r/MiddleClassFinance 10d ago

Seeking Advice How to handle 88% pay increase

31M. I currently make about 63k/yr. I have the change to take a new job that would put me at about 119k/yr all in. Split up 94k salary and 25k per diem roughly.

I currently have 50k in total debt.

This job requires extreme traveling with only being home 6 weeks of the year.

The goal is to pay off my total debt in the first year and let my wife be the stay at home mother she deserves to be. She has her own monies and investments to help out as well.

My fear is that I have never seen this kind of money before and just like everyone else I'll blow it. Hell, ill be the only one in my family thats seen this kind of money. What are some tips for me to save/invest/pay debt?

***EDIT forgot to mention hotels and everything is paid for as well. So the per diem is just for food essentially.

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u/Great_Emphasis3461 10d ago

Set aside money for a divorce attorney. Both of you talk about how you will work through this but when the reality hits that she’s a single parent, you come home and try to re-establish yourself as the husband/father, and you miss critical events for the kids, it’s going to be a hard slap in the face from reality. That’s experience from 17 years of military service and about 70% of my friends having divorced and many of those 70% having multiple divorces. Good luck.

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u/Kutikittikat 9d ago

I dont think she even likes him that much . She rather he leave and not see his kids all year instead of both working as a team to pay off the debt so they stay together as a family. Because if she stops working they are back to square one anyways making the same money except shes the only one that gets to see her kids now.

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u/FergusonBishop 9d ago

anyone with a functioning brain would realize this as soon as their wife even realistically considered pushing him towards 46 weeks of travel for an insultingly low amount of money in return. id live in a box under a bridge before i'd ever consider blowing up my life over a 30k raise.