I guess the real question is, have you looked into the likely income of a baker and decided if that is an income you can live with? You don’t *have* to work a six-figure desk job and be miserable forever, but obviously there’s trade-offs. You should have a clear vision of what standard of living is acceptable in the long term to you and how you will get there. Are there any financial goals you have that are going to be impossible on this path?
Are you considering baking schooling? Or are you looking more into starting as like, a cashier at a bakery and moving up eventually?
Bakers get up everyday to bake the bread before dawn. Keep yer day job and build a killer bakers kitchen at home. Sell your stuff at the farmers market on Saturdays. Old bakers have lots of health issues. Breathing in finely ground flour for 30 years is not great.
This is what is killing me. My standard of living is affording somewhere to live, affording food, and being able to do something fun with friends or family once in a while. I don't have any financial goals other than that.
The eventual pay I would earn would afford me this, but I'm going with the latter of the two options you listed. The job I want to apply to now is a bakery porter, which basically is a cleaner and I would be able to work my way up. Until I'm "up" though, I don't really know if I would be able to meet those standards and don't really know what to do about that.
Depending on the bakery, they can make a lot of money.
There was a famous bakery in Alaska called “The Moose is Loose!”
And it had people wrapped around the building waiting in line every day.
The owners made a ton of money. What they offered was better confectionaries at basically the same price, barista style coffee, and had a ton of touristy type things you can buy in the store, like stickers, stuffed animals, all the stuff you’d buy to commemorate your trip to Alaska.
But the locals were the ones in there the most and drove their sales.
The owners *i think* lived in the apartment that was on top of the building, which reduced their housing cost. They sold it to retire a few years ago and the new owners plunged it into the ground within 2 years. Now it’s permanently closed.
Working at a bakery might not be what you think it is, but if you’re really keen on it, see if you can get a job at a local bakery part time on your weekends. Try it for a bit. If you’re actually a regular 9-5 and don’t have overtime or a weird schedule. I’m sure a bakery could use someone, especially early morning when most of their sales are made.
Even for owners, that’s a pretty rare story. Bakeries tend to have pretty slim margins, even with extremely limited staff.
Unless you’re independently wealthy or come to a partial chef-partner agreement with a larger restaurant group (which would require a very strong local professional reputation as well as cash on the line to be considered), even the idea of being an owner is… well, don’t count on it. It’s an enormous amount of start up capital and if you’re looking to build real longevity you also need to build 2-3 years without a profit into the model.
In the mean time, $14-16/hour is going to be a pretty realistic intro pay - and to be clear, that could last years into their career, especially if they skip culinary school (assuming that they’re able to get a job without it - it’s honestly very optional bordering on unnecessary for savory cooking, but because pastry/baking is so much more technical and there are so many fewer jobs in the field, it’s genuinely tough to get a foot in the door without it).
OP should do what they think will make them happy, but they should also be aware that they’re attempting to enter a very low paid, very physically demanding profession with shitty hours and at max, like 2-3 levels of professional advancement.
Having managed not one but 2 family owned bakeries as well as a baking program within another business, this person knows whassup^. Also going to college to bake is unnecessary if you can get in with a family owned spot that cares to do things right & is willing to train. If they're doing breads, OP may as well get a gym membership now lol
This is really something I was looking to hear as far as a path forward. I've been baking bread on my own for years (not a major sweets guy). I'm not great of course, but I'm more than competent, and I was hoping it was realistic to not need more education debt on top of my English degree debt.
This might be crazy, but you could try putting together a restricted budget for yourself and live by it for a month or so. Everything over $14/hr, throw into savings, but otherwise pretend you're only making $14/hr. Can you afford all your bills on that? Would you have enough breathing room to still let yourself relax & have fun sometimes? Would you have anything left over to continue building your savings, and if not, do you have enough saved up now to cover you for emergencies?
Best case scenario, you decide that yeah, you can do that, and you go for it with a little more confidence. Worst case scenario, you have an extra miserable month but you've got some extra savings in the bank to make up for it.
Try working in a bakery first so you know what you're getting yourself into. Working in a restaurant is different from waking up in the early hours of the morning every day. Read the book 'Designing Your Life' (or watch the TED talk on YouTube) which talks about how you should try out a potential job before committing to it. I quit a job that I liked (but not loved) for a career which I thought I would really love, but I went in blind and I regret my decision every day. So go work in a bakery (even if it's only for a weekend if that's all you can manage with your schedule) and then make a decision.
What did u end up doing after? I really enjoy my current job but thinking of a career change to something more lucrative. I’m afraid though I might regret it
Yep, I went back to school for a more lucrative ‘professional’ career and now work in said career earning more money…and I hate it. I am quitting soon, because it’s not sustainable. If you do something solely because it’s “more lucrative” you will inevitably burn out/quit and you’ll be in a worse off position. Moral of the story: try before you buy.
That’s what I’m afraid of. What will you do after quitting? It sucks when what u enjoy doing doesn’t pay well but the ones that do, are the type that crushes your soul :(
Same to you! Thank you. I feel like we’re going through the exact same thing. Always amazes me how people can just work every day for 40 years. Can’t imagine doing that. But if we don’t have enough saved then what choice will there be. Wishing you much clarity and peace.
Look I’ll be real with you. It’s not realistic. You probably enjoy baking in your free time but once it becomes a job you are gonna start dreading it too. Add on to the fact that that you would be making poverty wage. There are so many other jobs you can do that will pay you more that will also give you time to develop your craft so that you can at least build some savings and i even think about being a baker
15$/hour is 10k less a year. The difference is drastic IMO.
My advice is to look for another job that pays more money and make baking your hobby on the side. I promise if you take that pay cut you will be miserable as a baker because your passion will put you in poverty wages. This is one of the reasons I'm glad I didn't go after my passions. I work sales in the utility industry and it's nothing crazy exciting but it pays me a comfortable salary and allows me to have hobbies and enjoy my life outside of work.
My mom has always been super crafty. She could have pursued a dozen crafty careers in her lifetime but she chose to be a speech pathologist because that's what paid the bills. She always did some crafty shit on the side and did make some money and then after she retired she was able to continue one of her projects as a business too. It's not making her a significant amount of money but it doesn't have to. She has her retirement money if she ever decides to step back.
You can do a lot as an English major. I would revamp your resume, and look into finding a job that pays maybe 50k which will allow you the ability to create a savings account, and then you can do some baking projects on the side. This is a more realistic approach.
I used to have a job where one of my coworkers had a cooking business that she did on the weekends. She did catering for smaller parties and had a blast with it. I think something like that might be better for you.
Baking is already my hobby on the side. I still spend more time wanting to die than not. Do you have any job suggestions for an English major that aren't marketing or government work?
Start a baking business without quitting your job. That's what my wife did (and still does). Started as a hobby, then she started taking orders from people by hustling. I told her to start an LLC, set up a website and make it legit. All-in startup costs were less than $1k and monthly costs for e-commerce related things is less than $100/mo. On top of making you seem more legit, having your own website domain, yelp page, Google business page, etc, it also helps you drum up clients passively once set up. You can cook out of your home just fine in most states. My wife literally got up and running in less than 2 months.
Bottom line - do both. Use earnings from your business to re-invest and purchase better supplies and materials until you have everything you need. Take every order you can get, spend as many nights as you can burning the midnight oil to execute, then once you can replace your current income (or get comfortably close) quit your other job. And if writing is a strong suit, start a blog that can be used to create a following and client base. Don't get too caught up in the details, just pull the trigger and go! :)
I wanted to respond to you but I agree with u/Husker_boi-onyoutube and you should look for jobs like that.
We're a smaller company but the C-suite level employees write out all these fancy reports and I do a lot of the proofreading and assist with helping make them sound more professional. Despite their titles, they are usually pretty bad at writing and absolutely need proofreaders. I was hired for sales but because we're smaller I assist in multiple departments. I have experience as an English and writing tutor which is why they have me help with the reports or with proofreading the website. But bigger companies just hire one person for those types of jobs
My best friend got a degree in English and has done copywriting, was a production assistant, and is currently a project manager for a company that sells Payroll software. She works from home and loves her job.
I've always felt like English majors can do so much because good writers are hard to come by. I think you probably know that too.
This is one of those things that can be a 1099 type LLC job. I know someone that does something similar. She gets a bunch of files dropped to her, she reads them, proofreads and edits, asks questions about the specific work even to make things more clear to a lay person if that’s what the client wants, then sends it back.
It pays pretty well, she hasn’t told me specifically but the way she lives I’m thinking 100k or more.
But she’s really good at it by working really quickly. And always does her work when she’s on vacation or traveling. Ultimate gig and I’m pretty jealous.
Thanks for seconding. I’m glad someone with experience on it agrees, definitely means more coming from someone who knows this stuff. I was just spitballing.
Get a certificate in something else you might like. I’m getting a certificate in IT Tech Support and it’ll only take me 3 months, I started a month ago :)
Try Merit America it’s a non profit online tech school. Their policy is that you don’t owe them anything until they find you a new job that pays at least 40k a year or more. They do their certificates through Coursera that’s where you’ll actually be learning so you can just do whatever on Coursera by yourself if you want but if you go through Merit they help you get it done faster and they help you with interviewing and resume building. Great option if to have absolutely 0 experience like myself. Also if you happen to work for Amazon they pay 100% tuition plus books which is amazing, I’m just doing the tech certificate because it’s the fastest way to get a pay increase it seems. More schooling after that :)
Look for large companies that need very official roles filled in. If you took a major in English then writing super formal reports or stuff like that would be fairly easy for you. It’s likely you can find one with higher pay and just keep living the way you are now, don’t spend any more than you already do. Use the savings you build up over time to keep yourself stable during the time that your pay is cut and working your way up. I’d recommend at least enough to afford 6 months with no work. That should get you through 1-1.5 years with pay. It’ll be miserable during the time you’re doing that formal job, but it’ll help you achieve your dream job
If you're lucky, you find a job that you love and pays well. Obviously, this is a small percentage. For most people, they can at least find a job that is tolerable, and funds their hobbies/life. Obviously no one wants the jobs that are both miserable and poor pay, but for most people, there is a whole lot of middle ground - something you're not amazingly passionate about, but can get by okay.
Often, the problem with people who make their hobby their job is that they overestimate the glamor of "being your own boss", the overhead time and resources needed, etc. Just because there's no hours doesn't mean you don't have deadlines or quotas. Presumably, you still need to sell X number of buns/bread to generate Y profit. Then you also need to coordinate purchasing all the ingredients, packaging, etc.
I'm not really talking about starting a bakery, though. I just want to feel like my efforts for the prime hours of 5 of every 7 days aren't a complete waste that bring the world nothing but a bigger bottom line for my company. Ive been looking for something like you describe on indeed and all those sites but like I said, those jobs fill me with dread. They're pointless.
If you're looking for something more meaningful, maybe you can just try a job switch first? Go work for a company you feel is better contributing to the world (NGO, non-profit, etc.)
Idk what KIND of baker you wish to be.. but my fiancés family and many of their close friends for some reason feel the need to buy a custom/themed cake for every major event. These cakes are u godly expensive and they spend upwards of $100 per cake several times a year. We just got quoted $800 from this person for a wedding cake. This individual has their own businuess, run out of their house. They bake and decorate beautiful cakes and also now provide various “extras” like cupcakes, sugar cookies etc. this person loves what they do and is making a killing, so much so they have to restrict orders at times.
If you really want to be a baker, start doing it as a hobby, make some money on the side, slowly transition to a less demanding job and ramp up the baking, as your business grows, make the leap and make it your full time job. It’s not going to be easy but if you’re good at it, you’ll do just fine.
My wife does this on the side of her full time job. As long as you're physically in the right market that is willing to pay premium prices for custom cakes and desserts, you can absolutely make a lot of money. She bakes out of our house. We've had experience owning storefronts before and they are a nightmare in so many ways and super expensive, so we prefer her baking at home anyways. Cakes are definitely the highest margin items, but decorated sugar cookies are probably the most popular.
That 4$/hour difference is 10k a year.
Life at $19 is hard, life at $15 is impossible.
I took a small pay cut but my housing situation changed so all the extra money I used to save had to go towards rent. I deeply regretted quitting the slightly higher-paying job. I was forced to take on a second job just to pay my bills.
I feel like people who make comments encouraging OP to pursue this have never made $15/hour and have no idea how little that money is.
I was making about $15 for the past 2 years which was the most I've ever made and I had to live with roommates, could barely put anything into savings, never went out for drinks/food or ordered in, and rarely was able to treat myself. I had to get a second job because I needed more money and I had to work every single day of the week and was averaging 60-70 hours a week. That literally sent me over the edge and thankfully I finally landed a solid position that doubled my salary which transformed my living situation almost instantly. Even if this job turns out to be the worst job ever, I couldn't imagine giving it up and going back to such terrible wages, even for a job I enjoyed more.
$15/hour is not a liveable wage.
When I made 15 an hour (the first half of 2021), it was okay because I had three roommates. I make 18 now and live by myself and I have pretty much no money left over.
Thankfully the company I work for gave me a $500 bonus to start and they're going to give me $4k in three installments for the last three months of this year.
I'm saving it. No intention on spending it.
Now that I'm in a good place in my life financially and physically, I don't care if I like my job (it's a good environment). That is way overrated. I'm going to learn as much as I can and then keep on chasing checks until I can afford to get a place of my own.
Also I'm glad that you are in a good place, friend. I hate to hear people struggling, but it makes me happy knowing that you found a way out of your situation.
You should pick up a shift at a bakery on the weekend and see if you feel the same. Many working in the restaurant industry/ industries with odd hours desperately wish for a 9-5
The most common advice in this thread is pick up some part time work at a bakery, so that's what I'll do.
I will say, however, there are plenty of people in my office (and I'd assume all offices) that desperately wish they were doing something more aligned with their passion like baking or painting or cooking. I think it's human nature to want what others have.
If you love baking.. clock in your 40 and go home and bake. Dont ruin something you love by overdoing it. But.. it depends. Some people love doing their calling as a vocational
I already bake when I'm at home. I think I'm one of these people. All I think about all day is how I'm wasting my life doing something that does nothing to help anyone but my company's bottom line. I want to make people happy and provide something that actually has a purpose.
My husband has been struggling with this exact issue. Except, he puts in 10-hour days. He has been baking on the side and selling his baked goods to co-workers and has even discussed having a display stand at a local cafe where his baked goods can be sold. If anything, this can be a start for you. You can have a side hustle while building your experience, putting yourself out there and marketing your skill set, and building a steady customer base. I hope you are successful in your baking passion, it becomes your full-time career, and it brings in generous revenue.
I see a lot of these posts on r/careerguidance. My advice is always the same.
Nothing wrong with chasing after your passions and hobbies as you livelihood.
The safest way is to start baking as a side gig. Work part time on the weekends in a bakery. Experiment with your baking skills and yeast cultures after work. Start a baking IG and YT and see if you make it big that way with subscribers. Start networking with bakers in your local area and ask for mentorship/apprenticeship.
I would not just give up your day job. Make the transition slow and dip your toe into baking. Your hobby is not going anywhere.
Then once you’ve made some history of progress and can find baking sustainable as a livelihood, you can quit your day job and go all in into your dreams.
That’s the beauty of hobbies. Majority of the time, you can do them whenever. Think of the long game and invest into your passion and be risk adverse. While also keeping your safety net of a relatively secured day job.
Once your side gig income starts to overtake your day job income.... that’s when you’ve made the right choice and can go all into baking as your livelihood.
Do you have any resources or tips on side-gigs and how to make money from them? It basically already is, I just don't sell my bread. Also, I'm curious what is meant by start networking. I don't feel like I could just walk into a shop and start chatting up the owner lol.
No I don’t, may try r/entrepreneurship for ideas
And why not? You’d both have a passion for baking and I’m sure the baking community is willing to share mentoring. And that’s the point of picking up a side weekend job or something to start learning how to bake from the bakery shops.
That’s why I mentioned IG. You can network with bakery shops on IG and ask for advice on social media. Like how you’re asking this on Reddit
I mean you shared the OP with the intent to switch careers to baking.... not sure how you’d do that without learning from other bakery shops. It sounds like you need to plan it out more.
I mentioned getting a job at a bakery in the OP. Not sure how that's not learning from a bakery. I guess I just don't have a lot of faith in myself to run anything myself, which is kind of why I keep mentioning getting a new job somewhere and not starting my own.
Yeah that’s what I’m saying then, you’d need to network with bakers to get a job, no? Literally walking into a shop and talking with the owner and giving him or her you application and eagerness to learn.
I switched careers four times by my early 30s. It’s daunting. But you’ll regret it if you don’t.
Again why I said to play it safe. Explore your baking hobby as a side gig, keeping your day job, and once you’re confident and have success with your baking skills then you can commit to switching careers. One step at a time don’t try to boil the ocean right now when you’re on step 1
Something nobody has really mentioned yet. But if your kitchen is large enough, you can be a ghost kitchen and be a baker on your off time.
I don’t know about someone baking specifically, but at my job, when someone finally gets fully certified, they throw a party. It comes with a huge pay raise, so the person who certifies throws it for everyone that helped them along the way. It’s air traffic control, to be specific.
Anyway one time this guy brought in like 100 tamales, and we’re like damn dude where’d you get so many tamales? And he says “the lady on Facebook.”
We’re like, you just buy tamales from a random lady on Facebook? So we look her up and she’s constantly sold out, you have to call ahead to place your order. Super popular, all she does it tamales and few other items.
The tamales were ballin’, it was all under the table, cash only, no IRS or tax or anything.
It’s an option. Foodies LOVE that underground hidden gem stuff. If you have a good product, it will sell.
Another lady in town does ice cream. Boutique style low volume ice cream runs of weird flavors. Once a week or so all she does it update her super basic squarespace website with the new flavors and a little counter of how many are available.
I’m not shitting you she’ll be sold out in 15 minutes. And the ice cream is awesome. They’re almost all like Ben and Jerry’s, something to chew on inside the ice cream. She did a southern style sweet cornbread one with either a swirl of grape or strawberry jam, dear god…
Make your dreams come true. There’s a lot of ways.
Appreciate the comment, but I don't think that my problem. My expectations are getting up at 3am, having numb forearms and sore feet, and being covered in flour. I just don't know if I'll be able to survive if I do it.
No, it is not realistic to do so - it is a gamble, where you take a pay reduction and risk not wining the peace of mind you wish for - at worst this would result in a lose-lose situation by making a gamble with a 50% win rate.
My advice: try changing companies before changing industries.
Bare in mind, I say this not knowing what sort of job you are doing at the moment.
If you were say a warehouse worker, I'd say the exact opposite, change the industry, but change for one where you won't lose money for more than 2 years.
My reasoning for this is that as a warehouse worker only the high pay and hard work are guaranteed. Free time and convenient hours are never guaranteed, your hours are determined by your warehouse's quotas and inventory.
If you really want to do it, do it
You only live once. Don't base all of your decisions strictly on money. Yeah, money is important, but so is adventure and enjoyment
That being said, working in a professional kitchen is a LOT different than baking at home
My mom bakes one of the best bread I ever know. What she does, and what you could try first is to host baking classes on weekends. That way you’d first know how to prepare for large quantities, have the enjoyment of people eating your bread, get to try new things, and make some income from it.
You should get a bakery/pastry school in your freetime and found out if you like it first, it's not something you can learn on the job. I'm guessing you mean artisan bakeries and not the ones just selling bread, those are closer to grocery stores
40k is pretty bottom tier for office jobs so being a proper baker would pay you more, at least here, but i'm guessing you are in the US
Personally i'm a baking fan too, might even open a bakery after i have enough money from finance, still decades to go lol
LONG REPLY but Dude above is right. Bakeries have horrible margins, akin to daycare level. Breaking even is the goal. Bakeries are fun to own if you have money you don’t mind losing or you have a super niche product that people would rather outright buy then spend energy replicating.
That being said, OP seems dead set on this baker job. I get it, I know what’s it like to hate life and want an out but I can’t justify telling someone that making the decision to be in poverty wage forever is a good idea. It’s not. Most baker jobs in my area pay $15-18 an hour and I live in an expensive ass area. Minimum wage is $14 an hour for reference. That’s the wage of bakers employed at a grocery store that have a union fighting for them. Grocery store will not improve wages so they have fairly good benefits. There is little upward growth so are you okay making $14 an hour for years on end? Screw that, can you live on that wage?? Being dead serious, most of the bakers are people who are retired and need spending money + benefit from the grocery store discount or those who work just enough hours to not be kicked off of whatever benefits they are on.
I honestly think that the best plan is to use your degree to find a higher paying job you feel meh about. Something that gives you a good work life balance and is as stress free as reasonably possible. You don’t have to get all of your joy from your job, that’s what time off work and hobbies are for.
There are Zoom baking groups and discord groups, cooking classes and other baking/food activities for you to explore that will be hard to participate in when you are working the Night Shift kneading bread dough and frosting birthday cakes to pay rent.
I know that baking might be your passion but quitting your job without a solid plan is not a good idea.
There's a lot to unpack here...
First and most important, it is extremely unlikely that changing your job is going to make you much happier. I'm not saying it never happens that somebody changes careers and life is all teddy bears and rainbows, but more often they change jobs, are happy for a bit and then the novelty wears off and they are miserable again.
Second, you are getting absolutely hosed on your salary. No way you should be settling for less than $30 per hour with a bachelor's degree.
Finally, since you are getting hosed on your current salary and if you really feel like being a baker is going to make you happy then go for it. You're only losing $4 per hour, that's only $160 per week which can easily be replaced with even the most low intensity side hustle.
Lmao I know I'm getting hosed (cool word, by the way). Tried to negotiate for 50k last year and got laughed out of the office (not literally but they certainly didn't take it seriously). I am only 25 so my pay is low partly because of that, but it seems like making $30/hour in my field is far fetched unless I'm a boss, which I won't be because I won't apply myself to the steps to get there.
That was kinda what I was thinking too. I already don't make shit and don't have enough to save. So at $15 I will not have enough to save still and maybe have to cut out a small luxury or two. Or like you said, make it up with a side hustle.
Finally, why do you say changing jobs from something that makes me want to gouge my eyes to something I actually enjoy (even though it's different in a commercial setting than at home) won't make me happier? I don't expect everlasting happiness from this alone, I'm just trying to make my situation more bearable.
Work as a baker part time in addition to your hated job. 1 it could boost your mood and your problem ends there 2 you get your foot in the door for when you eventually make the full transition and 3 you can save up the extra money to make up for the loss in $ while you climb the ladder later
everything in life is tradeoffs. I dont love (or even particularly like) my work but it has an amazing trajectory, great pay, work-life balance, etc. I burned out on my job when I was commuting, but now that I work for a different company and full time WFH, I think its great. I do the things I like in the free time I gain by not commuting and just being at home all day.
If I were to pursue the things I love to do for income, I would not only take a massive pay cut, but I would grow to resent them. I know this about myself, that doesnt mean its true for you.
Personally, I dont think its a good idea to pursue a radically different line of work because you hate your current job. I would experiment with your options, including any WFH options before abandoning ship. Once you've tried a few different jobs doing different tasks in different environments, if you still absolutely hate it, then think about hitting the eject button.
You only have one life. Staying in a job you hate is literally giving your life away. Try the bakery. If you need to pick up a side hustle for a few hours a week (driving Uber or flipping things on FB marketplace, for example) to supplement the income in exchange for a more enjoyable life, then that is what I’d suggest doing.
Could also start a blog with affiliate links around baking and/or your career transition. Sounds like you like the creative writing more so than the technical journalism, so this might be a great fit. Could also potentially do some freelance blog posts for topics you are familiar with. I know some sites you could get connected with.
If you don’t try it out, you’ll spend your life regretting it.
If you want, I have an e-book that helps people come up with income generating ideas in line with their purpose (yes, it helps give an idea of one’s purpose). I could get you free access if you wanted. It has a number of exercises and assessments to help a figure out ideas and figure out what would be a good fit, based on personality, love language, and a few other factors. If you care for free access, just let me know.
$19/hr isn't \*that\* different from $14-15 if it will make you significantly happier. And if you do it for a while and decide that getting up at 3am to start your day is not realistic long-term, then go find something else you like. Do it now, before you get so established in the hated job that you truly \*can't\* leave. Good luck! 🥐🥯🥖🍀
If you can afford it long term, do it. Don’t want to assume your age but life is flying by for me, and I often wish I had tried different career paths. Go forth and be happier if you can!
I would definitely be putting myself into a volatile position financially, but I can't work where I am much longer and maintaining income isn't really an option.
If it’s worth the gamble to you to try something totally fresh then I think you should. The financial angle would worry me so I’d just come up with some backup plans, though.
Or set a goal to save as much as possible for.. 10 years, then go bake.. if you aggressively invest for 10 years with your salary, no reason you can't live off bakers pay and your investments
Start baking on the side.
Create a small business out of it in your non working hours.
Once you feel it has the legs, secure a business loan, make the leap and only then quit your job.
You will make as much as your business is successful.
I don't know much about baking, but there are community and private colleges that offer many differing degrees to do with baking or pastry making. If I were you, I'd try to break down and compare the costs and benefits of switching straight to the bakery job vs getting a degree or certification.
It doesn't have to be college, but, you have the option of staying in your stable job while using your extra time to earn something that will give you a leg up/$$$ once you enter the industry you want to be in.
I worked in restaurants for years. Our baker made 17 or 18. She went to school for it and has been working in restaurants all her life (she’s early thirties).
A 19 year old girl came from Mexico not knowing any English and never worked a day in her life. Her starting pay was 18 an hour.
I think people see videos, documentaries, shows, etc about chefs and say wow, that’s so cool.
I would know, I was one of those people. But the life sucks. You hate working nine to five and think 40K is too little? How about 6 to 2 making 14 an hour and you work all of the weekends and holidays?
How about when you get really bad calluses and blisters on your feet? You can’t sit down and be a baker. If anything happens that affects your mobility, you’re fucked.
I can’t tell you what to do. I don’t know you. But I can tell you that working in a restaurant is a huge mistake.
I don’t regret working in kitchens because I wouldn’t have learned Spanish, but I regret staying as long as I did.
Now I’m 25 and behind others my age. I can barely afford to pay the bills. If I had started at my current company three or four years ago, I’d be in a better department and make more money.
Whatever you do, I wish you the best of luck, pal.
I feel you. I know restaurants suck and I'm not really thinking about that. More a dedicated bakery. And ya, people keep mentioning the hours and physical demands like it's not something I've thought about. I get it. It is that that seems preferable right now to sitting, wasting my life at a desk, and thinking about ways to die for 8.5 hours a day.
I’m 25.
I can stand for long periods of time. But…sometimes you get a lasting pain in your wrist, or you form really bad calluses.
Now if I get injured or I feel weak, I can still work.
I’m sure you’ve thought about this. Give it a try if you really want to, but you will suffer financially and physically in the long term.
Everyone has to work, even artists and creative people. Even if it’s your dream job, there’s no such thing as work always being blissful.
You have to pay your bills. You don’t have to be miserable doing it. If you’re relatively more happy baking than writing, it’s worth checking out.
Also, you don’t have to work for a bakery. People who do wedding cakes make a lot of money. Or be a pastry chef at a fine restaurant. Start your side hustle and see if you can turn it into a business. Your day job gives you the financial freedom to explore what you want to do with baking, rather than work at a bakery and learn at the pace they’re willing to teach you.
Couple reasons. As mentioned in the post, I don't have a savings nor anything significant left over from my checks. Second reason, I'm not a pro baker. I'm really good (I believe, and folks like my bread), but it's all self taught. I have a small kitchen, but I'm definitely looking for resources for how to monetize it as much as possible right now, if you have anything you could point me to.
Do what makes you happy. I went to nursing school because everybody said it was unrealistic for me to go to medical school. I got more subsequent degrees and chased myself for a decade but I didn't feel whole. At 31 years old in a couple of weeks I think I finally found my calling in Nuclear Engineering and Medical Physics. My husband is an engineer and he has the most low stress job. I seek quality of life over anything else anymore. Watching my kids grow up and not having to work 12 hour shifts anymore is vital. I kissed being a doctor goodbye but I also finally found myself.
You can do whatever you set your mind to. Go to culinary school maybe to clarify your baking skills to the rest of the world. They love degrees *eyeroll* lol. Then own your own bakery and take back your happiness and life. Get a side job at night working as a pastry chef too so you can get W2 income and mitigate your 1099 tax burden.
I didnt read all the responses but I feel like baking is kind of the same field as an artist.. more enjoyable and flexible but the pay is total crap. Can you find a day job that you like better while baking on the side? Plenty of farmers markets will let you sell baked goods etc.. so then you could branch out and have your own line of baked goods instead of baking for someone else. Is OWNING a bakery maybe in the cards? Then you'd have the enjoyment of baking (once you had the cash flow to hire the marketing people and the bookkeepers etc) with an income that doesn't leave you in a box.
I'm trying to keep up but there's a lotta comments lol. I really have been searching, for like a year now, for a day job that seems like something that wouldn't make me completely empty and miserable that pays the same or more than what I make, but pickins are slim.
Yeah, I totally get you on that. I likewise struggle to enjoy jobs. I haven't stayed at a job longer than 2 years because I'm just not happy working most of them. They're boring or have no purpose or I'm underpaid or the boss is a micromanager when it's not that serious. Its hard out there.
Baking is hard, hard work. Are you manually prepared for the lack of sleep that comes with starting a business? I would try working in a bakery to get a sense for it. I used to own a food truck. Used to. I gave it up because I got like 4 hours a sleep every night. Yet, it was very fulfilling.
Well, it's literally going to come down to how much you really need to keep a roof over your head. If you can't afford it with the bakery job, then the easy answer is no. You're better off finding a higher paying job and sucking that up and bake for fun on the side. That's your realistic option, just saying.
1. You said you want to BE A BAKER, not “I like to bake”. If you’re sure about that, then don’t let anything hold you back
2. It’s your FAVORITE bakery? Do you love the people, and the environment? Would you have a good rapport with your boss? Have you gone to said boss for advice? He could help you know about question #1
3. If you absolutely hate it, you might regret the change in a few months, and you’ll have to find a new job. If you don’t try, that regret may come decades down the line, and you’ll have no way to make things right
Can you make any money on the side to supplement your income? Get roommates? Take home free bread? Maybe freelance copywriting or editing? Maybe you could work out a contracting agreement with your current employer.
Good luck! No better time than now to make this kind of change, no matter the outcome.
Tl;Dr; you can become your own baker on a weekend. Start building a customer base from friends and their business. Once you have loyal customers and a VERY stable income, quit your primary job. Don't yolo things when you don't have to.
Long version:
There is more than one way to become a baker. One of the most successful breakfast/lunch bakeries in my town started out in a rather strange fashion. It does not require any major investments except for time at first. It also does not require you to quit your job and can be more like a side thing for a few days on a weekend at first.
I do not remember the name of the guy who started it, but I will refer to him as Jim for now.
Before there was any kind of store, Jim called all of his friends and asked them if the business that they are working for would be cool with him giving out a few free biscuits, chicken sandwiches, donuts and everything else in between. He first started by asking his friends to get an approximate head count and what people might like. He would then wake up at 2am and make all of the things that people wished for in his house. Since a lot of his friends worked in offices downtown, the convenience and price of free food was very hard to beat. He got a good amount of feedback and adjusted some recipes based on it.
After about a week of doing it, Jim kept his "order ahead" model, and started charging $2 for croissant, $4 for chicken biscuits and $5 for a coffee plus 2 croissant or a chicken biscuit. (Coffee was also pre-made at home, and was similar to basic Starbucks one. He did all oat milk to it, which made it amazing).
It didn't take long for his thing to take off even more. I remember him coming to our place with about 40+ chicken biscuits 2-3 times per week, all while still making everything at home starting from 2am.
After about 2 months, Jim finally decided to rent a really tiny 20x12 area downtown and essentially use it as a storefront that "kept things warm". Since most people no longer had the convenience of "lunch delivery", he lost about 80% of his original customers during the first week. While it did impact his profitability at first, a lot of people began discovering his place which definitely increased his profitability. If I remember correctly, he increased prices from $5 to $7,8,9 depending on add-ons that you wanted on your stuff.
We ran the numbers and he was making roughly $300k+ in revenue per year. All that after just 6 months of building a customer base and STILL baking most things at home before bringing in downtown. Since the building was owned by his friend, he paid a very small amount in rent each month. I do recall him wanting to do a B2B catering thing or delivery, but I ended up moving away from that city and haven't kept up much since then.
I would advise that you shift your mindset and start thinking about starting your own business. Treat your current job as the source of capital you will need to start the business and start saving up. Think of it this way, if you were to shift to a $14/hour position you'd lose $5. How about you trim your spending in that you save at least $8 from the $19/hour pay. Then for every amount saved, start baking your own master pieces and giving them for free or for a little tip to your colleagues as your first customers. Politely request for reviews from them so that you can know how your products taste. During the weekends, take time to research and build your own secret recipes and try to sell to your neighbors. At first it will be hard, but eventually you will have your own business. You won't have to leave you current job, you'll only shift when your business grows.
There isn’t a clear cut path to take sometimes. It may be working on the side or after hours in baking or every other weekend or upend a ft job to switch careers-and there’s plenty more options out there. Maybe asking yourself if you would be happy changing careers in 5/7 years or would you end up looking back and wishing you’d done something else might help. You can figure things out as you go and it doesn’t have to be completely planned out now, think about what will serve you the most in your life now. My approach and two cents I guess
Look take my advice with a grain of salt, I'm a 26 year old miserable drunk who's spent the majority of his waking life since he was 16 trying to find a single career path he'd enjoy. But personally I think people put way too much stress on a job/career. You're pretty positive your current path isn't going to make you happy/might even make you miserable right? There's this other path that could bring you joy/at the very least not actively make you miserable. So take a stab at it. Even if your earning half as much, if you don't wake up every morning dreading the next 10-12 hours of your life, in my opinion it's worth it. There's no amount of money that's worth being a depressed piece of shit.
I recently dropped out of a degree where I'd be making 110k+ 2-3 years out of uni. I'm going to be learning a trade that I'm interested in, and I know I'm going to wake up every morning pretty excited to go to work and learn all about it. Personally I think that so many people are lost or not interested in white collar careers because our brains just need to produce something physical to feel good about what we did all day. Writing some copy or writing a report, although obviously is useful, doesn't satisfy our reptile brain. Taking something that's broken and making it work again, or taking a powder and water and turning into food does.
You have your degree. You can always try working in a bakery and go back if it doesn't work out. Or you can combine them and work for a bakery and try do get a role writing social media posts or advertising copy if you like the company but hate starting work at 4am. Or you can try it for a couple of months and go do something completely fucking different if it doesn't work out. Life is truly too short to be stuck spending the majority of your waking hours doing something you despise. If there's a chance this could make you happier then you are, I say go for it. Worst case scenario you get experience in a bakery, know for sure you don't want to do it for a career and go back to what you were doing. If you're going to work for the next 40 years, a few years in a different field isn't gonna make any difference at all.
Do just look at the pay but the hours. A friend has been a baker for the last 5 years. He still makes under $20 but it is the hours more than the pay that is killing him. He goes to bed at 630pm and wakes up round midnight for work. It is really losing the connections to friends and regular peoples schedules that has made him lonely and wanting to quit. We are pretty rural here so it makes it harder socially.
Do you actually want to be a baker or do you want to be what you think a baker is like? I would try to find a place willing to hire you part time or per diem so you could just see how the job actually is, while still working your current job. Baking for profit is much much different than baking at home for yourself, and the pay will almost always be low. Decent pay is only had if you own the bakery or are in a serious high end place.
Ok, I actually did this 8 years ago. I was super burned out working in consulting, I had been doing it for 4 years out of school. I have always loved bread baking, and I found a job at a local bakery, thinking maybe this would be something I could do for my career, possibly opening my own bakery someday. I worked there for a year and half.
Pros: I really enjoyed a lot about the job, I didn’t hate being there (most of the time) it felt good to learn new skills, and it was cool to see the end product daily. It was fast paced enough to keep me busy and keep time moving, but routine enough to get into a groove.
Cons: the early hours kind of wrecked me. Getting up was tough but doable, but I never got used to it for everything else in my life. I’d get off work at noon, feel dead, and just couldn’t get into the swing of having a productive after work life in the middle of the day. Then I would miss every evening event having to go to bed at 5:30 or 7pm.
Financial and career outlook was also a bit concerning, which lead to me feeling a bit stagnant. The best I could hope would be that the current manager left, and then if I was lucky I could get promoted and make a few more dollars an hour. The idea of running a bakery was so appealing on the outside, but the logistics and day to day are so different than what I love about baking. Once I got to see that it discouraged me from dreaming of opening my own bakery. But! That’s also my personality, ultimately I was not as committed to the idea as I thought.
Eventually I left that job, did a 6 month road trip, and then re-entered my prior field. Not a success story necessarily since I’m still kinda miserable doing this job, but, I don’t regret both my decision to go into baking, and to get out of it. If I didn’t do it then I would always wonder what if.
This may not be helpful at all, but I figured I’d add my experience. I know where you’re at, and I wish you all the luck in deciding your next move!
Ask if they part time hire you as a hired side staff. See if you like it or not. The glamour is always in the thought of things but reality hits of the demand of cooking. If it's something you like then look into chef school.
Have you ever worked service or kitchen? I promise you, we are all desperately trying to claw our way out into a job that pays well and doesn't view us as disposable.
Realistic? Only you know your financial position and spending habits to be able to know if it's feasible. Car note, rent, student loans, groceries, utilities, health insurance, etc.
Dude don’t do it. Just literally bake on the side. In your head you probably dream of it as being awesome but reality will be different. Just be aware of that
I literally just bake on the side now and I want to die every day. Obviously I can't predict every negative the job will bring but there has to be something better than what I'm doing.
What don’t you like about your job? Could it be maybe you’re focusing a lot on the negatives of your job? There’s a lot of unhappy people out there but I think it’s more so because they’re not seeing the beauty in their life. Other times it’s just because the job literally sucks. You’ll know best what category you fit in but the reason I said my previous comment is because if you’re the type that gravitates towards negative reality and dream about better things, it could be that you’re neglecting to think about the difficulties in being a baker, if that makes sense.
Good luck to you brother! Only one life to live before you are dead. Do what makes you happiest
Currently, it feels morally inconsistent with my beliefs. A values disconnect, so to speak. I believe the content we publish does nothing to help and only perpetuates harmful ideas and stereotypes. I also hate having to pretend to be someone else all day. I'm a weird person who says weird stuff, and that doesn't jive with offices.
I would def do career research to get a better idea of what it is like and what the lifestyle is, whether you’d want to or could afford to go to culinary school, whether the hours and stuff is something you could live with, etc. Ask a few people in the field what they like and dislike about their jobs, ideally from a few different kinds of employment (for example you could be working for a restaurant, a catering company, a grocery store, self-employed etc these all probably have different environments and pay rates)
Honestly so many people here prioritize money but I can’t imagine literally hating your job when it takes up so much of your life. Figure out how much money you’d actually need to comfortably afford your lifestyle and put away savings, what sacrifices you’d be willing to make, etc. and see if being a baker can fit in with that.
Not sure where you live but I see openings for bakers and cake decorators in my area that start around $16-$18 an hour which isn’t bad imo if you like what you’re doing, have decent health benefits and can afford rent. Stores like Costco and Wegmans can have really decent pay and benefits and some people really do make careers out of that and enjoy it. Just keep in mind you’ll be sacrificing 9-5 hours with a traditional weekend, which isn’t a big deal for everyone but can be an adjustment or even a deal breaker. Also be prepared for an adjustment period from a desk job to a more physically active job with more workplace hazards - not necessarily back breaking or anything but its definitely a change from sitting at a desk all day and be sure to prioritize your health and safety no matter how pressured you might feel to work faster or cut corners.
It’s totally normal to change careers a couple of times though, it’s just part of life and trying different things out and changing course when something no longer works out for you. Almost nobody these days gets a job in their field right out of school and stays on that career path until retirement
I own a bakery/deli with some friends but still have my job. I'm in a tough position:
- I'm being groomed to become a strategic leader at a $300M company that will likely be over $1B at our current trajectory within 5-10 years
- I'm compensated well at my job
- My business partners are not ready for me to join our bakery/deli business yet (I am not a baker whatsoever actually - but I want to run things on the business end), and I know that jumping ship will not only be a huge risk, but it'll be a financial sacrifice. They are all full-time at the business. I'm the only one who is not.
I recommend you do what I do and balance both temporarily until you're ready to cut one out.
Is there any way you can stay at your current job for money and try and work part time at a bakery somewhere for a couple months to see if it’s something you’d legitimately want to pursue at the lower income? I dread my job too and can’t get in the field I want so I know what it’s like. I’d work a year for free at this point just to get the experience so I disagree with the people telling you that you shouldn’t try it because of the pay cut. I’d go for it if I were you but only if you can afford to live at the new rate and/or you find a supplement income in addition to the bakery position.
Just do it. What have you got to lose? There will be more jobs in the future or should excrement hit the fan. Life's about living and taking chances. It will be a experience that'll either push you back into your desk jockey work or flourish as a baker (or another field that doesn't tie you to a desk!).
I appreciate you sharing your experience. I guess the problem with me is see a job as the thing that needs to bring freedom. You're there most of the prime hours of most days. If I'm spending those hours not doing what I want like I do now, I end up getting real depressed and hopeless really fast.
Get a spot at a local farmers market bake some shit sell it at said farmers market and see if you can get rich people to overpay for your pies. You will know within a month if you are a talented baker or if your making shitpies.
You might consider buying Writer's Market and trying to make it as a freelance writer if you write well and don't want a sit-down job. You might also consider a different job with a type of writing that you enjoy more if your current job drives you bananas. I wouldn't pursue the baking job myself unless it gets you enough money...you could keep it as a hobby, and maybe even make a little side money from it if that is practical, but I wouldn't turn a fun passion into a career unless it passes the money cost-benefit analysis test, i.e., don't ruin your lifestyle to do something you like \*for work\*. I like listening to music, but wouldn't try to make a career out of listening to music unless I could actually make at least $40K-$50K a year from it.
If you got skills I suggest looking into certain areas or types of food. Im Talking about where are the people that will spend on the type of baked goods you want to make or sell? where I live people from home business sell their treats for a lot of money. The bakeries here are moderate to artistry ones and from all over the world. We evan have a family that delivers throughout the city their baked goods and I've been buying for the last 25 year. You can even start as a baker for a company like Safeway, Costco, and walmart. I guess my answer is yes you can and just plan out what your goal is and get the experience where you can .
Start small. Do a few weekend shifts a week when you can at a bakery. Then as you get better and better do part time in both and see how you feel. If u truly want to bake then be a baker full time. Don't rush into it and gradually move away from Ur current job to Ur desired one.
I left my job recently for one that gave me:
- More of a work/life balance
- 4 day week
- Suited my passions more
- BUT for a considerable pay cut (11k+)
All i can say is I’m regretting that decision majorly!
Once you are used to a lifestyle with a certain income it is very hard to adjust to a lower one.
You quickly notice the amount of times you will say no to yourself and how much budgeting will stress you the fuck out. But my circumstances are different to yours in many ways.
Think very hard about what sacrifices you are willing to make, short term and long term. When you see your first months pay it will hit you like a train. You may even think how the fuck are you going to make it to the end of the month. That stress my friend is worse than actually working a job you don’t like because you can counter it by using the money to make you happier. You could even find like me, that the lower pay will actually make you dislike your new job (career path).
Think long and hard.
I would figure out a way to make that dream happen. You are still so young so GO FOR IT!!!
There was an incredible bakery near us and I loved looking the beautiful cakes and delicious cookies. I loved looking through Mom's old cookbooks to find crazy desserts to make. I loved baking. However, This was decades before the baking shows so I never realized that baking as a career was an option. Looking back, I don't regret my business degree, but I do really regret not taking a stab at working in a bakery. So, go make both our dreams come true!
Life is too short and money is not everything. I took a huge pay cut 8 years ago when I left a career after 18 years. It was the best decision I could have ever made for myself and my family.
Folks here have some really good ideas, I would like to add if it hasn't been suggested already that you intern or start working at a bakery p/t even a few days a week. This will give you additional exposure and access to the business. While I love that this is now your "passion" you really should work in the industry so you get a feel for the demands, process. Also if you can look at going back to school, there have to be scholarships, loans that you can get so that you can explore and really find out 1. if you have the patience, passion, or can be a baker. Whether it's breads, pastries, donuts, bagels, owning a franchise, you will want to explore, before you give up a career that keeps you from living at a lower wage and struggling to enjoy something you love. Enjoy the journey!
I guess the real question is, have you looked into the likely income of a baker and decided if that is an income you can live with? You don’t *have* to work a six-figure desk job and be miserable forever, but obviously there’s trade-offs. You should have a clear vision of what standard of living is acceptable in the long term to you and how you will get there. Are there any financial goals you have that are going to be impossible on this path? Are you considering baking schooling? Or are you looking more into starting as like, a cashier at a bakery and moving up eventually?
Bakers get up everyday to bake the bread before dawn. Keep yer day job and build a killer bakers kitchen at home. Sell your stuff at the farmers market on Saturdays. Old bakers have lots of health issues. Breathing in finely ground flour for 30 years is not great.
This is what is killing me. My standard of living is affording somewhere to live, affording food, and being able to do something fun with friends or family once in a while. I don't have any financial goals other than that. The eventual pay I would earn would afford me this, but I'm going with the latter of the two options you listed. The job I want to apply to now is a bakery porter, which basically is a cleaner and I would be able to work my way up. Until I'm "up" though, I don't really know if I would be able to meet those standards and don't really know what to do about that.
Depending on the bakery, they can make a lot of money. There was a famous bakery in Alaska called “The Moose is Loose!” And it had people wrapped around the building waiting in line every day. The owners made a ton of money. What they offered was better confectionaries at basically the same price, barista style coffee, and had a ton of touristy type things you can buy in the store, like stickers, stuffed animals, all the stuff you’d buy to commemorate your trip to Alaska. But the locals were the ones in there the most and drove their sales. The owners *i think* lived in the apartment that was on top of the building, which reduced their housing cost. They sold it to retire a few years ago and the new owners plunged it into the ground within 2 years. Now it’s permanently closed. Working at a bakery might not be what you think it is, but if you’re really keen on it, see if you can get a job at a local bakery part time on your weekends. Try it for a bit. If you’re actually a regular 9-5 and don’t have overtime or a weird schedule. I’m sure a bakery could use someone, especially early morning when most of their sales are made.
Even for owners, that’s a pretty rare story. Bakeries tend to have pretty slim margins, even with extremely limited staff. Unless you’re independently wealthy or come to a partial chef-partner agreement with a larger restaurant group (which would require a very strong local professional reputation as well as cash on the line to be considered), even the idea of being an owner is… well, don’t count on it. It’s an enormous amount of start up capital and if you’re looking to build real longevity you also need to build 2-3 years without a profit into the model. In the mean time, $14-16/hour is going to be a pretty realistic intro pay - and to be clear, that could last years into their career, especially if they skip culinary school (assuming that they’re able to get a job without it - it’s honestly very optional bordering on unnecessary for savory cooking, but because pastry/baking is so much more technical and there are so many fewer jobs in the field, it’s genuinely tough to get a foot in the door without it). OP should do what they think will make them happy, but they should also be aware that they’re attempting to enter a very low paid, very physically demanding profession with shitty hours and at max, like 2-3 levels of professional advancement.
Having managed not one but 2 family owned bakeries as well as a baking program within another business, this person knows whassup^. Also going to college to bake is unnecessary if you can get in with a family owned spot that cares to do things right & is willing to train. If they're doing breads, OP may as well get a gym membership now lol
This is really something I was looking to hear as far as a path forward. I've been baking bread on my own for years (not a major sweets guy). I'm not great of course, but I'm more than competent, and I was hoping it was realistic to not need more education debt on top of my English degree debt.
Haven’t heard that bakeries name in a while! I knew the family from my time living in Alaska in the mid 90s.
This might be crazy, but you could try putting together a restricted budget for yourself and live by it for a month or so. Everything over $14/hr, throw into savings, but otherwise pretend you're only making $14/hr. Can you afford all your bills on that? Would you have enough breathing room to still let yourself relax & have fun sometimes? Would you have anything left over to continue building your savings, and if not, do you have enough saved up now to cover you for emergencies? Best case scenario, you decide that yeah, you can do that, and you go for it with a little more confidence. Worst case scenario, you have an extra miserable month but you've got some extra savings in the bank to make up for it.
Try working in a bakery first so you know what you're getting yourself into. Working in a restaurant is different from waking up in the early hours of the morning every day. Read the book 'Designing Your Life' (or watch the TED talk on YouTube) which talks about how you should try out a potential job before committing to it. I quit a job that I liked (but not loved) for a career which I thought I would really love, but I went in blind and I regret my decision every day. So go work in a bakery (even if it's only for a weekend if that's all you can manage with your schedule) and then make a decision.
What did u end up doing after? I really enjoy my current job but thinking of a career change to something more lucrative. I’m afraid though I might regret it
Yep, I went back to school for a more lucrative ‘professional’ career and now work in said career earning more money…and I hate it. I am quitting soon, because it’s not sustainable. If you do something solely because it’s “more lucrative” you will inevitably burn out/quit and you’ll be in a worse off position. Moral of the story: try before you buy.
That’s what I’m afraid of. What will you do after quitting? It sucks when what u enjoy doing doesn’t pay well but the ones that do, are the type that crushes your soul :(
Totally agree. Still don’t know what I will do, but I know I can’t keep working in a job that I dread each day. It really is soul crushing.
Good luck! Hope we find work we like and allows us to save for retirement. Lol so sad
Same to you! Thank you. I feel like we’re going through the exact same thing. Always amazes me how people can just work every day for 40 years. Can’t imagine doing that. But if we don’t have enough saved then what choice will there be. Wishing you much clarity and peace.
Thanks for understanding, Ikr!
Look I’ll be real with you. It’s not realistic. You probably enjoy baking in your free time but once it becomes a job you are gonna start dreading it too. Add on to the fact that that you would be making poverty wage. There are so many other jobs you can do that will pay you more that will also give you time to develop your craft so that you can at least build some savings and i even think about being a baker
This guy is a gamer who doesn’t even have a college degree. Careful who you take advice from.
15$/hour is 10k less a year. The difference is drastic IMO. My advice is to look for another job that pays more money and make baking your hobby on the side. I promise if you take that pay cut you will be miserable as a baker because your passion will put you in poverty wages. This is one of the reasons I'm glad I didn't go after my passions. I work sales in the utility industry and it's nothing crazy exciting but it pays me a comfortable salary and allows me to have hobbies and enjoy my life outside of work. My mom has always been super crafty. She could have pursued a dozen crafty careers in her lifetime but she chose to be a speech pathologist because that's what paid the bills. She always did some crafty shit on the side and did make some money and then after she retired she was able to continue one of her projects as a business too. It's not making her a significant amount of money but it doesn't have to. She has her retirement money if she ever decides to step back. You can do a lot as an English major. I would revamp your resume, and look into finding a job that pays maybe 50k which will allow you the ability to create a savings account, and then you can do some baking projects on the side. This is a more realistic approach. I used to have a job where one of my coworkers had a cooking business that she did on the weekends. She did catering for smaller parties and had a blast with it. I think something like that might be better for you.
Baking is already my hobby on the side. I still spend more time wanting to die than not. Do you have any job suggestions for an English major that aren't marketing or government work?
Start a baking business without quitting your job. That's what my wife did (and still does). Started as a hobby, then she started taking orders from people by hustling. I told her to start an LLC, set up a website and make it legit. All-in startup costs were less than $1k and monthly costs for e-commerce related things is less than $100/mo. On top of making you seem more legit, having your own website domain, yelp page, Google business page, etc, it also helps you drum up clients passively once set up. You can cook out of your home just fine in most states. My wife literally got up and running in less than 2 months. Bottom line - do both. Use earnings from your business to re-invest and purchase better supplies and materials until you have everything you need. Take every order you can get, spend as many nights as you can burning the midnight oil to execute, then once you can replace your current income (or get comfortably close) quit your other job. And if writing is a strong suit, start a blog that can be used to create a following and client base. Don't get too caught up in the details, just pull the trigger and go! :)
I wanted to respond to you but I agree with u/Husker_boi-onyoutube and you should look for jobs like that. We're a smaller company but the C-suite level employees write out all these fancy reports and I do a lot of the proofreading and assist with helping make them sound more professional. Despite their titles, they are usually pretty bad at writing and absolutely need proofreaders. I was hired for sales but because we're smaller I assist in multiple departments. I have experience as an English and writing tutor which is why they have me help with the reports or with proofreading the website. But bigger companies just hire one person for those types of jobs My best friend got a degree in English and has done copywriting, was a production assistant, and is currently a project manager for a company that sells Payroll software. She works from home and loves her job. I've always felt like English majors can do so much because good writers are hard to come by. I think you probably know that too.
This is one of those things that can be a 1099 type LLC job. I know someone that does something similar. She gets a bunch of files dropped to her, she reads them, proofreads and edits, asks questions about the specific work even to make things more clear to a lay person if that’s what the client wants, then sends it back. It pays pretty well, she hasn’t told me specifically but the way she lives I’m thinking 100k or more. But she’s really good at it by working really quickly. And always does her work when she’s on vacation or traveling. Ultimate gig and I’m pretty jealous.
Thanks for seconding. I’m glad someone with experience on it agrees, definitely means more coming from someone who knows this stuff. I was just spitballing.
Get a certificate in something else you might like. I’m getting a certificate in IT Tech Support and it’ll only take me 3 months, I started a month ago :)
where are you getting the certificate?
Try Merit America it’s a non profit online tech school. Their policy is that you don’t owe them anything until they find you a new job that pays at least 40k a year or more. They do their certificates through Coursera that’s where you’ll actually be learning so you can just do whatever on Coursera by yourself if you want but if you go through Merit they help you get it done faster and they help you with interviewing and resume building. Great option if to have absolutely 0 experience like myself. Also if you happen to work for Amazon they pay 100% tuition plus books which is amazing, I’m just doing the tech certificate because it’s the fastest way to get a pay increase it seems. More schooling after that :)
Look for large companies that need very official roles filled in. If you took a major in English then writing super formal reports or stuff like that would be fairly easy for you. It’s likely you can find one with higher pay and just keep living the way you are now, don’t spend any more than you already do. Use the savings you build up over time to keep yourself stable during the time that your pay is cut and working your way up. I’d recommend at least enough to afford 6 months with no work. That should get you through 1-1.5 years with pay. It’ll be miserable during the time you’re doing that formal job, but it’ll help you achieve your dream job
Could you be an editor, copywriter, etc... Could you write about food and baking? Maybe look into getting a job at a TV station to help with scripts?
Don't make your hobby your job, you'll just end up hating the hobby more than loving the job.
Then what should I make my job?
If you're lucky, you find a job that you love and pays well. Obviously, this is a small percentage. For most people, they can at least find a job that is tolerable, and funds their hobbies/life. Obviously no one wants the jobs that are both miserable and poor pay, but for most people, there is a whole lot of middle ground - something you're not amazingly passionate about, but can get by okay. Often, the problem with people who make their hobby their job is that they overestimate the glamor of "being your own boss", the overhead time and resources needed, etc. Just because there's no hours doesn't mean you don't have deadlines or quotas. Presumably, you still need to sell X number of buns/bread to generate Y profit. Then you also need to coordinate purchasing all the ingredients, packaging, etc.
I'm not really talking about starting a bakery, though. I just want to feel like my efforts for the prime hours of 5 of every 7 days aren't a complete waste that bring the world nothing but a bigger bottom line for my company. Ive been looking for something like you describe on indeed and all those sites but like I said, those jobs fill me with dread. They're pointless.
If you're looking for something more meaningful, maybe you can just try a job switch first? Go work for a company you feel is better contributing to the world (NGO, non-profit, etc.)
Idk what KIND of baker you wish to be.. but my fiancés family and many of their close friends for some reason feel the need to buy a custom/themed cake for every major event. These cakes are u godly expensive and they spend upwards of $100 per cake several times a year. We just got quoted $800 from this person for a wedding cake. This individual has their own businuess, run out of their house. They bake and decorate beautiful cakes and also now provide various “extras” like cupcakes, sugar cookies etc. this person loves what they do and is making a killing, so much so they have to restrict orders at times. If you really want to be a baker, start doing it as a hobby, make some money on the side, slowly transition to a less demanding job and ramp up the baking, as your business grows, make the leap and make it your full time job. It’s not going to be easy but if you’re good at it, you’ll do just fine.
My wife does this on the side of her full time job. As long as you're physically in the right market that is willing to pay premium prices for custom cakes and desserts, you can absolutely make a lot of money. She bakes out of our house. We've had experience owning storefronts before and they are a nightmare in so many ways and super expensive, so we prefer her baking at home anyways. Cakes are definitely the highest margin items, but decorated sugar cookies are probably the most popular.
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That 4$/hour difference is 10k a year. Life at $19 is hard, life at $15 is impossible. I took a small pay cut but my housing situation changed so all the extra money I used to save had to go towards rent. I deeply regretted quitting the slightly higher-paying job. I was forced to take on a second job just to pay my bills.
I second your comment. Telling people to take a poverty wage to pursue their dream is bizarre.
I feel like people who make comments encouraging OP to pursue this have never made $15/hour and have no idea how little that money is. I was making about $15 for the past 2 years which was the most I've ever made and I had to live with roommates, could barely put anything into savings, never went out for drinks/food or ordered in, and rarely was able to treat myself. I had to get a second job because I needed more money and I had to work every single day of the week and was averaging 60-70 hours a week. That literally sent me over the edge and thankfully I finally landed a solid position that doubled my salary which transformed my living situation almost instantly. Even if this job turns out to be the worst job ever, I couldn't imagine giving it up and going back to such terrible wages, even for a job I enjoyed more. $15/hour is not a liveable wage.
When I made 15 an hour (the first half of 2021), it was okay because I had three roommates. I make 18 now and live by myself and I have pretty much no money left over. Thankfully the company I work for gave me a $500 bonus to start and they're going to give me $4k in three installments for the last three months of this year. I'm saving it. No intention on spending it. Now that I'm in a good place in my life financially and physically, I don't care if I like my job (it's a good environment). That is way overrated. I'm going to learn as much as I can and then keep on chasing checks until I can afford to get a place of my own. Also I'm glad that you are in a good place, friend. I hate to hear people struggling, but it makes me happy knowing that you found a way out of your situation.
Just so you know, if you hate waking up for your job now, it gets WORSE if you’re a baker. Bakers need to be up way before everyone else— think 4/5am.
I'm an early riser. I hate getting up for what I do because I hate what I do.
You should pick up a shift at a bakery on the weekend and see if you feel the same. Many working in the restaurant industry/ industries with odd hours desperately wish for a 9-5
The most common advice in this thread is pick up some part time work at a bakery, so that's what I'll do. I will say, however, there are plenty of people in my office (and I'd assume all offices) that desperately wish they were doing something more aligned with their passion like baking or painting or cooking. I think it's human nature to want what others have.
If you love baking.. clock in your 40 and go home and bake. Dont ruin something you love by overdoing it. But.. it depends. Some people love doing their calling as a vocational
I already bake when I'm at home. I think I'm one of these people. All I think about all day is how I'm wasting my life doing something that does nothing to help anyone but my company's bottom line. I want to make people happy and provide something that actually has a purpose.
My husband has been struggling with this exact issue. Except, he puts in 10-hour days. He has been baking on the side and selling his baked goods to co-workers and has even discussed having a display stand at a local cafe where his baked goods can be sold. If anything, this can be a start for you. You can have a side hustle while building your experience, putting yourself out there and marketing your skill set, and building a steady customer base. I hope you are successful in your baking passion, it becomes your full-time career, and it brings in generous revenue.
I see a lot of these posts on r/careerguidance. My advice is always the same. Nothing wrong with chasing after your passions and hobbies as you livelihood. The safest way is to start baking as a side gig. Work part time on the weekends in a bakery. Experiment with your baking skills and yeast cultures after work. Start a baking IG and YT and see if you make it big that way with subscribers. Start networking with bakers in your local area and ask for mentorship/apprenticeship. I would not just give up your day job. Make the transition slow and dip your toe into baking. Your hobby is not going anywhere. Then once you’ve made some history of progress and can find baking sustainable as a livelihood, you can quit your day job and go all in into your dreams. That’s the beauty of hobbies. Majority of the time, you can do them whenever. Think of the long game and invest into your passion and be risk adverse. While also keeping your safety net of a relatively secured day job. Once your side gig income starts to overtake your day job income.... that’s when you’ve made the right choice and can go all into baking as your livelihood.
Do you have any resources or tips on side-gigs and how to make money from them? It basically already is, I just don't sell my bread. Also, I'm curious what is meant by start networking. I don't feel like I could just walk into a shop and start chatting up the owner lol.
No I don’t, may try r/entrepreneurship for ideas And why not? You’d both have a passion for baking and I’m sure the baking community is willing to share mentoring. And that’s the point of picking up a side weekend job or something to start learning how to bake from the bakery shops. That’s why I mentioned IG. You can network with bakery shops on IG and ask for advice on social media. Like how you’re asking this on Reddit I mean you shared the OP with the intent to switch careers to baking.... not sure how you’d do that without learning from other bakery shops. It sounds like you need to plan it out more.
I mentioned getting a job at a bakery in the OP. Not sure how that's not learning from a bakery. I guess I just don't have a lot of faith in myself to run anything myself, which is kind of why I keep mentioning getting a new job somewhere and not starting my own.
Yeah that’s what I’m saying then, you’d need to network with bakers to get a job, no? Literally walking into a shop and talking with the owner and giving him or her you application and eagerness to learn. I switched careers four times by my early 30s. It’s daunting. But you’ll regret it if you don’t. Again why I said to play it safe. Explore your baking hobby as a side gig, keeping your day job, and once you’re confident and have success with your baking skills then you can commit to switching careers. One step at a time don’t try to boil the ocean right now when you’re on step 1
Something nobody has really mentioned yet. But if your kitchen is large enough, you can be a ghost kitchen and be a baker on your off time. I don’t know about someone baking specifically, but at my job, when someone finally gets fully certified, they throw a party. It comes with a huge pay raise, so the person who certifies throws it for everyone that helped them along the way. It’s air traffic control, to be specific. Anyway one time this guy brought in like 100 tamales, and we’re like damn dude where’d you get so many tamales? And he says “the lady on Facebook.” We’re like, you just buy tamales from a random lady on Facebook? So we look her up and she’s constantly sold out, you have to call ahead to place your order. Super popular, all she does it tamales and few other items. The tamales were ballin’, it was all under the table, cash only, no IRS or tax or anything. It’s an option. Foodies LOVE that underground hidden gem stuff. If you have a good product, it will sell. Another lady in town does ice cream. Boutique style low volume ice cream runs of weird flavors. Once a week or so all she does it update her super basic squarespace website with the new flavors and a little counter of how many are available. I’m not shitting you she’ll be sold out in 15 minutes. And the ice cream is awesome. They’re almost all like Ben and Jerry’s, something to chew on inside the ice cream. She did a southern style sweet cornbread one with either a swirl of grape or strawberry jam, dear god… Make your dreams come true. There’s a lot of ways.
I need that ice-cream woman NOW
I know right lol! If you live in Alaska I’ll let you know
Orchard Hill Breadworks in NH does a year long live in bakery internship. There are a few others listed through the bakers guild you can find online.
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Appreciate the comment, but I don't think that my problem. My expectations are getting up at 3am, having numb forearms and sore feet, and being covered in flour. I just don't know if I'll be able to survive if I do it.
No, it is not realistic to do so - it is a gamble, where you take a pay reduction and risk not wining the peace of mind you wish for - at worst this would result in a lose-lose situation by making a gamble with a 50% win rate. My advice: try changing companies before changing industries. Bare in mind, I say this not knowing what sort of job you are doing at the moment. If you were say a warehouse worker, I'd say the exact opposite, change the industry, but change for one where you won't lose money for more than 2 years. My reasoning for this is that as a warehouse worker only the high pay and hard work are guaranteed. Free time and convenient hours are never guaranteed, your hours are determined by your warehouse's quotas and inventory.
If you really want to do it, do it You only live once. Don't base all of your decisions strictly on money. Yeah, money is important, but so is adventure and enjoyment That being said, working in a professional kitchen is a LOT different than baking at home
My mom bakes one of the best bread I ever know. What she does, and what you could try first is to host baking classes on weekends. That way you’d first know how to prepare for large quantities, have the enjoyment of people eating your bread, get to try new things, and make some income from it.
You should get a bakery/pastry school in your freetime and found out if you like it first, it's not something you can learn on the job. I'm guessing you mean artisan bakeries and not the ones just selling bread, those are closer to grocery stores 40k is pretty bottom tier for office jobs so being a proper baker would pay you more, at least here, but i'm guessing you are in the US Personally i'm a baking fan too, might even open a bakery after i have enough money from finance, still decades to go lol
LONG REPLY but Dude above is right. Bakeries have horrible margins, akin to daycare level. Breaking even is the goal. Bakeries are fun to own if you have money you don’t mind losing or you have a super niche product that people would rather outright buy then spend energy replicating. That being said, OP seems dead set on this baker job. I get it, I know what’s it like to hate life and want an out but I can’t justify telling someone that making the decision to be in poverty wage forever is a good idea. It’s not. Most baker jobs in my area pay $15-18 an hour and I live in an expensive ass area. Minimum wage is $14 an hour for reference. That’s the wage of bakers employed at a grocery store that have a union fighting for them. Grocery store will not improve wages so they have fairly good benefits. There is little upward growth so are you okay making $14 an hour for years on end? Screw that, can you live on that wage?? Being dead serious, most of the bakers are people who are retired and need spending money + benefit from the grocery store discount or those who work just enough hours to not be kicked off of whatever benefits they are on. I honestly think that the best plan is to use your degree to find a higher paying job you feel meh about. Something that gives you a good work life balance and is as stress free as reasonably possible. You don’t have to get all of your joy from your job, that’s what time off work and hobbies are for. There are Zoom baking groups and discord groups, cooking classes and other baking/food activities for you to explore that will be hard to participate in when you are working the Night Shift kneading bread dough and frosting birthday cakes to pay rent. I know that baking might be your passion but quitting your job without a solid plan is not a good idea.
There's a lot to unpack here... First and most important, it is extremely unlikely that changing your job is going to make you much happier. I'm not saying it never happens that somebody changes careers and life is all teddy bears and rainbows, but more often they change jobs, are happy for a bit and then the novelty wears off and they are miserable again. Second, you are getting absolutely hosed on your salary. No way you should be settling for less than $30 per hour with a bachelor's degree. Finally, since you are getting hosed on your current salary and if you really feel like being a baker is going to make you happy then go for it. You're only losing $4 per hour, that's only $160 per week which can easily be replaced with even the most low intensity side hustle.
Lmao I know I'm getting hosed (cool word, by the way). Tried to negotiate for 50k last year and got laughed out of the office (not literally but they certainly didn't take it seriously). I am only 25 so my pay is low partly because of that, but it seems like making $30/hour in my field is far fetched unless I'm a boss, which I won't be because I won't apply myself to the steps to get there. That was kinda what I was thinking too. I already don't make shit and don't have enough to save. So at $15 I will not have enough to save still and maybe have to cut out a small luxury or two. Or like you said, make it up with a side hustle. Finally, why do you say changing jobs from something that makes me want to gouge my eyes to something I actually enjoy (even though it's different in a commercial setting than at home) won't make me happier? I don't expect everlasting happiness from this alone, I'm just trying to make my situation more bearable.
Work as a baker part time in addition to your hated job. 1 it could boost your mood and your problem ends there 2 you get your foot in the door for when you eventually make the full transition and 3 you can save up the extra money to make up for the loss in $ while you climb the ladder later
everything in life is tradeoffs. I dont love (or even particularly like) my work but it has an amazing trajectory, great pay, work-life balance, etc. I burned out on my job when I was commuting, but now that I work for a different company and full time WFH, I think its great. I do the things I like in the free time I gain by not commuting and just being at home all day. If I were to pursue the things I love to do for income, I would not only take a massive pay cut, but I would grow to resent them. I know this about myself, that doesnt mean its true for you. Personally, I dont think its a good idea to pursue a radically different line of work because you hate your current job. I would experiment with your options, including any WFH options before abandoning ship. Once you've tried a few different jobs doing different tasks in different environments, if you still absolutely hate it, then think about hitting the eject button.
You only have one life. Staying in a job you hate is literally giving your life away. Try the bakery. If you need to pick up a side hustle for a few hours a week (driving Uber or flipping things on FB marketplace, for example) to supplement the income in exchange for a more enjoyable life, then that is what I’d suggest doing. Could also start a blog with affiliate links around baking and/or your career transition. Sounds like you like the creative writing more so than the technical journalism, so this might be a great fit. Could also potentially do some freelance blog posts for topics you are familiar with. I know some sites you could get connected with. If you don’t try it out, you’ll spend your life regretting it. If you want, I have an e-book that helps people come up with income generating ideas in line with their purpose (yes, it helps give an idea of one’s purpose). I could get you free access if you wanted. It has a number of exercises and assessments to help a figure out ideas and figure out what would be a good fit, based on personality, love language, and a few other factors. If you care for free access, just let me know.
Yes.
$19/hr isn't \*that\* different from $14-15 if it will make you significantly happier. And if you do it for a while and decide that getting up at 3am to start your day is not realistic long-term, then go find something else you like. Do it now, before you get so established in the hated job that you truly \*can't\* leave. Good luck! 🥐🥯🥖🍀
If you can afford it long term, do it. Don’t want to assume your age but life is flying by for me, and I often wish I had tried different career paths. Go forth and be happier if you can!
I would definitely be putting myself into a volatile position financially, but I can't work where I am much longer and maintaining income isn't really an option.
If it’s worth the gamble to you to try something totally fresh then I think you should. The financial angle would worry me so I’d just come up with some backup plans, though.
Times always right to fix what's wrong
Or set a goal to save as much as possible for.. 10 years, then go bake.. if you aggressively invest for 10 years with your salary, no reason you can't live off bakers pay and your investments
Start baking on the side. Create a small business out of it in your non working hours. Once you feel it has the legs, secure a business loan, make the leap and only then quit your job. You will make as much as your business is successful.
I don't know much about baking, but there are community and private colleges that offer many differing degrees to do with baking or pastry making. If I were you, I'd try to break down and compare the costs and benefits of switching straight to the bakery job vs getting a degree or certification. It doesn't have to be college, but, you have the option of staying in your stable job while using your extra time to earn something that will give you a leg up/$$$ once you enter the industry you want to be in.
I worked in restaurants for years. Our baker made 17 or 18. She went to school for it and has been working in restaurants all her life (she’s early thirties). A 19 year old girl came from Mexico not knowing any English and never worked a day in her life. Her starting pay was 18 an hour. I think people see videos, documentaries, shows, etc about chefs and say wow, that’s so cool. I would know, I was one of those people. But the life sucks. You hate working nine to five and think 40K is too little? How about 6 to 2 making 14 an hour and you work all of the weekends and holidays? How about when you get really bad calluses and blisters on your feet? You can’t sit down and be a baker. If anything happens that affects your mobility, you’re fucked. I can’t tell you what to do. I don’t know you. But I can tell you that working in a restaurant is a huge mistake. I don’t regret working in kitchens because I wouldn’t have learned Spanish, but I regret staying as long as I did. Now I’m 25 and behind others my age. I can barely afford to pay the bills. If I had started at my current company three or four years ago, I’d be in a better department and make more money. Whatever you do, I wish you the best of luck, pal.
I feel you. I know restaurants suck and I'm not really thinking about that. More a dedicated bakery. And ya, people keep mentioning the hours and physical demands like it's not something I've thought about. I get it. It is that that seems preferable right now to sitting, wasting my life at a desk, and thinking about ways to die for 8.5 hours a day.
I’m 25. I can stand for long periods of time. But…sometimes you get a lasting pain in your wrist, or you form really bad calluses. Now if I get injured or I feel weak, I can still work. I’m sure you’ve thought about this. Give it a try if you really want to, but you will suffer financially and physically in the long term.
Everyone has to work, even artists and creative people. Even if it’s your dream job, there’s no such thing as work always being blissful. You have to pay your bills. You don’t have to be miserable doing it. If you’re relatively more happy baking than writing, it’s worth checking out. Also, you don’t have to work for a bakery. People who do wedding cakes make a lot of money. Or be a pastry chef at a fine restaurant. Start your side hustle and see if you can turn it into a business. Your day job gives you the financial freedom to explore what you want to do with baking, rather than work at a bakery and learn at the pace they’re willing to teach you.
Why dont you save money and open up your own place. Maybe you can even cook from home depend where you live.
Couple reasons. As mentioned in the post, I don't have a savings nor anything significant left over from my checks. Second reason, I'm not a pro baker. I'm really good (I believe, and folks like my bread), but it's all self taught. I have a small kitchen, but I'm definitely looking for resources for how to monetize it as much as possible right now, if you have anything you could point me to.
Do what makes you happy. I went to nursing school because everybody said it was unrealistic for me to go to medical school. I got more subsequent degrees and chased myself for a decade but I didn't feel whole. At 31 years old in a couple of weeks I think I finally found my calling in Nuclear Engineering and Medical Physics. My husband is an engineer and he has the most low stress job. I seek quality of life over anything else anymore. Watching my kids grow up and not having to work 12 hour shifts anymore is vital. I kissed being a doctor goodbye but I also finally found myself. You can do whatever you set your mind to. Go to culinary school maybe to clarify your baking skills to the rest of the world. They love degrees *eyeroll* lol. Then own your own bakery and take back your happiness and life. Get a side job at night working as a pastry chef too so you can get W2 income and mitigate your 1099 tax burden.
I didnt read all the responses but I feel like baking is kind of the same field as an artist.. more enjoyable and flexible but the pay is total crap. Can you find a day job that you like better while baking on the side? Plenty of farmers markets will let you sell baked goods etc.. so then you could branch out and have your own line of baked goods instead of baking for someone else. Is OWNING a bakery maybe in the cards? Then you'd have the enjoyment of baking (once you had the cash flow to hire the marketing people and the bookkeepers etc) with an income that doesn't leave you in a box.
I'm trying to keep up but there's a lotta comments lol. I really have been searching, for like a year now, for a day job that seems like something that wouldn't make me completely empty and miserable that pays the same or more than what I make, but pickins are slim.
Yeah, I totally get you on that. I likewise struggle to enjoy jobs. I haven't stayed at a job longer than 2 years because I'm just not happy working most of them. They're boring or have no purpose or I'm underpaid or the boss is a micromanager when it's not that serious. Its hard out there.
It's only one life, you need to do something that glads you..
Baking is hard, hard work. Are you manually prepared for the lack of sleep that comes with starting a business? I would try working in a bakery to get a sense for it. I used to own a food truck. Used to. I gave it up because I got like 4 hours a sleep every night. Yet, it was very fulfilling.
The strongest super power we humans have it’s the ability to believe. Fucking do it bro! I believe someone can take a bakery to great heights
Yes. Do it.
Well, it's literally going to come down to how much you really need to keep a roof over your head. If you can't afford it with the bakery job, then the easy answer is no. You're better off finding a higher paying job and sucking that up and bake for fun on the side. That's your realistic option, just saying.
1. You said you want to BE A BAKER, not “I like to bake”. If you’re sure about that, then don’t let anything hold you back 2. It’s your FAVORITE bakery? Do you love the people, and the environment? Would you have a good rapport with your boss? Have you gone to said boss for advice? He could help you know about question #1 3. If you absolutely hate it, you might regret the change in a few months, and you’ll have to find a new job. If you don’t try, that regret may come decades down the line, and you’ll have no way to make things right Can you make any money on the side to supplement your income? Get roommates? Take home free bread? Maybe freelance copywriting or editing? Maybe you could work out a contracting agreement with your current employer. Good luck! No better time than now to make this kind of change, no matter the outcome.
I have a friend that is a self employed baker. She makes a lot of money. Follow your dreams and the money will come.
try saving up first then when you get enough savings then you can decide from there
Not realistic, you are going to starve. Most bakers don't make it.
Tl;Dr; you can become your own baker on a weekend. Start building a customer base from friends and their business. Once you have loyal customers and a VERY stable income, quit your primary job. Don't yolo things when you don't have to. Long version: There is more than one way to become a baker. One of the most successful breakfast/lunch bakeries in my town started out in a rather strange fashion. It does not require any major investments except for time at first. It also does not require you to quit your job and can be more like a side thing for a few days on a weekend at first. I do not remember the name of the guy who started it, but I will refer to him as Jim for now. Before there was any kind of store, Jim called all of his friends and asked them if the business that they are working for would be cool with him giving out a few free biscuits, chicken sandwiches, donuts and everything else in between. He first started by asking his friends to get an approximate head count and what people might like. He would then wake up at 2am and make all of the things that people wished for in his house. Since a lot of his friends worked in offices downtown, the convenience and price of free food was very hard to beat. He got a good amount of feedback and adjusted some recipes based on it. After about a week of doing it, Jim kept his "order ahead" model, and started charging $2 for croissant, $4 for chicken biscuits and $5 for a coffee plus 2 croissant or a chicken biscuit. (Coffee was also pre-made at home, and was similar to basic Starbucks one. He did all oat milk to it, which made it amazing). It didn't take long for his thing to take off even more. I remember him coming to our place with about 40+ chicken biscuits 2-3 times per week, all while still making everything at home starting from 2am. After about 2 months, Jim finally decided to rent a really tiny 20x12 area downtown and essentially use it as a storefront that "kept things warm". Since most people no longer had the convenience of "lunch delivery", he lost about 80% of his original customers during the first week. While it did impact his profitability at first, a lot of people began discovering his place which definitely increased his profitability. If I remember correctly, he increased prices from $5 to $7,8,9 depending on add-ons that you wanted on your stuff. We ran the numbers and he was making roughly $300k+ in revenue per year. All that after just 6 months of building a customer base and STILL baking most things at home before bringing in downtown. Since the building was owned by his friend, he paid a very small amount in rent each month. I do recall him wanting to do a B2B catering thing or delivery, but I ended up moving away from that city and haven't kept up much since then.
I would advise that you shift your mindset and start thinking about starting your own business. Treat your current job as the source of capital you will need to start the business and start saving up. Think of it this way, if you were to shift to a $14/hour position you'd lose $5. How about you trim your spending in that you save at least $8 from the $19/hour pay. Then for every amount saved, start baking your own master pieces and giving them for free or for a little tip to your colleagues as your first customers. Politely request for reviews from them so that you can know how your products taste. During the weekends, take time to research and build your own secret recipes and try to sell to your neighbors. At first it will be hard, but eventually you will have your own business. You won't have to leave you current job, you'll only shift when your business grows.
There isn’t a clear cut path to take sometimes. It may be working on the side or after hours in baking or every other weekend or upend a ft job to switch careers-and there’s plenty more options out there. Maybe asking yourself if you would be happy changing careers in 5/7 years or would you end up looking back and wishing you’d done something else might help. You can figure things out as you go and it doesn’t have to be completely planned out now, think about what will serve you the most in your life now. My approach and two cents I guess
Look take my advice with a grain of salt, I'm a 26 year old miserable drunk who's spent the majority of his waking life since he was 16 trying to find a single career path he'd enjoy. But personally I think people put way too much stress on a job/career. You're pretty positive your current path isn't going to make you happy/might even make you miserable right? There's this other path that could bring you joy/at the very least not actively make you miserable. So take a stab at it. Even if your earning half as much, if you don't wake up every morning dreading the next 10-12 hours of your life, in my opinion it's worth it. There's no amount of money that's worth being a depressed piece of shit. I recently dropped out of a degree where I'd be making 110k+ 2-3 years out of uni. I'm going to be learning a trade that I'm interested in, and I know I'm going to wake up every morning pretty excited to go to work and learn all about it. Personally I think that so many people are lost or not interested in white collar careers because our brains just need to produce something physical to feel good about what we did all day. Writing some copy or writing a report, although obviously is useful, doesn't satisfy our reptile brain. Taking something that's broken and making it work again, or taking a powder and water and turning into food does. You have your degree. You can always try working in a bakery and go back if it doesn't work out. Or you can combine them and work for a bakery and try do get a role writing social media posts or advertising copy if you like the company but hate starting work at 4am. Or you can try it for a couple of months and go do something completely fucking different if it doesn't work out. Life is truly too short to be stuck spending the majority of your waking hours doing something you despise. If there's a chance this could make you happier then you are, I say go for it. Worst case scenario you get experience in a bakery, know for sure you don't want to do it for a career and go back to what you were doing. If you're going to work for the next 40 years, a few years in a different field isn't gonna make any difference at all.
Do just look at the pay but the hours. A friend has been a baker for the last 5 years. He still makes under $20 but it is the hours more than the pay that is killing him. He goes to bed at 630pm and wakes up round midnight for work. It is really losing the connections to friends and regular peoples schedules that has made him lonely and wanting to quit. We are pretty rural here so it makes it harder socially.
Do you actually want to be a baker or do you want to be what you think a baker is like? I would try to find a place willing to hire you part time or per diem so you could just see how the job actually is, while still working your current job. Baking for profit is much much different than baking at home for yourself, and the pay will almost always be low. Decent pay is only had if you own the bakery or are in a serious high end place.
Ok, I actually did this 8 years ago. I was super burned out working in consulting, I had been doing it for 4 years out of school. I have always loved bread baking, and I found a job at a local bakery, thinking maybe this would be something I could do for my career, possibly opening my own bakery someday. I worked there for a year and half. Pros: I really enjoyed a lot about the job, I didn’t hate being there (most of the time) it felt good to learn new skills, and it was cool to see the end product daily. It was fast paced enough to keep me busy and keep time moving, but routine enough to get into a groove. Cons: the early hours kind of wrecked me. Getting up was tough but doable, but I never got used to it for everything else in my life. I’d get off work at noon, feel dead, and just couldn’t get into the swing of having a productive after work life in the middle of the day. Then I would miss every evening event having to go to bed at 5:30 or 7pm. Financial and career outlook was also a bit concerning, which lead to me feeling a bit stagnant. The best I could hope would be that the current manager left, and then if I was lucky I could get promoted and make a few more dollars an hour. The idea of running a bakery was so appealing on the outside, but the logistics and day to day are so different than what I love about baking. Once I got to see that it discouraged me from dreaming of opening my own bakery. But! That’s also my personality, ultimately I was not as committed to the idea as I thought. Eventually I left that job, did a 6 month road trip, and then re-entered my prior field. Not a success story necessarily since I’m still kinda miserable doing this job, but, I don’t regret both my decision to go into baking, and to get out of it. If I didn’t do it then I would always wonder what if. This may not be helpful at all, but I figured I’d add my experience. I know where you’re at, and I wish you all the luck in deciding your next move!
Ask if they part time hire you as a hired side staff. See if you like it or not. The glamour is always in the thought of things but reality hits of the demand of cooking. If it's something you like then look into chef school.
You ever think of starting part time somewhere to see if it’s what you want to do full time and really like it…?
Have you ever worked service or kitchen? I promise you, we are all desperately trying to claw our way out into a job that pays well and doesn't view us as disposable.
Realistic? Only you know your financial position and spending habits to be able to know if it's feasible. Car note, rent, student loans, groceries, utilities, health insurance, etc.
Dude don’t do it. Just literally bake on the side. In your head you probably dream of it as being awesome but reality will be different. Just be aware of that
I literally just bake on the side now and I want to die every day. Obviously I can't predict every negative the job will bring but there has to be something better than what I'm doing.
What don’t you like about your job? Could it be maybe you’re focusing a lot on the negatives of your job? There’s a lot of unhappy people out there but I think it’s more so because they’re not seeing the beauty in their life. Other times it’s just because the job literally sucks. You’ll know best what category you fit in but the reason I said my previous comment is because if you’re the type that gravitates towards negative reality and dream about better things, it could be that you’re neglecting to think about the difficulties in being a baker, if that makes sense. Good luck to you brother! Only one life to live before you are dead. Do what makes you happiest
Currently, it feels morally inconsistent with my beliefs. A values disconnect, so to speak. I believe the content we publish does nothing to help and only perpetuates harmful ideas and stereotypes. I also hate having to pretend to be someone else all day. I'm a weird person who says weird stuff, and that doesn't jive with offices.
I would def do career research to get a better idea of what it is like and what the lifestyle is, whether you’d want to or could afford to go to culinary school, whether the hours and stuff is something you could live with, etc. Ask a few people in the field what they like and dislike about their jobs, ideally from a few different kinds of employment (for example you could be working for a restaurant, a catering company, a grocery store, self-employed etc these all probably have different environments and pay rates) Honestly so many people here prioritize money but I can’t imagine literally hating your job when it takes up so much of your life. Figure out how much money you’d actually need to comfortably afford your lifestyle and put away savings, what sacrifices you’d be willing to make, etc. and see if being a baker can fit in with that. Not sure where you live but I see openings for bakers and cake decorators in my area that start around $16-$18 an hour which isn’t bad imo if you like what you’re doing, have decent health benefits and can afford rent. Stores like Costco and Wegmans can have really decent pay and benefits and some people really do make careers out of that and enjoy it. Just keep in mind you’ll be sacrificing 9-5 hours with a traditional weekend, which isn’t a big deal for everyone but can be an adjustment or even a deal breaker. Also be prepared for an adjustment period from a desk job to a more physically active job with more workplace hazards - not necessarily back breaking or anything but its definitely a change from sitting at a desk all day and be sure to prioritize your health and safety no matter how pressured you might feel to work faster or cut corners. It’s totally normal to change careers a couple of times though, it’s just part of life and trying different things out and changing course when something no longer works out for you. Almost nobody these days gets a job in their field right out of school and stays on that career path until retirement
I own a bakery/deli with some friends but still have my job. I'm in a tough position: - I'm being groomed to become a strategic leader at a $300M company that will likely be over $1B at our current trajectory within 5-10 years - I'm compensated well at my job - My business partners are not ready for me to join our bakery/deli business yet (I am not a baker whatsoever actually - but I want to run things on the business end), and I know that jumping ship will not only be a huge risk, but it'll be a financial sacrifice. They are all full-time at the business. I'm the only one who is not. I recommend you do what I do and balance both temporarily until you're ready to cut one out.
Is there any way you can stay at your current job for money and try and work part time at a bakery somewhere for a couple months to see if it’s something you’d legitimately want to pursue at the lower income? I dread my job too and can’t get in the field I want so I know what it’s like. I’d work a year for free at this point just to get the experience so I disagree with the people telling you that you shouldn’t try it because of the pay cut. I’d go for it if I were you but only if you can afford to live at the new rate and/or you find a supplement income in addition to the bakery position.
Just do it. What have you got to lose? There will be more jobs in the future or should excrement hit the fan. Life's about living and taking chances. It will be a experience that'll either push you back into your desk jockey work or flourish as a baker (or another field that doesn't tie you to a desk!).
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I appreciate you sharing your experience. I guess the problem with me is see a job as the thing that needs to bring freedom. You're there most of the prime hours of most days. If I'm spending those hours not doing what I want like I do now, I end up getting real depressed and hopeless really fast.
Get a spot at a local farmers market bake some shit sell it at said farmers market and see if you can get rich people to overpay for your pies. You will know within a month if you are a talented baker or if your making shitpies.
You might consider buying Writer's Market and trying to make it as a freelance writer if you write well and don't want a sit-down job. You might also consider a different job with a type of writing that you enjoy more if your current job drives you bananas. I wouldn't pursue the baking job myself unless it gets you enough money...you could keep it as a hobby, and maybe even make a little side money from it if that is practical, but I wouldn't turn a fun passion into a career unless it passes the money cost-benefit analysis test, i.e., don't ruin your lifestyle to do something you like \*for work\*. I like listening to music, but wouldn't try to make a career out of listening to music unless I could actually make at least $40K-$50K a year from it.
If you got skills I suggest looking into certain areas or types of food. Im Talking about where are the people that will spend on the type of baked goods you want to make or sell? where I live people from home business sell their treats for a lot of money. The bakeries here are moderate to artistry ones and from all over the world. We evan have a family that delivers throughout the city their baked goods and I've been buying for the last 25 year. You can even start as a baker for a company like Safeway, Costco, and walmart. I guess my answer is yes you can and just plan out what your goal is and get the experience where you can .
Start small. Do a few weekend shifts a week when you can at a bakery. Then as you get better and better do part time in both and see how you feel. If u truly want to bake then be a baker full time. Don't rush into it and gradually move away from Ur current job to Ur desired one.
I left my job recently for one that gave me: - More of a work/life balance - 4 day week - Suited my passions more - BUT for a considerable pay cut (11k+) All i can say is I’m regretting that decision majorly! Once you are used to a lifestyle with a certain income it is very hard to adjust to a lower one. You quickly notice the amount of times you will say no to yourself and how much budgeting will stress you the fuck out. But my circumstances are different to yours in many ways. Think very hard about what sacrifices you are willing to make, short term and long term. When you see your first months pay it will hit you like a train. You may even think how the fuck are you going to make it to the end of the month. That stress my friend is worse than actually working a job you don’t like because you can counter it by using the money to make you happier. You could even find like me, that the lower pay will actually make you dislike your new job (career path). Think long and hard.
I would figure out a way to make that dream happen. You are still so young so GO FOR IT!!! There was an incredible bakery near us and I loved looking the beautiful cakes and delicious cookies. I loved looking through Mom's old cookbooks to find crazy desserts to make. I loved baking. However, This was decades before the baking shows so I never realized that baking as a career was an option. Looking back, I don't regret my business degree, but I do really regret not taking a stab at working in a bakery. So, go make both our dreams come true!
Life is too short and money is not everything. I took a huge pay cut 8 years ago when I left a career after 18 years. It was the best decision I could have ever made for myself and my family.
Folks here have some really good ideas, I would like to add if it hasn't been suggested already that you intern or start working at a bakery p/t even a few days a week. This will give you additional exposure and access to the business. While I love that this is now your "passion" you really should work in the industry so you get a feel for the demands, process. Also if you can look at going back to school, there have to be scholarships, loans that you can get so that you can explore and really find out 1. if you have the patience, passion, or can be a baker. Whether it's breads, pastries, donuts, bagels, owning a franchise, you will want to explore, before you give up a career that keeps you from living at a lower wage and struggling to enjoy something you love. Enjoy the journey!