40 grand isn’t spectacular but its not terrible survival money for two people. Sounds like you’re living within your means and that helps.
Honestly I mostly hope she teaches out of a love of teaching more than to collect a paycheck. Most of my teachers were the same teachers who taught my parents and that was a true love of teaching.
This will be her last year of teaching now that I’ll have a job. Plus, we’ll get an instant pay raise of 10-15k.
For many males, a career choice it between doing something you love versus doing something that will support a family. I chose to get into business, where I probably would have preferred to coach basketball. We all would like to make more money in our chosen careers, but the balance between money and love is still a choice we make.
I have no doubt that if we removed unions from teaching, many teachers would make more money than they do now. The power of negotiation is in favor of effective, hard-working, and talented teachers who would be able to negotiate a higher salary based on their merits, as opposed to being limited by the least-common denominator chosen by the union heads.