial news, and the inspiration for this week’s newsletter. Let us know what you think!

---

QUESTION: My longtime employer is requiring me to return to the office five days a week. We have two young kids, and my wife works on a hybrid schedule. We kind of saw it coming, so I’d been applying for other remote jobs and actually got another offer. The only kicker is, I’ll make 20 percent less. Should I take the pay cut to keep working from home?

ANSWER:

You’ve seen the headlines about return-to-office mandates. The federal government along with big-name companies like Amazon, Citigroup, Google, Salesforce, Tesla, Walmart, and JPMorgan have all declared that work from home is officially dead (to them). But for the real-life employees impacted by these decisions, this isn’t about trading your fuzzy spa socks for actual shoes—it’s a tug-of-war between paychecks, personal logistics, and career ambition. In other words, the RTO issue touches on a lot more than the brass at your company often cares to acknowledge.

Since numbers are what I do, let’s start with the numbers. When you work from home, you’re avoiding a slew of hidden expenses: gas, tolls, lunches, parking fees, maybe even a monthly garage fee if you’re a super-commuter. In a 2022 survey from Flexjobs, 45 percent of respondents estimated they were saving at least $5,000 a year by working remotely. Now, factor in your kids. A 2023 report from Child Care Aware indicates that childcare costs range anywhere from 10-to-32 percent of a family’s median household income. Assuming you’d need to pay more for earlier drop-offs, later pick-ups, and more extracurricular activities to absorb the after-school hours, this could impact your household finances in a significant way. Will your new five-day commuting and childcare costs make that 20-percent pay cut almost a wash to your bottom line? I can’t be sure, but you can. Take the time to build out these financial scenarios and see how close they run.

I should mention benefits, too, but don’t want to go too far down the rabbit hole, aside from referring you to a piece Heather wrote about selecting your health insurance plans. Is your family’s insured through your current employer? Does your prospective employer or your wife’s employer offer a comparable package? My point is, don’t assume that your salary and expenses are the only points to take note of.

It’s important to be super critical about how this decision might impact your career trajectory. A company might permit remote work, but if you negotiated that WFH job offer and half of your team comes into the office, I would proceed with caution. According to a Harvard Business Review study, in-office employees can get more spontaneous mentorship, faster promotions, and interactions that accelerate your experience. So, what kind of company is it? If it’s a truly “remote-first” environment where everyone’s logging in from everywhere, that’s awesome. But if you care about upward mobility, and you’re going to be competing with people who get to run out for lunch with your boss multiple days a week, I think you’d be setting yourself up for at best, an uphill climb, and at worst, disappointment. What I’m trying to say is, understand what you’d be stepping into, and understand what you want from the job.

The other side of that coin is what you have already. If you’ve been at your current employer long enough to have a strong network of friends, colleagues, and mentors, you risk diminishing those connections, which are the touchpoints that keep us grounded, creative, and engaged in our work. I bet you probably forged those relationships before working from home. Starting over isn’t just exhausting, but it will be harder to build relationships over screens. You can do it—it just will be harder. Are you up for that professional and interpersonal challenge?

I think you also need to check in with yourself. Do you love working from home, or is it just…easier? Heather and I go back and forth on this all the time. The logistics of our lives are without a doubt easier with us both at home, but that doesn’t mean we always enjoy it. Remote work can be isolating as hell. You don’t even necessarily feel that seasonal depression creeping in until you realize you’ve been wearing tie-dye sweatpants for a month straight, like a lobster in boiling water. On the other hand, remote work gives you back hours of your life to redistribute into the people and activities that fill your cup. Are you mindful of those hours—are you using them to your advantage? Would you be giving up something important to you by reinvesting that time back into your job and commute?

This feels like a good moment to bring up one of the most important considerations: your wife. This has a direct impact on her, too. Unless you can fully solve for your increased childcare needs—a concept which is laughable, because man plans and god laughs—your return to an office five days a week might even impact her more than you. No matter how much money each of you earn, her time is equal to your time, and only when you work together do you keep your family cruise ship afloat with everyone still smiling. So, what does she think about you not being around to do as much? Have you both considered how it would affect her life—not just at work but in the sense of how many more family and household responsibilities would be placed on her shoulders? It wouldn’t be fair to ask more from her without hearing her honest thoughts on this major change in the structure of your daily lives. That’s just how partnership works.

Sometimes, the best decisions are the ones that let you thrive both at home and in your career—even if that means temporarily taking a hit to your earning power. Other times, making short-term sacrifices to advance your long-term financial and career goals will make more sense. Evaluating your budget, having that heart-to-heart with your partner, and thinking about where you see yourself and your family in the long run is how you’ll know what’s right.

Would you take a pay cut to continue to WFH, or are you heading back to the office? Let us know!

---

Our babysitter stayed late last week so Heather and I could sneak out for our quarterly “money date.” As you can see, martinis were involved, but this is just how we like to unwind and discuss what’s working and not working. We review our cash flow, net worth, recurring and anticipated expenses, and financial goals. We’ve been doing this pretty consistently for a while now, and these regular meetings pay off. We walk away feeling much more in control, aligned, and ready to take on the season in front of us. Cheers!

---

TJA in the News

For Investopedia, we wrote about why financial transparency might be the best gift to give on Valentine’s Day.

Doug was also featured in this CNBC article on how to avoid common crypto mistakes when filing your taxes.

---

Shameless plugs

Are you a brand or business interested in reaching The Joint Account’s 14,000 subscribers?

Would your organization benefit from having us talk about love and money?

We’d love to hear from you.

And don’t forget, our forthcoming book, Money Together: How to find fairness in your relationship and become an unstoppable financial team, arrives in October 2025. You can pre-order your copy now through Amazon or Barnes & Noble!

Find us on social: @dougboneparth + @averagejoelle :)

---

The content shared in The Joint Account does not constitute financial, legal, or any other professional advice. Readers should consult with their respective professionals for specific advice tailored to their situation.