Plan Your Escape

Finances For Couples II

Peter — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 22:00:00 +0000

I've written in the past about one method which you can use to handle your finances as a couple. Of course, there are other ways to handle the money side of your relationship and depending on your personal situation a different method might work for you. Today I'll be looking at an alternative approach which you may want to consider.

Let's Cut To The Chase

As I frequently like to do, I've put together a simple diagram showing how this particular technique works. Let's take a look before I explain things in more detail.

Finances For Couples II: One approach to managing finances as a couple is to combine all your income and then pay each other an equal allowance.

As with the previous method I described, here we make use of a joint bank account to keep shared finances separate from individual stuff. However, in this method each person deposits all of their income into the joint account directly. Money from the joint account then gets used to pay any shared expenses, such as:

Rent or mortgage payments
Utility bills
Groceries
Etc ...

Next, an allowance gets paid from the joint account to both people periodically, say every two weeks or something similar. This ensures that each person has some spare funds to cover their own personal expenses such as:

Hobbies
Clothing
Personal Investing
Etc ...

So, as before, joint expenses are paid for out of the joint account and personal expenses are covered from the individual accounts. The only difference is the regular payments are paid from the joint account instead of into it.

I like to think of this arrangement as a sort of "relationship corporation". The deposits into the joint account are the income for the corporation. It has its expense which get paid from the joint account. It also pays regular dividends to its "investors" in much the same way a real company would. So it isn't that obscure of an idea really.

Some Pros

There are several benefits to this type of arrangement, such as:

If you choose to limit the regular payments, it can help reign in personal expenses.
This arrangement is similar to how the legal system views the finances of a married or common law couple. It you separate, you each get an equal share of everything you've brought in.
It acknowledges the different, yet important, contributions from both people in a relationship, even if one person earns substantially more than the other. An example of this would be one parent staying at home to care for young children while the other parent continues to work.

Some Cons

Here are a few cons that I can think of as well:

If you don't feel your partner is contributing as much to the relationship, then this could be a frustrating arrangement.
If your mutual expenses are high, then you might not have much to pay out to each other.

How About You?

So it's an interesting idea. My wife and I don't handle our finances this way, but we've considered it. We're currently using the method described in my earlier post and we find it works well for us.

So how do you handle your financial relationship with your partner? I've mentioned two methods but you may have come up with other interesting ways to handle it, so please leave a comment below to share your thoughts.

The Power Of "F-You Money"

Peter — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Even if you don't love your job, even if you only go in each day to keep that paycheck coming in each week, even if there is no end in sight, there is one thing that can help make your daily grind more bearable. That thing is 'F-You Money.' And it really works!

You Might Recognize It By Another Name

Not everyone will recognize F-You Money by this name. You might have heard it described elsewhere as an Emergency Fund, a Rainy Day Account or something else but the concept is similar. F-You Money is a lump of money you set aside -- usually 3 to 6 months worth of expenses -- so that you have the freedom to leave your job and find another one without going broke in the process. That's it.

It's not a complicated concept but it is empowering and it can make all the difference in the world.

What's In A Name

You might not like the name 'F-You Money' -- or you might love it -- but the name really is a large part of what makes this particular stash of money so empowering. An Emergency Fund might serve the same purpose but it just sounds so passive! Same deal with a Rainy Day Account.

F-You Money means business and it makes you feel like you've got control over your work destiny ... even if you never decide to use it. Despite what its name suggests, you don't actually have to say "F-You!" to anyone. It's enough to know that you could, if things ever got bad enough. The feeling of control counts for a lot.

Even if you do decide to use some F-You Money you don't have to say those particular magic words. You could say, "I've decided to pursue a different endeavour. Thank you very much for all you've done." Then, as you leave you can think to yourself, "And now we start using that F-You Money!"

How To Get F-You Money

Short answer: save. A slightly more detailed answer is to save 10% of your take home pay until you've got enough to cover your 3 to 6 months worth of expenses. Granted, it can take a while to save that kind of money. However, even if you need all your take home pay to cover your expenses, with a little bit of frugality and some dedication you could probably manage.

Let's say that 3 months contains roughly 6 bi-weekly pay periods. So you'd need to save 6 paychecks worth of money to cover 3 months of expenses. If you can cut back your expenses by 10% and save that amount you'll be able to save 3 months of F-You Money in 120 weeks or 2 years and 4 months. Which isn't all that long.

When A Job Becomes A Choice

When your job is no longer something that you have to do and becomes something that you choose to do, a huge weight is lifted off your shoulders. Even if you still don't really like your job, the fact that you could leave, even if you don't, will transform your perception. It really is amazing!

Harnessing Habits: Taking The Hard Work Out Of Personal Finance

Peter — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Personal finance can be a difficult topic for lots of us. It can be tough to remember to take some time each month to track our income and expenses. It isn't easy to reduce our unnecessary spending. Making a lunch each morning seems so much more difficult than just dropping by the local deli for a sandwich.

The trick to making all this stuff easy lies in our ability to turn them into habits. Habits can be powerful allies on our road to early retirement. Let's see how.

My Experience With Dental Floss

I floss my teeth every night. I started flossing regularly about five years ago. However, I knew I should be flossing about fifteen years ago; it just took about ten years to get into the habit.

When I first started flossing, I used to find it quite bothersome. I wasn't very good at it so it took a long time. I'd usually forget to do it and then remember shortly after I got into bed. When I ran out of floss, it would often take me a week or more to get around to getting more.

Little by little all that changed though. Now that I'm in the habit of flossing it doesn't take much effort at all. It's just part of my nightly routine and I hardly even notice I'm doing it. I'm good at it too so I don't have to stand in front of the bathroom mirror while I do it and it doesn't take very long at all. It's a habit and it's easy.

And So With Personal Finance

All that to say that if you stick with something, even if it is challenging or boring to start with, eventually you'll get into the habit and it won't be difficult anymore. So if you have a tough time tracking your spending just stick with it, it'll get easier and pretty soon you'll hardly even notice the extra time it takes once a month to tally up your income and expenses.

If you've gotten into the habit of impulse spending, over time there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to get into the habit of being frugal. It'll take time and dedication but once you've formed a habit it'll be easy. Really easy.

Building Your Arsenal

Sit down and make a list - either written or mental - of some habits that you'd like to form. Then start working at them. At first it won't be easy and you'll have to make a conscious effort to keep on track. Little by little, the conscious part will diminish and you'll be left on autopilot doing all these great things without even having to work at it!

I've already crossed daily flossing off my list and now I'm working on monthly expense tracking and morning exercises. I'm still in the forming stages. I sometimes let my expense tracking slip for a month or two and play catch-up. I also have a tough time getting down to the chin-up bar in the basement each morning. However, I'm looking forward to these things getting easier over the coming months and years.

So how about you, what habits have you formed? What ones would be good candidates for your 'habits to form' list?

Getting Paid To Learn

Peter — Tue, 20 May 2008 03:30:00 +0000

If you've ever had the desire to learn a new skill, then you've likely given some thought to taking a course or going back to school. Depending on what you're interested in learning, these courses can be rather expensive. Sometimes the price tag can even be enough of a deterrent to keep you from ever pursuing your dreams.

There might be a cheaper way though. You might be able to find someone who will pay you while you learn!

I Used To Work For ...

Have you ever got a helping hand or a piece of advice from someone who knew a surprising amount about an unexpected topic? Maybe a friend helped you to put in a new walkway or prune a tree. Maybe a relative gave you some tips on how to set up a bookkeeping system for your new business. It could be anything.

Then, when you asked them where they learned so much, they responded, "Oh, I worked for a landscaping company for a summer in school," or "I used to help my mom do the books for her company on the weekends to make some extra money." Most of the time, this is enough to establish the person as a credible assistant or mentor.

No expensive courses. No long hours studying. These people learned by just doing a job and getting paid.

Learning By Doing

There is nothing quite like being confronted with a task and having to tackle it from beginning to end on your own. All the subtleties and nebulous aspects of a project become immediately obvious when you try to do it with your own hands. And there is nothing quite like making a mistake to teach you not to do something a second time.

Learning By Proximity

We can even learn a lot just by being exposed to something. If you are just mowing lawns for a landscaping company, you'll likely also learn a lot about pruning, hardscaping and running a landscaping business. You'll be around people who are experts at what they do. You'll see how they do things and what problems they have to solve. You'll learn the industry jargon and you'll meet people who know a lot about the subject.

All this just by being exposed to something new and interesting - and of course, getting paid.

Get A Job

So how do we get this kind of experience? Get a job working in the industry which you want to learn more about. The closer you can get to the action the better. Easier said than done, right? Yes, maybe. But not impossible.

A lot of jobs require some previous experience or some related formal education as a prerequisite. However, a lot of times you can get an "entry level" or similar position with little more than a strong interest and some good references.

If you want to learn about carpentry, see if you can get a job with a construction company that is looking for some extra manpower. If you are interested in making your own pottery, look into a part-time job with a local artisan. If you can get an interview or even if you can get the person in charge of hiring on the phone, showing a strong interest in a subject can count for a lot.

You might not - and probably won't - get paid as much as someone with a lot of previous experience but you will be getting paid, and you'll have direct access to other people who are experts in the field. That alone is worth a lot!

The Financial Benefits

The biggest benefit of finding a job in a field that you want to learn more about is the effect on your cash flow.

Not only are you not spending a lot of money to learn something, you're getting paid! Let's say a course on basic bookkeeping costs $1000. You could instead get a part-time job doing data entry at an accounting firm earning $8 per hour. After a couple of months you'll have earned $1000, made some contacts and learned the basics. That's a $2000 turnaround - $1000 saved plus $1000 earned.

Mix In Some Formal Training Too

Now that you've got a basic idea of how bookkeeping works, you can decide whether you want to pursue that course after all. Only now, you've earned the $1000 to cover the cost of the course. As an added bonus you'll have some experience in the field which will give you a nice head start and will help you get a lot more out of the classes.

Get Paid To Learn!

So take a look at some of the areas that interest you to see if any would be good candidates for a get-paid-to-learn-by-doing approach. As long as you aren't looking to get into something like surgery, you might be able to find someone willing to pay you to learn.

If you've got any ideas of fields that would be especially suited to a learn-on-the-job approach leave a comment to let everyone know.

The Problem With Debt Consolidation Loans

Peter — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:30:00 +0000

If you are struggling with lots of debt from a variety of credit cards or other consumer loans, combining that debt into one large consolidated loan can help you to get things under control. However, if you aren't careful, you can get yourself into an even worse situation than when you started.

Simplifying Things & Reducing Your Interest Expenses

Consolidating your various sources of high interest debt into one large package at a lower interest rate has several very attractive benefits:

You can significantly reduce your total interest expenses on your debt due to the lower interest rate.
You can get a complete, and sometimes shocking, view of just how much debt you have.
It also allows you to focus on a single goal: to pay off the single debt.

For all these reasons, debt consolidation sounds great, and for a lot of people it is an excellent option. However, you need to be careful or you could end up in trouble!

Debt Consolidation Loans: Although debt consolidation loans can be a good way to package your debt for repayment, unless you get your spending under control, it can also lead to a much bigger overall debt. So be careful!

Treating The Symptoms

Although most people consider a lot of debt to be a problem, I'm going to tell you that it isn't. Sure a lot of debt is bad for our finances, but debt is often a symptom of a different problem and not a problem in and of itself.

Excessive debt is usually a symptom of poor financial planning, impulsive spending habits and succumbing to societal pressures. Of course not all people who end up in debt are impulsive. Sometimes bad things happen and a lost job or an illness requires a loan to cover short term emergency expenses.

A lot of times though, debt just creeps up on you without you realizing. If that's the case with you, then be careful. A debt consolidation loan might help you to pay off your existing debt, but that debt is just a symptom of a bigger problem. The bigger problem is your spending habits.

Debt invariably comes from spending more money than you earn. Unless you can fix that problem, you'll never be able to get out of debt.Let's say you take out a debt consolidation loan to pay off all your credit cards and other consumer loans. Great. Then let's say you proceed to find yourself tight for cash due to your new debt consolidation repayment requirements. All of a sudden, that paid off credit card starts looking pretty tempting.

If you go back to using your credit cards or other types of consumer loans to cover routine expenses, you'll be getting yourself into a hole that will be almost impossible to get back out of again. Not only will you have a big debt consolidation loan, you'll also have those same old credit cards to worry about again.

Treat The Cause

You need to get your spending habits in line with your income. Period. You need to stop thinking of credit cards or payment plans as viable options for buying things before you have the money to pay for them. If you can overcome that problem, then you might be a candidate for a debt consolidation loan.

Just remember, a debt consolidation loan is not a miracle cure. At the end of the day, you still need to get your cash flow under control. Otherwise you're just treating the symptom when you should be treating the cause.

Are You Saving Or Are You Just Saving Up?

Peter — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 23:30:00 +0000

One common regret of middle aged investors is that they did not start saving earlier. If only we weren't so careless with our money when we were younger!

Well I learned about saving fairly early on. The problem is, I wasn't really saving. I was just "saving up." Ever since I made that realization, I've started to grow my retirement nest egg and my savings are starting to accumulate nicely.

Saving Up

My early lessons in saving were always geared towards "saving up" for something that I wanted to buy. My parents often suggested this route as an alternative to them just giving me money. The idea was that I would put away a little bit at a time until I had "saved up" enough to buy the object of my desires.

I did this successfully several times. I distinctly remember saving up $100 to buy a Nintendo and a couple of games. Looking back, I'm not so sure that was money well spent! Except for the fact that I now have that experience under my belt and I've learned from it.

I knew I should be saving my money and I was. I'd save a little bit here and there and put it in the bank. However, well into my twenties, whenever I had "saved up" a certain amount of money, I started looking around for something to buy. I thought that money saved was for spending. I was "saving up" when I should have been saving.

Saving

Saving, as opposed to "saving up," is when you accumulate money and then you don't spend it. Instead, you invest it. Savings should be untouchable. Savings take advantage of investment growth and compounding. Savings work for you.

When you are saving, you are building up an asset. You are building your net worth. Your savings are a big part of the answer to the question: What do I have to show for all the hours I've spent working?

Dipping Into Savings

Don't do it! If you are ever short on cash, the last place you should look is at your savings. Savings are not for spending. If you start spending your savings, you'll be undoing all your past hard work. You'll be stunting your savings' ability to generate income and to grow.

Instead, you should have a separate account for your "saving up" activities or any emergency spending requirements.

Learning The Difference

Even though I started saving my money fairly early on, it wasn't until much later that I came to appreciate the difference between saving and simply "saving up."

How about you? Have you got the difference straight? When did you first realize the difference? Leave a comment if you'd like to share your experiences.

Boost Your Happiness Using This Simple Tactic

Peter — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:00:00 +0000

We all like to treat ourselves to something special every once in a while. Maybe it's a night out, an ice cream, some chocolate or a new video game. All these things can give us a dose of happiness. Today I'm looking at a trick that you can use to boost the amount of enjoyment you get from these sorts of simple pleasures ... it works, it's easy and it'll save you some money to boot!

My Simple Pleasure

One of the indulgences that I sometimes allow myself is one nice glass of wine or one cool beer after the day's work is done. I plunk myself down in a comfy chair in our sun room and enjoy a drink while watching the birds or squirrels mess around in our back yard. It's not much but I enjoy it.

Over the past few weeks I've been out of beer and the only wine left in the cellar was "good" wine that I thought would be best enjoyed with friends. For one reason or another, I just never got around to picking up any for myself. However, after seeing the weather forecast for this past weekend, I decided I'd scoot out and pick up a beverage or two.

After several weeks of absence, treating myself to a drink in the late afternoon after a day of working outside felt great. I really enjoyed it and I enjoyed it a lot more than usual.

The Tactic ...

Exercise personal restraint. These days, it really isn't difficult to have a stock of treats on hand all the time. Most things can be bought at the supermarket or a local shop. The problem is, if we always have our treats on hand, then they end up being staples instead of luxuries. They become so commonplace, that we start taking them for granted. We lose the enjoyment.

By missing out on my evening treat for a few weeks, I ended up with a much more enjoyable experience when I finally treated myself again. What had started to become commonplace, became special again.

So, restrain yourself a bit. Limit your treats to once per week or at least limit them to a bit less than what you're used to. It makes them much more enjoyable.

What types of treats do you have in your life that you could cut back on in order to get more enjoyment from them?

Business Use Of Home Tax Deductions

Peter — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We're right in the middle of tax season and what better time to talk about how to reduce your tax burden by operating a business out of your home? By using a portion of your home to run your business, you can start claiming a portion of your household expenses as business expenses. There are a few things you need to be aware of but in general it isn't that difficult to save a decent chunk at tax time.

Do I Qualify?

Before we go any further, we should take a quick look at what constitutes a home office. The Canada Revenue Agency has some strict rules on this subject so it is worthwhile understanding the requirements.

In order for your home office to qualify, at least one of the following must be true:

Your home is your principal place of business. This means that you must perform over 50% of your income producing activities from your home. Or ...
Your home office is used exclusively for your business and you use it on a "regular and continuous basis for meeting clients, customers or patients."

So if you only use your office for doing some paperwork once a week but you spend the rest of the week in an office downtown, then your home office would not qualify.

What Expenses Can I Claim?

The Canada Revenue Agency divides home based workers into three different groups:

Employees
Commissioned Sales Employees
Self-Employed Individuals

Depending on which classification you fit into, there are different deductions permitted. Here is a table showing a rough breakdown:

Expense	Employee	Commissioned Sales	Self-Employed
Rent	o	o	o
Mortgage Interest	x	x	o
Property Taxes	x	o	o
Utilities	o	o	o
Telephone & Internet	o	o	o
Home Insurance	x	o	o

In the table above, an "o" indicates that the expense can be deducted and an "x" indicates that it cannot be deducted.

Of course, you can't deduct your entire electricity bill. In fact, you can't deduct all of any of these expenses. This is because part of these expenses are personal and the personal part is not deductible.

The most straightforward method for determining what percentage of these expenses is business related is to calculate what percentage of your home's floor space is taken up by your home office. Measure the floor area of your office and divide that number by the total area of your house. In general, you can exclude common areas such as hallways and bathrooms from this calculation.

Once you've figured out the percentage of your home that is used for your business, you can multiply all applicable household expenses by this number. So, if you've calculated that your office occupies 8% of your home, then you can claim 8% of your gas bill, electricity bill, rent, etc. as business expenses.

One thing to note is that you can only claim these business-use-of-home expenses against business income. So, if you've got $1000 worth of business related home expenses, but your business only earned $500 for the year, then you can only claim up to $500 on your taxes. However, the remaining $500 not claimed can be carried forward to future years to reduce your taxable income down the road.

Mind The Books

As with any financial activities, it is a good idea to keep detailed records justifying these types of tax claims. Here are a few tips:

Document how you determined what percentage of your home is used for your business. Keep all the measurements that you used.
Keep copies of all your household bills showing the total expenses you incurred.
Keep a detailed record of all your business income and non-household business expenses as well.

At the end of the day, you need to be able to show an auditor exactly what you've done and it needs to be clear.

You can realize some significant savings on your tax bill if you track everything properly, so it is worth your while to take the time to do things the right way.

Avoid Future Disappointments: Practice Living The Life You Want To Live

Peter — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:00:00 +0000

If only we had more time, just imagine the things we could do! We'd spend all day in the garden, the workshop or the studio. We'd sit on the porch, read the paper and listen to the birds while sipping a hot cup of tea. Life would be great!

Or would it? Would we actually get around to doing all those things? Would we even enjoy them as much as we think we would? Maybe, but also, maybe not.

Give It A Trial Run

Along much the same lines as giving potential hobbies a trial run before breaking the bank on supplies, it can be useful to try potential retirement pastimes before you actually retire. Why? We're not always very good at predicting what will make us happy.

We might think we'd love gardening. Then, when we discover that it can be rather difficult to get things to grow when and where we want them, we might realize that we don't enjoy it as much as we thought we would. The same goes for other possible retirement activities: painting, writing, traveling, etc.

Of course you might think, as I sometimes do, why bother? After all, we'll be retired and we can do something else instead, right? Yes, that's true. Except that it can be a bit disappointing when you realize retirement isn't going to be what you were hoping it would be.

Dreams And Their Pedestals

When you are working at a job that you don't really enjoy, saving for a retirement that is many years away, our dreams about retirement can be a big source of inspiration. The problem is, as we dwell on our thoughts of a blissful life after work, we tend to build up our mental image of retired life into something that's a bit too idyllic. We end up putting our dreams on such high pedestals that there is very little chance of them meeting our expectations when we get there.

Besides, if we think we'll enjoy an activity upon retiring, then there is a good chance that we'll get some enjoyment out of dabbling with it today as well.

A Personal Example

I've got a picture in my head of me spending my retirement working on making a beautiful garden. Stone walls, walkways, decorative aqueducts, and of course a wide variety of trees and plants. Of course, I've only ever done a bit of gardening and landscaping in my life. So I'm not really sure what my dream life will end up being in reality.

So this year I'm going to give gardening a shot. There are a few small projects that I've got in mind for our little patch of land in the city. I probably won't end up with anything near what I'd like as a garden, but I plan to get a better appreciation of what will be involved. If nothing else, I should end up with a slightly more realistic retirement dream so that I won't be disappointed when I finally do retire.

If your retirement dream just happens to be something you can make a bit of money doing, and you've got some investment income already coming it, then you could jump right into partial retirement as well!

Dreaming is wonderful, but true joy is in the doing!

Surprisingly High Salaries

Peter — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:30:00 +0000

Did you know that the salaries of all Ontario public sector employees earning over $100,000 are disclosed to the general public? I only recently discovered this. After doing some quick searching, I also discovered a couple of other things that surprised me:

There are a lot of people receiving very high salaries paid using public funds
There are a few professions which are stereotypically underpaid, yet have a strong contingent of members each earning over $100,000 annually.

Let's take a closer look at what I discovered and what I think we should take away from it all.

Who's Included

Before going into the details of the actual salaries and the people earning them, we should take a closer look at who is included in this program. This is an excerpt from the Ontario Ministry of Finance website:

"The Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act (PSSDA) was passed in 1996 to make Ontario's broader public sector more open and accountable to taxpayers. The Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act requires organizations that receive public funding from the Government of Ontario to disclose annually the names, positions, salaries and total taxable benefits of employees paid $100,000 or more in a calendar year.

The Act covers the Government of Ontario, Crown Agencies, Municipalities, Hospitals, Boards of Public Health, School Boards, Universities, Colleges, Hydro One, Ontario Power Generation, and other public sector employers who receive a significant level of funding from the provincial government."

Basically, any organization that receives funding from the Government of Ontario is included in this disclosure. I think it is great that we've got this kind of openness about how public money is spent.

Interesting Findings

The CBC has a page on their website where you can search a database of all the people who were disclosed under this initiative. You can search by salary, surname, position, sector or individual employer.

I started by just doing a quick search of the whole database to see who was earning the biggest bucks. Here's what I got as a top 10 list:

Given Name	Surname	Position	Organization	Salary Paid	Taxable Benefits
PAUL	HAGGIS	President/Chief Executive Officer, OMERS	OMERS Administration Corporation	$2,240,007.70	$9,551.80
JAMES F	HANKINSON	President/Chief Executive Officer	Ontario Power Generation	$1,788,719.42	$7,572.46
PAUL	PUGH	Senior Vice President, Investments	OMERS Administration Corporation	$1,240,584.59	$4,682.19
PIERRE R	CHARLEBOIS	Executive Vice President/Chief Operating Officer	Ontario Power Generation	$1,031,720.14	$6,528.00
SELMA	LUSSENBURG	Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary	OMERS Administration Corporation	$950,358.43	$6,115.96
WILLIAM	ROBINSON	Senior Vice President, Nuclear Programs & Training	Ontario Power Generation	$842,909.48	$3,374.40
LAURA	FORMUSA	President/Chief Executive Officer	Hydro One	$794,299.31	$966.00
THOMAS	MITCHELL	Chief Nuclear Officer	Ontario Power Generation	$780,776.80	$2,832.00
ROBERT S	BELL	President/Chief Executive Officer	University Health Network	$771,630.69	$64,284.39
JAMES	TWOMEY	Executive Vice President, Fossil	Ontario Power Generation	$729,417.24	$6,092.28

As you can see, there are quite a few highly paid individuals in that list. I've only shown the first ten people but there are plenty of others as well. In fact, the person sitting in position 250 earns $347,000 annually.

By Profession

I also had a bit of fun searching by profession. This gave me some surprising results:

Nurses: I did a quick search for professions with the word "nurse" in them and I got 250 results (the maximum allowed per search).
Teachers: A search for professions with the word "teacher" yielded 87 results.
Cleaners: When searching for "clean" I didn't find any cleaners but I did find 12 cleaning supervisors.
Truck Drivers: There were even 3 truck drivers in the database as well.

All these people earned over $100,000 in 2007. That is a very respectable income and a lot more than I've ever been able to earn in one year!

Seeing these results was a bit of a surprise for me because I had always thought that these particular professions didn't pay very well. Maybe that is due to my personal ignorance or maybe it is due to a more widely held belief. Most likely it is a combination of both! Of course, I know not all nurses, teachers, truck drivers and cleaning supervisors earn that amount. But some do and I found that surprising.

Final Thoughts

If you are looking at these salaries and thinking that the people earning them don't deserve them or if you are feeling jealous, I think you've missed the point. The best way to look at this is to realize that there are incredible opportunities out there, no matter what you do, to start earning what you deserve. This is just a peek into the Ontario public service; there are way more jobs out there in the economy as a whole. We shouldn't resent other people who are fortunate enough to be able to exchange their time for the kind of money it's worth. We should strive to follow in their footsteps!

We've only got a finite amount of time in our lives so, when we exchange that time for money, we owe it to ourselves to get as much in return as possible. On the other side of the coin, when we get money in exchange for our time, we owe it to ourselves to use it wisely, since we can never get that time back again.