I'm making about 65% of what I was making 2 years ago, but the experience is far better. I have awesomely talented coworkers, get to work on fun stuff, have freedom to explore interesting alternative side projects/ideas, work from home and coffee shops every day, and have no strictly defined schedule. As far as some people are concerned, I don't have a job at all - but that's what you get when you love what you do and the company treats you like a responsible adult (an all-too-rare thing).
While I do sometimes feel that the money is not enough month-to-month, I have enough to invest some in retirement each month, pay a little extra on my mortgage each month, and occasionally buy a new Apple gadget. Not having any other debt (besides mortgage) makes this easier, too. If there's a bigger lesson here, it's to eliminate your debt while you're making the big bucks at the boring job - because that'll free you up to take the more interesting but lower-paying job when it comes along. Don't be a slave to your lifestyle.
Too often, I've found that the companies that don't pay well are also filled with terrible employees, simply because the only people left are those that couldn't get a job anywhere else.
Also, any manager that says "we're not going to pay you as much as the industry standard for someone with your experience, but hey, you get free soda in the break room and you can work from home a few days a week" is ripping you off. Plain and simple - he figured out that spending a few cents on sugar water lets him save $thousands on salary.
You can make six digits plus, and still work from home, and chances are you'll be working with smarter and more talented people because they just won't let any schmuck that can't get a better job stick around.
The company I work for has been around for more than 10 years but is very small and fiscally conservative. I've worked for plenty of high paying startups (often from home and coffee shops and doing interesting things) who die in less than half the time this one has been around. In some cases, they died because they were paying above average wages in a misguided attempt to compete for the best of the best. That didn't work out so well. Of the 5 or so startups I've been with in the last few years, only Tapulous remains in business. Sure, they all paid great and I got rid of my debt during those years, but it didn't work out so well for them, did it?
It's not misguided. I've worked in every size of company, from a <5-man startup to fortune 5 and the best developers I've ever worked with were at a mid-sized hedge fund. The work was relatively boring and the management was shockingly bad but the much higher pay brought in some really talented developers. The only reason the place didn't fold was because of the effort of these developers.
Even worse is when they didn't buy Office, but had it come "free" with their PC's.