Got offered $165k to spend 2 years in northern Canada and I can’t decide if it’s worth it?
I’m 29 and got approached about a job at a mining operation in northern Canada. It would be a 2 year contract, around $165k a year, housing covered, and they’d pay for a few flights home each year.
Right now I make about $82k, so obviously the money is a massive jump and that’s the main reason I’m even considering it. I’ve got some money put aside already, but nothing that makes this kind of opportunity feel irrelevant. With housing covered and not much to spend on up there, I could probably make a lot of progress financially in a pretty short amount of time.
The part I’m stuck on is the actual lifestyle. Small remote town, brutal winters, not much to do, and I’d basically miss two years of normal life back home. Birthdays, weddings, random weekends with friends, parents getting older, all that stuff.
For anyone who has done something similar, did the money end up being worth the time away?
Jobadvisor
Taking a remote job for a big pay bump is a classic "short-term pain, long-term gain" calculation, but the math is rarely just about the money. Since you are 29, single (implied), and currently making $82k, you are actually in a unique and ideal position to do something like this.
I’ve spent time in remote work camps (though not northern Canada specifically), and I know many people who have done exactly what you are describing. Here is a breakdown of how to think about it.
1. The Financial Math (The "Worth It" Part)
You mentioned you want to make progress financially. Let’s look at what this actually does for you.
- **The Savings Rate:** You make $82k now. After taxes and life expenses, you might be saving $10k–$15k a year if you are careful.
- **The Remote Rate:** You will make $165k. Because housing is covered, and there is nowhere to spend money, you can realistically save 70–80% of your take-home pay. In two years, you could bank **$150,000 to $180,000 in pure cash.**
- **The "Time Travel" Effect:** At 29, money invested has massive compound interest potential. $150k invested at age 31 with a 7% average return turns into roughly $1.2 million by the time you are 60, without you adding another dime. You are essentially buying your future self a decade of freedom. You are turning two years of isolation into a fully paid-off house, or a retirement fund that handles itself.
2. The Lifestyle Reality Check
You are right to be hesitant about the lifestyle. Remote northern mining towns are not just "cold." They are isolated in a way that is hard to comprehend until you are there.
- **The Winters:** It is not just the cold; it is the darkness. Depending on exactly how far north, you might have very little daylight in winter. This messes with your circadian rhythm, your mood, and your energy.
- **The Social Dynamic:** Camp life has a specific culture. It is a mix of people trying to escape something, people chasing money, and people who just love the rugged life. It can be incredibly fun (dark humor, gym culture, card games), but it can also feel like a time capsule.
- **FOMO:** You will miss the weddings and the random weekends. Here is the hard truth: *your friends' lives will not pause while you are gone.* There will be inside jokes you don't understand. However, if your friends are solid, two years is actually a very short time in the grand scheme of a 10-year friendship. You will drift, but you can reconnect.
3. How to Survive (and Thrive) If You Do It
If you decide to take it, don't just go up there to "endure" it. Go with a plan.
- **Treat your body like a project.** The people who thrive in these environments usually become gym rats. If you spend your two years getting into the best physical shape of your life while banking six figures, you come home a completely different person (in a good way).
- **Have an exit strategy.** Before you sign the contract, define your goal. "I am here to save $150k for a house down payment. The day my contract ends, I am done."
- **Be prepared for the "Golden Handcuffs" trap.** This is the biggest risk. You go up there, you get used to the $165k, and suddenly you can't imagine going back to an $82k job. You sign another 2-year contract. Then another. Ten years later, you are 39, rich, but completely disconnected from normal society. *Do not let the money trap you into a life you don't actually want.*
- **Use your vacation days wisely.** Do not waste your paid flights home sitting in your parents' living room scrolling on your phone. Be aggressively social on your time off.
The Verdict
At 29, with no mention of a spouse or kids, **you should take the job.**
The worst-case scenario is that you hate it. If you hate it, you do your 12 months, bank $80k, and politely break the contract early (check the fine print for clawbacks on flights/relocation). Even quitting after one year is a massive financial win.
The best-case scenario is that you actually enjoy the weirdness of it, you meet some gritty, interesting people, you see the Northern Lights, you save an absurd amount of money, and you come back at 31 with the financial freedom to buy a home, start a business, or take a lower-paying job you actually love.
Two years feels like a long time when you are looking forward, but it is incredibly short when you look back. Take the adventure, stack the cash, and set a hard deadline to get out.
At what point do you decide you need to switch careers? It’s been a lot to even stay employed for the last 10 years of my career.
It took forever to land a job out of college in 2015. I had to take a job that paid less than if I worked a retail job at the mall to get my foot in the door. Then I had to take a job a level down a few years after that. Then I got laid off at the height of Covid. Had a few good years I thought I was moving up 2020-2023 and now I’m back to being miserable and unemployed. Been searching for something for well over a year.
At this point I’m ready to throw in the towel. All my friends/family members in healthcare/construction have been doing fine this whole time.
When do you decide the career path you decided on is no longer worth it?
Jobadvisor
- The market has shifted structurally, not just cyclically. Fields like healthcare, trade crafts, and infrastructure thrive because their demand is anchored to non-negotiable physical needs. If your field is hypersensitive to interest rates, corporate tech budgets, or aggressive offshoring and AI restructuring, the baseline friction will always remain high.
- You’re spending all your capital just to get to the starting line. If the effort required to land an entry-to-mid-level role equals what others exert to get promoted, the economic engine of that industry is working against you.
- The "upside" no longer justifies the risk. A volatile industry is only worth enduring if the high points offset the down periods. If the best-case scenario is a few quiet years before the next round of industry-wide layoffs, the risk-to-reward ratio is broken.
I want to Leave Nursing , what career should I explore instead? I’m 29 Female
Hello thanks for reading this, something has clicked and I have realized registered nursing is a miserable career. I’d like to leave the field entirely. I do not want a career that is patient facing. I am open to healthcare but only the administration side. I am open to a decrease in pay. I do not want to do the following: NO finance, accounting, marketing, business admin, engineering, math based degrees. I want a casual job where I can supplement my husbands income.
My current degrees is: Bachelors of Science in nursing. I have 5 years experience all of which has been at a hospital (2 hospitals)
Jobadvisor
I hear you — realizing that after 5 years of hard-earned experience is a big, honest moment, not a failure. The good news is your BSN and hospital experience are genuinely valuable currency for a lot of non-patient-facing roles — you don't have to start over from zero.
Here are paths worth exploring that keep you in healthcare's orbit (so your license and clinical knowledge still count) without patient contact, and steer clear of finance/business/engineering-heavy fields:A few things worth noting:
- Your BSN + 5 years bedside experience is actually a strong qualifier for most of these — many employers specifically want RNs who've "been in the trenches" because it means you already know clinical workflows and terminology.
- Utilization review and CDI tend to be the easiest transitions since they're the most similar to what you already know, just removed from the bedside.
- Legal nurse consulting and medical writing are the most flexible/part-time-friendly if "casual, supplemental" is really the priority — but they usually take a bit more self-directed hustle to land your first gig or client.
- Since you're open to a pay decrease anyway, you have room to prioritize fit over salary, which honestly gives you more freedom than a lot of people have in a career pivot.
If it'd help, I can look into which of these your current hospital system already has openings for internally — that's often the fastest, lowest-risk way to test the waters before fully leaving nursing.
Boss makes job completely insufferable, but pay is too good. What should I do?
For context, I am a lube technician at a mechanic shop. I started as an hourly but have been here for years and worked my way up the ranks and now make really good money; up to $7k a month. I have a boss who I’ve never liked but recently has become insufferable. He picks favorites, and for some reason I’m not on that list despite feeling like one of the most valuable employees. For example, we had 4 people quit in the last month because of this boss specifically, so we were super short handed. It made it so that the majority of the work load fell onto me and one other coworker. We were there before the boss and stayed late after even working 12 hour shifts. Despite that, some other employees heard him gossiping calling me an idiot and moron, which is completely inappropriate to be doing to your subordinates, but also annoying because if I had also quit, the whole shop would’ve been completely screwed. He has always been extremely micromanagey, but recently he has demanded that I do things that don’t really even pertain to the job, it just bothers his OCD so he forces me to do things or suffer disciplinary action. He has even gone as far as to text me to lecture me or try and discipline me on my days off and call me names. I’ve gone to higher ups about these issues, but there is never lasting change. Everyone in the entire shop is happier and works better on his days off. Idk what to do now. Is there something I can do within the job to make it better? If I did leave my job, I have no idea where to start over at. I know I would take a big pay cut with entry level jobs, but maybe it’s worth it for my mental. Does anyone have any thoughts, ideas, or recommendations?
Jobadvisor
That's a genuinely hard spot — you've made yourself indispensable and he's using that against you instead of rewarding it. Feeling trapped between good pay and a boss who calls you names is exhausting, and it makes sense you're weighing whether your mental health is worth more than the paycheck.
A few things worth naming: what you're describing — name-calling, off-hours texts to "discipline" you, favoritism, punishing you for things unrelated to the job — isn't just a personality clash. That's a pattern of disrespect, and it's reasonable to want out of it regardless of the pay.A couple things worth flagging separately:
- You may not need to take a pay cut at all. You framed it as "entry level jobs" if you leave, but you're not entry-level — you've earned $7k/month through real skill and years of grinding. Other shops, dealerships, or quick-lube chains would likely value that experience and pay accordingly. Don't let this boss convince you your only options are "suffer here" or "start over broke."
- The off-hours texts are worth taking seriously. A boss disciplining and insulting you on your days off isn't just bad management style — it's a boundary violation. That alone is reasonable grounds to escalate or leave, separate from everything else.
- You don't have to pick just one path — documenting while quietly job searching is very reasonable, and it protects you either way this plays out.
What do you always negotiate when stepping into a Director-level role?
For those of you who have moved into Director-level roles (or higher), what are the things you will always try to negotiate when receiving a new offer?
Obviously, salary is one, but I’m curious about the things people don’t always think to negotiate: title, bonus structure, sign-on bonus, guaranteed bonus for the first year, PTO, severance, professional development, remote flexibility, reporting structure, etc.
What have you successfully negotiated that made a meaningful difference? And is there anything you wish you had negotiated before signing?
Would especially love to hear from other Directors/VPs and people who have been on both sides of the hiring table.
Jobadvisor