How to calculate what overtime is worth to you?

Alternatively, find two of your payslips which are close but not identical. What is the difference between them in 1) hours and 2) money?

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

So how would you calculate it now then?

Well first of all you'd need to find out if your employer deducts a pension contribution from you from overtime and bonus payments...many employers don't. I'm salaried, with an annual (variable) bonus, and my employer does not automatically take a DC pension contribution from the bonus.

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

But yes our pension contributions are based on the gross pay we earn in the month i would imagine.

but if you want anything like an accurate answer, you need to stop imagining and find out ...

There are various ways in which SA pension contributions can be calculated. We use a fixed % of the monthly gross salary, but when we were setting up our scheme (small employer so one of the last to do so) there were other options: we could have opted for a slightly different % of the regular monthly salary ignoring any additional payments.

So our pensions work a bit like student loans: if someone gets an additional payment or overtime, then they pay more into their pension and - if they have one - also into their student loan. If we'd set the scheme up slightly differently, their pension payments would always be the same, but if they earned more in one month then they'd pay more into their SL.

If you don't want to give any specific numbers I suggest you take your pay slips since April (if your pay and tax haven't changed since then) and plot on a graph hours and pay in pocket. If they lie on a straight line (it will not go through zero) your calculation is fairly easy to do - pick two and divide their difference in money by the difference in hours. Any months where you had weeks in which you did not work 40 hours - such as holidays - may not be on the line.

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

Long shot since i guess most will want things on the open forum but is there any of you reading this who's confident in knowing how pension contributions are calculated and think they could maybe shed light on the situation if i gave them real figures (via private message)?

Not confident, but who's your pension with? That's the first step. Next step, where's your enrolment letter? That should have some information in it.

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

Story short when i've worked X hours (a lot) i've contributed a certain amount but when i worked Y hours in another month (less) i contributed less than in the X-hours month for some reason.

That suggests to me that your pension contributions are based on your gross salary for the month. You're paid more gross, you make higher pension contributions. Does your employer also make higher pension contributions? That's another indication.

It ought to be possible to work out what % contributions you're making and see if that's consistent. I'm not great at calculating %es, I know you divide one by the other and multiply by 100 or something like that, but I never know which way round it is. I'm sure google would tell you how to do this ...