T is currently between jobs. The last couple of weeks have been ridiculously tight – it’s the first time he hasn’t had any income at all, whether it’s from working, or (as for much of last year) from unemployment. I’ve pulled a little bit from his EF to help pad the budget, but I do not want it to fall below $1000, and that’s just where it’s sitting at right now.
One thing I’ve been looking at is moving onto the collective contract at work. Basically, a lot of employees – mainly those who don’t work regular 9-5 kind of hours – are a member of a union and are bound by its employment agreement. Without going into all the details, it was greatly beneficial for me to transfer over to this, rather than stay on my individual contract.
Now that I work weekends, I qualify for the weekend allowances, which effectively doubles my rate. And when you consider I work 32 weekend hours every fortnight, that’s a big difference! It’s something like a 30% raise (Yeah yeah, I call myself a personal finance blogger and can’t even be bothered crunching the numbers. Whatever.)
Anyway, I’ve finally worked it all out, spoken to the appropriate people (easier said than done, given our HR manager is on parental leave. I went through four separate people to get this straightened out!) and am now getting extra compensation for working weird hours.
Realistically, I should have done this weeks ago. Why didn’t I? Well,
a) we weren’t a single income household, and there wasn’t that pressure
b) I wanted to wait until my three-year anniversary at work, so I could take advantage of a slight base rate increase
c) I’m a natural procrastinator – lazy, if you must.
And it wasn’t just the stress of not being able to make ends meet. I was spurred on even more after Her Every Cent Counts wrote a great post on maximising income when you’re still young (Haven’t read the post? Go! Now!)
So if you have the opportunity to increase your income – do it! You have no excuse. Take it from me.
Oh money woes! I’m trying to get things sorted out on my end, but I’d rather be doing it in my late 20’s instead of 20 years from now when things might be more difficult.
I’m trying very hard to live frugally and save as much as I can. I just got a pretty big raise, and right now, it’s just all going to the bank. Haven’t increased my spending habits, nor do I plan to.
I do have a little netbook in mind though….. 😉
Well that’s exciting! Yay for extra money without extra work 😉
I hope things become more stable with T’s income, things are just so tight right now. And good for you to become more proactive with your income. Are you going to be saving it, whatever the raise turns out to be?
Last raise I got, I saved half and put the other half towards increased expenses (like rent).
This time, I will probably save a third if I can afford to, and put the rest towards our weekly shortfalls. When T is back in work then I’ll look to save all or most of it
Oh wow. That’s just… Well. AMAZING. I hope all the paperwork gets completed soon. You deserve it girl!
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