First, you need to politely ask if their initial salary offer is negotiable and see what they say.  If it' s not, then it will simply be a matter of whether you can pay your bills and make ends meet on the salary offered.  If the salary offer isn' t negotiable, you may have to adjust your lifestyle to live within the salary being offered or decline the offer and continue your job search.  If, however, the salary is negotiable, you need to be prepared to counter with a salary range in which you need to be, but it' s also pretty important to realize that you aren' t going to be able to negotiate your way up to the salary you were earning before - the gap is simply too large.  Furthermore, the job itself may not require someone with 20 years of admin experience, which makes it even more unlikely that this employer is going to pay a premium for skills and/or experience the job doesn' t require.  Were I in your position and the offer is negotiable, I' d counter with a reasonable salary range that' s $5K to $10K more than their offer.  I' d say something like, "I was anticipating an offer in the $X to $Y range," and see what happens.  You also need to be able to highlight how well your skills, experience, training, and education match the requirements of the actual job.  It probably won' t do any good to highlight skills or experience that don' t have anything to do with what the job requires - unless you can show how what you bring to the job will make the JOB more valuable to the employer because you' re in it.  Also keep in mind that whatever they' re offering is a ton more than you' re earning now - the only real question you have to answer is whether or not you can get along on that level of income.  Hope this helps.