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Archive for May, 2017

Is it still my 2nd job if it pays more than my primary job?

May 18th, 2017 at 09:04 pm

I've been referring to my urgent care position as my 2nd job. It's relatively new as I've only been there a year and I've been in my practice for 17 years so I consider that my primary job.

However, since going part time at urgent care and reducing my hours at the office in February, the numbers have shifted. I anticipate that for 2017, about 58% of my income will come from the "2nd job" and only 42% from the "primary job".

So would you still call it your 2nd job if it provides the majority of your income? In terms of hours worked, the jobs are pretty even so I can't use that criteria.

Or would you just drop the terms all together simply and say you have 2 part time jobs?

Very unexpected bonus at work!

May 10th, 2017 at 12:13 am

One of the things that I became eligible for when I became part time at the urgent care job at the end of February is a quarterly incentive program. I actually didn't even learn about that until after I had already started and got an email that talked about it.

I had absolutely no idea how much this incentive would be and it isn't really something I was going to ask about. I figured whatever I get is a bonus and money I didn't already have. I also didn't know if I'd be in the incentive pool for the first quarter since I didn't become part time until February 26, 2/3 of the way through the quarter.

Anyway, as the title of this post says, I was eligible for the first quarter. What I still don't know is if the amount I received was prorated for the amount of time I was part time. I will ask that question the next time I speak to the director.

Paychecks came out today and I was very pleasantly surprised to see that in addition to my regular paycheck, there was a second check for this bonus in the amount of $2,069! I figured the bonus might be a couple hundred dollars at best so getting ten times that much was sweet. If that's what I can expect every 3 months, that's a huge perk that I didn't know about. This job gets better every day.

Financial update - new income and such

May 6th, 2017 at 01:34 am

I've started to write a post a few times and just never actually published it.

So as of February 26, I am working 2 part time jobs. I am 21.5 hours/week at my private practice and 20 hours/week at the urgent care center. That change came with a substantial pay raise. It's impossible to know exactly how much more I'll earn this year partly because of how I'm paid at the practice and partly because I can still pick up per diem shifts at urgent care (and I already have several times and have more scheduled).

The best estimate right now based on YTD numbers is that I'll earn at least $34,000 more in 2017 than I did in 2016 which is HUGE. All of that additional income is attributable to the urgent care job so 10% goes to the 401k. After taxes and health insurance deductions, that should leave me about $23,000 extra in take home pay. Add to that the fact that our new health insurance is saving us about $5,400 this year and by 12/31/16, we should end up over $28,000 ahead of last year, or more than $2,300/month.

At first, I wasn't really seeing the impact of that extra income but it coincided with some big expenses, especially planning and paying for summer vacation plans (Visa bill was nearly $5,000 last month).

However, in mid-April I was able to make a transfer of $2,000 from checking to savings. And today, just over 3 weeks later, I was able to transfer another $2,000 to savings. If I can actually manage to do that every month, that would be fantastic.

Where will that extra money go? At least for the next year or so, it will go to cover college costs for our daughter. She's going into her senior year so the end is near. We'll have some loans to pay off but we already pay $1,000/month on the loan and if we can keep saving an additional $2,000/month, we should be able to clean it all up pretty quickly.

I can't wait until college is behind us and that $3,000/month (actually $3,300 counting the 529 contribution that will go away soon) can start going to beef up our savings for retirement and a possible relocation.

My income this year will be the most we've ever earned and I'm still adjusting to the higher figure especially since it jumped up so quickly. Certainly not a bad problem to have.