When Your Job Barely Covers Your Rent, Maybe the Problem Isn't Your Job
We've been having this conversation in our community about housing costs, and it keeps coming back to the same thing. People are stuck in jobs they don't love just to afford rent that keeps going up. In Seattle, you're looking at $2,000-3,500 for a decent place, which means you need to earn $80K-140K just to follow the "don't spend more than 30% on housing" rule.
When we change the question from "How can I find a job" to "How can I thrive?" - we can move beyond constraints out of our control.
One person in our group lives on a sailboat with their family. They share tools with other boat families, trade childcare, pass down school books. Nobody's stressed about making enough money to buy everything individually because the community takes care of most needs. It's not a job paying for everything - it's people helping people.
Another person suggested 30 families pooling money to buy a whole block of houses together. Instead of everyone individually trying to scrape together a down payment, what if we bought property collectively? Everyone gets housing, everyone builds equity, nobody's drowning in mortgage payments alone.
The housing director in our network sees people falling through the cracks every day while we debate whether sharing resources is too complicated. Meanwhile, there are already cooperative housing communities where people have private spaces but share kitchens, gardens, workshops. Co-housing isn't just for hippies anymore.
Even smaller steps work. Roommate matching based on values, not just who can pay half the rent. Buying clubs for household stuff. Childcare trades so parents aren't paying $2,000 a month for daycare.
The real shift is stopping to ask what if we met our needs through community instead of just working harder to afford everything alone? Because honestly, the individual approach isn't working for most of us anyway.
Your job shouldn't just be about paying for survival. Maybe if we handled housing differently, work could actually be about contribution and purpose instead.
Come join in on our community discussions by defining how YOU thrive and let our network support you in the way we can. Free, no hidden fees.
