What it costs you to hold down your job

Nugget

Nugget

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What it costs you to hold down your job http://www.news.com.au/money/cost-o...ld-down-your-job/story-fnagkbpv-1226658614028

WE all work hard for our money. But have you ever stopped to think about what it costs you to hold down your job?

What do you spend on your commute, clothing, food and child care? In the end it all adds up, and it's probably a much bigger chunk of your take-home pay than you realise.
Social researcher Mark McCrindle said most people don't factor in how much money they spend on their job.
"Because life blurs and we pay for the rates and the water bill and the childcare fee or the weekly bus ticket, we actually are blurring what's for work and what's for personal life. We don't realise until we sit down and segment it that these are extra costs purely because we are working," Mr McCrindle said.

What it costs a single professional

Ben, 22, works in IT and earns $1000 a week after tax. He commutes 55km from the northern suburbs of Brisbane to the city each day. Each week his petrol costs $150 and parking in the city costs $90 a week.
He also spends $30 on public transport to move around the city for work. Half of his $100 phone bill is spent making work calls and sending work emails. He has to wear a suit to work, and the dry cleaning costs him $15 a week. He buys his lunch and two chai lattes every day, which costs him $22 a day or $110 a week.
All up, he spends $445, or almost half his take-home pay holding down his job.
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One day I was thinking to myself "where is all the extra money coming from?" then I realised, the amount of moolah I was saving by commuting to work on my pushy was off the hook.
 
All that pales into insignificance when you consider the amount of time and money most people spend on education to get a qualification/profession and then further education to maintain qualifications etc.
 
The weekly grocery bill is probably our second largest weekly expense after the mortgage.

To be honest i don't know where $300 a week goes. We do eat seafood twice a week which is $50 and stock up on meat every now and then. Dairy also costs a lot more lately i've noticed especially cheese and yoghurt.

Very little junk, hardly any takeaways. Usually the staples and baby stuff.

Still after a week, the fridge is bare again.
 
lucky the poor bugga hasn't had any kids yet or he would have nothing except debt.
 
hotel 46 said:
....however watch the boyfriends, they can eat the whole fridge before they even try to take a bite out of your sweetest :o
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:lol:
Mine isn't even a teenager yet, and the boys are already sniffing around and eating the fridge. :o
 
give him a warning and with a bit of luck he might not come back
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My brother once said to a young guy " whatever you do to my daughter i will do to you " he reckons it was the last time he seen him :lol:
 
hotel 46 said:
wait until the bub becomes a teenager, they can clean out a fridge in a day :)
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My oldest boy is years from being a teenager but eats twice as much as an adult. I swear his favorite words are "I'm hungry".
 
willrocks said:
hotel 46 said:
wait until the bub becomes a teenager, they can clean out a fridge in a day :)
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My oldest boy is years from being a teenager but eats twice as much as an adult. I swear his favorite words are "I'm hungry".
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My kids have "left" home. It used to be "I'm hungry", but that was replaced with "I need fuel." Poor old bastard that runs the local servo was whinging that our fuel account is down about 70% since they left town. :lol:
 
Eureka Moments said:
rbaggio said:
He buys his lunch and two chai lattes every day, which costs him $22 a day or $110 a week.
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:/
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Buy a thermos.

Tin of International Roast will last yonks.

Just saved over $5500 a year. :D
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100 tea bags = 100 cups of tea. $3-4.00 buying Bushels or Nerada or whatever is on special, packet brought from home. 200ml milk at the 7/11 is $1, lasts me a week, usually. And I can usually find someone to serve a cup to who qualifies me making the milk a tax deduction.

I compare that to $8 a day for two sugar and cinnamon drinks to make me fat :o

Petrol though. Yeah, that gets me.
 
AngloSaxon said:
Eureka Moments said:
rbaggio said:
:/
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Buy a thermos.

Tin of International Roast will last yonks.

Just saved over $5500 a year. :D
Click to expand...

100 tea bags = 100 cups of tea. $3-4.00 buying Bushels or Nerada or whatever is on special, packet brought from home. 200ml milk at the 7/11 is $1, lasts me a week, usually. And I can usually find someone to serve a cup to who qualifies me making the milk a tax deduction.

I compare that to $8 a day for two sugar and cinnamon drinks to make me fat :o

Petrol though. Yeah, that gets me.
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Public transport would surly be cheaper
 
I literally have the train station within 100m of my home, and work. Weekly ticket costs $40. This is usually my total weekly travel cost.

Others at work pay $200 per month in parking fees + petrol + maintenance + depreciation + rego ....

My car is registered in the mother-in-law's name. She is a pensioner. Rego fees $0.

I can't imagine how stressful it would be to drive for hours each week, and pay $150+ per week to maintain and park a car.
 
DanielM said:
Public transport would surly be cheaper
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Because I recently had the joy of trawling through the ACT Budget papers, here's a few facts of the last full financial year for the ACT public transport system:
- Fare revenues were just 20.25% of the actual operating cost. (That is, for every $1 of ticket revenue, it actually cost $5 to operate.)
- New capital expenditures on buses, plant & equipment were 22.4% of revenue (with projected new capital expenditures over the next four years being a broadly similar ratio - hence not just a once off upgrade etc)

As a daily user of the public transport my out of packet fares are ~$80/month (varies slightly depending on how many off-peak vs peak trips but has a monthly cap).

Real operating cost = $400/month.
Approximate total cost = $490/month.

The total cost is what we all pay - including Nugget on his bike (thanks for the subsidy Nugg) - but paid indirectly through our taxes/rates. We pay this so that we can benefit from a less convenient, less pleasant and (in my case at least) a more time consuming trip scented with the awesome smells and viruses of unwashed, diseased masses crammed into a metal box that is far less safe in the event of a crash. Yay. The story of public transport in Australia is way too overhyped.

BTW Although the absolute dollar story varies a bit by capital city, the basic rule of thumb that public transport direct fares only recover 18-25% of the actual operating cost is apparently pretty normal.

Edit: Also there was about $50/adult in direct capital expenditure on things not owned by the public transport operator like installing dedicated bus lanes, bus shelters, access routes etc that was identified as being solely for the purpose of public transport.
 
Car prk operators only yield a frac as uncle gobermient takes a big chuck through the levy. Moreover, to those people who have a permanent prking bay in the city, generally their company pay for it.
 
bordsilver said:
New capital expenditures on buses, plant & equipment were 22.4% of revenue (with projected new capital expenditures over the next four years being a broadly similar ratio - hence not just a once off upgrade etc)

BTW Although the absolute dollar story varies a bit by capital city, the basic rule of thumb that public transport direct fares only recover 18-25% of the actual operating cost is apparently pretty normal.
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So why employ the ticket inspecting goons? Why not make it free.
 
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