Ok, a bit ranty and confused but just writing it as it runs through my head.
So, now that Teresa May has decided that police officer will start on £19k (from £23k) it makes the decision even harder.
Currently you have a relatively easy and well paid, quite unchallenging 9-5 mon-fri job but you have wanted to join the police for 10 years or so and after a couple of setbacks the opportunity has arisen.
Trouble is, you now earn twice what you will if you decide to join the police and will take you 5 years to get to a point where you are earning enough to comfortable again. Your wife is also concerned about before school childcare and the increase in costs if this needs to be changed. You wont be able to take your son to football every Sunday or training every Wednesday and the wife has made it clear she has no interest in doing this at all.
Would you make yourself considerably poorer and cause huge upheaval to your home life just to do the job that YOU want to do OR do you stay in your current job, make more money and buy yourself things to try and compensate for makeing the conscious decision to ignore the top step of Maslows Hierachy?
TBH, I hadnt looked into the tax credits side of it. Thanks for the reminder! Just ran through the tax credit calculator and its come out with a big fat zero.