Have you considered a different university? Somewhere where the cost of living is more in line with the salary?
The big advantage of academia I general is in how much free time you have. Classes are more-or-less only 6 months of the year, and there's very little prep work from year 2. Even 4 classes a day is only like half the day.
In the business world you're looking at min of 40 hours a week (much, much more if you're scrabbling for income), maybe a couple weeks vacation a year (in which, trust me, the last thing you'll want yo do is research.)
Sounds to me like you're already in a perfect gig for doing what you want to do, you just need to figure out how to make it work for you.
Or switch to the next best thing, research + teaching.
The big advantage of academia I general is in how much free time you have. Classes are more-or-less only 6 months of the year, and there's very little prep work from year 2. Even 4 classes a day is only like half the day.
In the business world you're looking at min of 40 hours a week (much, much more if you're scrabbling for income), maybe a couple weeks vacation a year (in which, trust me, the last thing you'll want yo do is research.)
Sounds to me like you're already in a perfect gig for doing what you want to do, you just need to figure out how to make it work for you.
Or switch to the next best thing, research + teaching.