Steadying the ship - a perilous voyage across the financial middle

edinburgher

I have decided just to take a small amount of our usual pocket money this month, I have a surplus from surveys and the money will be better used towards our goals. I'll then pay myself back Sep-Dec. This will free up £200 but impair our cash flow by £50/mth for the rest of the year. As my AVCs should be back down by the end of August, we'll still be c. £120/mth better off after all these things are taken into account. Trying not to count my chickens too early, but very much looking forward to potential pay rise for Mrs E in November and a 6% salary increment in December/Jan for me.

£10.43 withdrawn from Prolific.

edinburgher

• Did a wee bit of tidying (pocket money shuffling and reducing overfunded categories) - £400 freed up for August.
• £30 paid into LISA.
• £45.68 nominal interest added to Extension and Future Projects pots. This probably seems like a silly wee thing, but I've been adding this interest without building it into the budget, feels good to honestly cover it. We'll get an influx once the regular savers mature, so not "losing" the money forever 😊
• £331 remaining, will likely split this between Extension pot and early retirement ISAs.

South_coast

6%! I've never had a payrise that big 😬!

edinburgher

Joys of local government increments SC, my current job pays 25% more than my previous job, but only if I get 4 year's experience at it.

greent

We don't get even close to that in education, Ed ☹️

rtandon27

Our standard July pay usually gets a rate of increase equal to inflation backdated to April. Currently it is on hold due to budget constraints as is our increase to pension payments - Grrrrrrr - messes up my forcasting greatly!

edinburgher

Pay increments based on experience are one of the best aspects (financially) to working in local government. They are separate to pay rises, and reflect the increased knowledge and experience of staff over time 👍 I know most employers don't offer the same, it's one of the "golden handcuffs" tying me to local government!

Friends in some of the more "flush" sectors such as IT and Finance get higher salaries in the door, but increments help to smooth the difference over time.

greent

When I worked for a bank we had annual rises on the anniversary of joining/ attaining a grade (once promoted) and also the annual across-the-board payrise- so 2 a year. Those were the days.... (although I do have a fairly nice final salary pension sitting there from my time back then)

South_coast

Aside from early jobs where everyone was paid an hourly rate, I have only ever known the smoke-and-mirrors system. I know what my team earns (though only because I recruited them!), but not the first clue about anyone else around the business. We have job titles, but nothing to say how X in one department may compare to Y in another. There is a commitment to an annual salary review, but nothing to say it will actually result in an increase. I don't recall ever getting more than about 3% a year (being promoted or going somewhere else are the only way to get a decent jump), and I said to BF a while ago that I don't think I've ever had a pay rise letter that didn't reference difficult trading conditions - even when things were going great 🤦‍♀️!

I'm not sure how I would feel about more transparency/clarity - I think it might freak me out after so long without it 😅!

edinburgher

@South_coast Mrs E has a job that is a lot like that. Ironically, she thinks that my system is strange, in that we all know each others grade and have a built-in understanding of the relative level of task complexity and seniority of staff across different services etc. Despite the odd rude "gradeist" sod, I find it to be a remarkably straightforward way of navigating an environment (social work adjacent) in which people do very different things 🙂