Does it really get better?

Since I started school for journalism I've been warned of two things;

1. Journalists work too much

2. Journalists don't make much money

"Pfffft! I live off of $12,000 a year right now and worked three jobs through most my four years at university. I'm sure it's not that bad for journalists! They're just being babies," I said a year ago.

"Why the heck didn't I fall in love with a different career?" I now ask myself while eating a sandwich made with stale discount bread and jumping between the three email accounts I have for jobs in the journalism field while at a job not related to journalism that actually pays some of my bills.

I'm so in love with journalism sometimes I do it for free, a habit I'm trying to kick. My weekends revolve around when I can schedule interviews for articles I'm working on and where I need to go to snap photos. Friends still call me, even though I only ever drop in for a quick coffee between school and story meetings.

I get up at 5:30 a.m. on weekends to get enough work out of the way to be able to spend the afternoon with my partner not answering emails on my phone.

So my question for journalists is, does it really not get better?

Should I replace daydreams of buying a house with a big yard for a garden, dog and kids with a daydream of being able to afford my two bedroom apartment on my own so I can turn the spare bedroom into an office?

Either way I'll keep doing what I'm doing. It'd just be nice to know.