When I was a teacher, I experienced the same issues as Veronica. However, my last 4 years in AZ I participated in a merit pay program, and eventually became a teacher leader in it. It added about an extra 10K a year to my salary, at a time we really needed it. Yes, I had to produce a portfolio, but I had the evidence. When I moved here, I became a National Board certified teacher, which was almost as hard as passing my licensing exam to become a therapist. The state paid me 50K over 10 years for achieving this. This paid for my older son's college education. I also became a mentor. I never passed up any opportunity for professional development, was involved in a Spencer Foundation Grant about teaching writing, and several other things. I started the process to become a principal, but by that time, I realized I didn't really want that crap to deal with, and I was making about 70K a year, which is about the starting salary for principals, unless you get a job in a prestigious district right outside of Boston. Since I did not go to an Ivy League school, that was not going to happen. When my younger son joined the military, I lost the need to continue teaching for a few more years. We had been living on DH's salary for quite a while and using mine to pay for college and save. If I had not moved out of state after 13 years of teaching, and withdrawn my contribution to the pension (which we needed to buy a house in MA), I could have retired with my full pension, as I had been working for 30+ years. I also could have "bought back" the years, by paying the commonwealth 13K, but, I didn't. I pulled my $ out of the MA retirement system and reinvested it in the stock market. I've more than doubled it since 2007, and it's helped get us to our goal. Yet, it took me a long time to get used to no income/low income, even with a spouse who works at a good job. Money is power. I always used to keep the fact that on my salary, I could have done OK without a spouse. And I don't like thinking about what i would be making now, if I had stayed teaching. The thing is, I wasn't burned out; I thought I wanted to play, and what I found was I didn't know anyone as young as I was who wasn't working, and I felt like I had no meaning in my life.
I really love my job and I love the flexible schedule even more. I even loved going to grad school for 3 years. If I had done this 10 years earlier, I would definitely open my own practice, but I have no stomach for the business end of that now. My DH is 3 years younger than me, and is probably going to work 7 more years, to maximize our retirement income. We do plenty of fun things already, so no complaints here. My dad worked until about 2 years ago, up until age 87. My grandfather was 91 when he died, and had a very successful career as a scrap metal dealer right up until the day he died. His colleagues kept asking him when he was going to quit, so they could get his clients. He didn't even start to make a lot of $ until he was past age 65.