Started a new job last year. I also found out, when I was offered the job, that there's only half an hour for lunch. So I negotiated an hour for lunch, otherwise I'd be earning an hourly rate that's less than I was earning in the late 1990s in my late 20s. My salary is due to go up from £24k to £25k at the end of this month if I successfully pass my probationary period.
I don't expect any big pay rises or promotions any time soon either.
Two guys who I work with walk to and from work every day, 2.5 miles here, 2.5 miles back, which Google maps reckons takes an hour to walk each way. They do it every single day even in the pissing down rain.
I'm super lucky my housing costs are low, (bought my ex-council flat under the Right to Buy about 10 years ago), otherwise I might have to walk too and from work in the rain too, which is too grim a prospect for me to bear thinking about.
I've mentioned in another thread that the prospect of retirement terrifies me - no real pension provision, temped in offices for a bit chunk of my twenties, was out of work for four years after an accident and medical negligence while having surgeries, which left a massive gap in my CV and seems to have had a longer lasting adverse impact on my earning prospects, as employers look at a gappy CV and don't want to hire, so you end up getting short-term contracts, which creates even more gaps between jobs, which makes your CV even more happy and off-putting.
Anyway, I digress. Am long-term single so don't have anyone to share household expenses. And being neurodivergent with executive dysfunction traits coupled with poor impulse control (and being a bit vulnerable/a bit of a mug) means I'm not very good with household finances and budgeting and stuff. I don't budget, basically. If I have money in my bank account I think it's fair game for spending. Although I have got a main account and pocket money account.