YNAB You Need A Budget

[Rusar]

I don't mind discussing whati make. But I think that stems from being poor in my past. Folks who make 25k or less seem to be more apt to discuss such things. I'm a fairly transparent person anyway though. I think we should know what we are worth as an employee. In my line of work, it doesn't pay to stay anywhere long, so we really should ask our peers and share our own info.

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[tindelsurf]

Wow - a lot of interesting view points on both sides of the fence! I guess I did the right thing for me at the time. I'd probably share my salary with my friend if I knew him a bit better. I am considering sharing my salary prior to getting my promotion - when we were in the same 'pay-band', as roger calls it.

Litterbug - if you know you're making that much less I'd be having a meeting with my manager TODAY or looking for a new company to work for / new department / private sector / etc. That is a HUGE bag of money! And if you're doing the same work then you should be compensated similarly. In fact if you're getting compensated so poorly, I'd consider hiring an attorney - not that they could do anything - but you could talk to a couple and find out.

Roger - please sit down with your wife and discuss talking to your kids about money. Their 20's is when they can make the most mistakes (trust me, I know - and I have $40k in student loans to show for it!) My parents are very transparent with me about there money - where it is, how their spending it, what their invested in, what my inheritance is, etc. I don't always choose to follow their lead on everything that they do, but I do follow most of their advise. Why? Because they've been there. I just wish that they had taught me about not carrying debt before I was $40k in the hole!

My parents were always pretty good at teaching me about money at an age appropriate level. Now I know just about everything about their money - spare actually seeing their quickbooks. I do wish that they had taught me more about staying out of debt, that's the one lesson they didn't teach me enough about. They did teach me to use CC's sparingly - thank GOD!

[TeeCee]

Their 20's is when they can make the most mistakes (trust me, I know - and I have $40k in student loans to show for it!) My parents are very transparent with me about there money - where it is, how their spending it, what their invested in, what my inheritance is, etc. I don't always choose to follow their lead on everything that they do, but I do follow most of their advise. Why? Because they've been there. I just wish that they had taught me about not carrying debt before I was $40k in the hole!

Interesting... because at 43 I just went into debt with student loans. It was hard to face, but I know I had to do it or face working basic retail the rest of my life. I do think i'm in a better spot to make that decision now than I would have at 20 though. I know that even if I don't get a job in my new field (unlikely, i'm going to school to be a Pharmacy Tech and live in a retirement community! LOL!!), I would be able to cover my student loans for the next 10 years with my alimony payments. I just have a firmer grasp on where I'm going with the loans i now have.

Does that make sense? I'm also pushing to transfer as much as possible and it looks like I managed to get all of my general ed classes covered - money saved - and that leaves me with only 5 classes to go from a "certificate" (required in FL) to my AS, so i'm for sure going to go the extra 5 classes.

So i guess I can't view ALL student loan debt an automatic bad decision - as long as the field can support the payments.

[tindelsurf]

Unfortunately student loan debt is, for most families, a catch-22. You can't make more without an education, but you can't get your education without money. I'm not saying student loan debt is bad. However, I did make some stupid decisions.
Stupid decision #1: Letting my wife go to grad school before our undergrads were paid off.
Stupid decision #2: Taking on more debt while my wife went to grad school.
Stupid decision #3: Not letting my employer pay for my school because I would have to sign a 1 year contract with them to stay after I completed college (that was a $10k mistake!).

There are ways to get through school without debt - it is just a lot of work - just like it is to pay them off after school.

I'm not saying student loan debt is bad, but I am saying no debt is good.

[TeeCee]

Oh I agree, no debt is wayyyyy better. If I'm honest with myself, it took me a year to decide I could handle the student loan debt mentally. I knew I had to go to school, but taking on that debt was huge for me. So I have to be optimistic - or i'll break down and cry! LOL!! (and i've done that today once over my daughters education, so i've used it up for the day).

I"m hoping to be able to pay mine down faster than 10 years, in 10 years I will have to sell my house and face finding a place to live - i'd like to be able to have some time between those big events!

[litterbug]

Litterbug - if you know you're making that much less I'd be having a meeting with my manager TODAY or looking for a new company to work for / new department / private sector / etc. That is a HUGE bag of money! And if you're doing the same work then you should be compensated similarly. In fact if you're getting compensated so poorly, I'd consider hiring an attorney - not that they could do anything - but you could talk to a couple and find out.

There's simply not a whole lot that can be done. I could go into the private sector, but my whole work life has been about public service. However, for my next 'performance plan review', I'm going to bring in a list of compensation for everyone in our division and let my supervisor know I'm aware of it.

We got 1-2% increases the first few years I worked here, and our whole office had an upward adjustment about 5 years ago, but until around 10 years ago they started people at higher steps within their salary range and everyone got annual step increases. I haven't had a step increase since I've worked here, and we haven't had a COLA in the past 3-4 years.

So anyone who's worked here more than 10 years has to make more than me. It's not fair, but it's not discriminatory. If I thought it was, I'd be at the labor commission in a heartbeat.

I'm not as depressed about it as I was yesterday. Another $20K more per year plus YNAB would let me accelerate debt payoff and and pre-retirement savings. I see a lot of YNABers who get on the wagon and retire $30,000 of debt in a year. $30,000 is only a few tens of thousands less than my net pay.

Still, I've done what I've done, and will do what I'll do, all by myself. It hasn't been a bad tradeoff. I knew I'd never have serious money, but even now I don't think I'd have chosen differently--except that I certainly could have chosen not to go into debt!

[WairereRose]

Another single mum here TeeCee. And your age too I think. I have recently gone into more debt than I thought I would ever be in again to purchase and get started in a small home business. The next year will be the hardest part of the transaction I think as I pay out one loan and then can start snowballing the others. In the meantime the business is not making enough to pay me a wage.

Here in NZ, if a single parent is not working full-time they can receive a payment which helps meet expenses. Due to my health and the hours that my other job (casual) offers, my outside hours are very limited and I am receiving this payment. Last night my daughter threw that in my face saying how hard her dad WORKS for his money. I pointed out that I was working too until she moved in with me, and that I didn't feel it was right that she criticise me for giving that up to care for her. Anyway, I guess that I would be with you perhaps in not advertising that at present the children's father is covering your expenses, although I would not deny it if it came up in conversation. While I am receiving this payment from the government, the child support payments that he makes are taken by the government to off-set the payments they make to me, (unless they exceed the payments I receive from the government) so in a sense part of what I receive is from him - but it wouldn't pay the power bill let alone food or rent.

As to the original question for the thread, at my casual job we recently were asked to put our pay rate on a form for the union. Being May it's time to start the annual negotiations (which seem to be completed around November resulting in backpay at that point) and I think they were looking at what 'most' people were on. I honestly have no idea what my hourly rate is, and because my hours aren't regular I can't really say what I get paid either. All I know for sure is that my son, who does casual work for the local Zoo as a tour guide, gets paid more at 60% of his rate for the sleepover portion of overnight tours than I do for my regular hourly rate. I'm proud of him, but as I said to my boss at my performance review this week, I work because I love the job, not because of the money. (She was trying to talk me into up-skilling for more pay, but any up-skilling I might do takes me away from the hands-on work with the residents and that is truly what I want to be doing.)

[Jesso]

My previous job forbade us from talking about what we made, because they underpaid everyone and unfairly paid some people a LOT more. They knew that letting people talk about salary would start riots. Of course, when you're hiring people for fairly specialized jobs, but paying them less than they could make at some fast food joints, it doesn't take much to incite riots.

No, I don't miss that place, how can you tell?

I don't generally talk about how much I make, because I don't want to come off as a braggart. I did share with a former coworker how much I was paid at previous job, but because I trust her and we both knew how things go at that place. If someone were to ask me, it would depend on who it was and why they were asking.

[Jaxia]

My company forbids it, too. But, I think it's important for people in the same field to discuss it. If I'm not comfortable giving mine, I might say, "My company starts new hires in this range" or something like that. Many companies will pay you as little as they can get away with. It's important to know what your skills are worth in the job market. (similar to the freelance situation)

[WairereRose]

We have a site here: www.seek.co.nz where we can compare what we are earning with others in the same field but anonymously.

[dpandslemmen]

I usually don't tell people what I make, but I work at a public university so they are required to have a book in the university library that lists each employees name and how much they made last year, plus it is not uncommon for a news reporter to publish everyones name and salary. So I can't hide it if I wanted too, but I make them go through the hassle of walking to the library to look it up.

[YYC27]

I can count on one hand the number of times anyone has asked me what I make, and never by a coworker. I don't think I've ever asked someone else what they make.

I don't know that I consider it a secret, per se ... but it's pretty ingrained in me that it's something you're not supposed to talk about.

[catherineA2625]

No, I don't tell people how much I make when they ask me and I don't ask people how much they make. I just think it's not my business to know how much they make.

[philospher77]

I'm in the "don't talk about it" camp. I am very fortunate in working in a field where headhunters are a common way of getting jobs, and I let them negotiate the salary and just decide if I think it's good enough or not. And once I've done that, I don't want to know what everyone else is making. If I am offered a job for X, and think that's ok, finding out someone else makes X+Y is just going to make me suddenly feel bad about my decision. It's not going to change what the company pays me, so the only thing I could do would be use the information when I go back out job-hunting.

Plus, of course, ALL the companies I have worked at since college have had the "discussing salary is grounds for dismissal" rule. And I like my job.

I do appreciate my boss sitting down with the department and discussing how raises work. As he put it, he gets a pot of money, equivalent to some percentage of the total department salary. I think last year it was 2%. So, he can give everyone a 2% raise. If, on the other hand, he thinks some one is doing really well (or, that some one may be thinking of leaving the company and he needs them to stay, although he did not actually say that part), and he wants to give that person a bigger raise, say 4%, that means that some one else (or possibly several some one else's) in the department is going to get less than 2%. I am so glad I do not have to make that decision! But it's another reason that I do not ask other people about their salaries, nor talk about mine.

[sarahs219]

I now understand why we aren't supposed to talk about it at work. Long story short, my overall boss moved to another company and the new guy hasn't quite figured out what he can and can't say to each employee. This boss let it slip to one employee that the company gave out raises a while back and this employee did not get one. This employee asked me if I got one, I said yes, I'm a terrible liar so I didn't even try. Some how we got to talking numbers. This employee has worked here longer than me and is making less.

Talk about uncomfortable... I prefer the confidentiality we had before.

Disclaimer: Looking back there are better ways to have handled that situation and I recognize that. Please don't rip me a new one. I get it.