Prepping for a Raise and the Holy Grail of nonprofit salaries

oh dear. two months since I've last checked in.

Well, things have been going great!

News item #1--I am now officially Dr. Leadfoot and will only respond when addressed as such. Dissertation-free life=amazing.

News #2--FT work has been busy and draining but rewarding. I feel like I'm learning alot and finally "part of the team" and all that rah-rah. Feeling like I'm an important cog in the machine is good for personal morale but also good for...

News #3--asking for a serious raise next week. Cuz I've done my research and have discovered/confirmed/come to grips with the fact that I am severely underpaid. Like at least $15,000/year under paid. More like $20,000 under paid.

Two colleagues of mine know exactly how much I am paid (cuz I've told them) and they have both impressed on me that I am essentially giving away my labor. I knew that, but then this past week I found the holy grail of salary comparisons and really learned how underpaid I was.

Let me back-up. All the job hunting books say to do as much scouting as you can of other employers in your area to get a sense of salary range. This is fine if you are looking for a job that has very public records, like a university. This is not fine if you are looking for a job in the non-profit world. Ever since I became interested in this job, I have struggled to figure out how much I should make. The one time I broached the raise issue with my Boss and used comparable positions at a nearby university to talk about salary, she shut me down immediately with all sorts of reasons why comparing nonprofits to education centers doesn't work.

I was stymied until this week. All the job ads I've seen for non-profits (and really, pretty much all jobs that aren't edu- or gov-related) say "compensation based on experience" or something equally loosey-goosey and unhelpful. But this week I found Holy Grail of Non-Profit Salary Comparisons. Oh Guidestar.org, how I love thee.

See all non-profits have to file tax returns, called 990s. And while some organizations are on the up-'n-up and post their 990s on their own websites, plenty of organizations aren't as forthcoming. But Guidestar has access to all these 990s (or at least the last 3 years) and after you register for free, you too can see the original 990s.

This is how I figured out exactly what peer organizations in my state were paying employees who hold a similar position to mine. Or at least what they were paid in 2007. In 2007, organizations had to report exact salaries for employees making more than $50,000/year. In 2008 and 2009, that threshold was raised to employees making more than $100,000. But some organizations still report their lower paid employees and all have to report what their executive directors make.

This is all to say that minimally I should be making ~$54,000/year or more, especially now that I have the PhD in hand. Not the $37,500 I currently have coming in.

This inappropriately low salary thing really irks me--especially since I've asked about a raise twice before: once when I went full time from part time and once when I went from contractor to part time employee. Granted, these were rather weak attempts, but I am holding my ground on this and think I have a pretty solid case. I'm ready to negotiate hard (out of irritation, being educated, and having a legit case). I'm also beginning to prep myself to walk away from this job completely if necessary. Who knew I'd be restarting job feeds and bookmarking jobboards so soon?

I'll skip over all the gory details, but suffice to say--I've taken on a lot of unnecessary and unrelated (to my stated job) responsibilities and have proven my worth. If I don't receive an appropriate salary adjustment very soon, I'm back to hitting the pavement. And yes, if necessary, this will be a not-so-veiled threat during negotiations.

Hopefully I won't have to get nasty, and I really need to practice my "nice ask" so I don't start out too aggressive. That's the plan for this weekend.

Personal Finances (cuz I finally have some)

For the past four weeks I have been obsessed with reading "personal finance" books. Honey finds this alternately amusing and annoying.

But as I explained to him, I'm making more money than I ever have in my life (how sad) and so I want to "maximize my dollar" and become a "millionaire before 30" and all the other mantras endemic in the personal finance lit.

But seriously, actually, I do want to be smart with the money I'm making and the money I owe. Not "smart" as in investing in Apple stocks or whatever, but smart as in "how do I get out of student loan and credit card debt, and buy a car, and take a Mediterranean cruise, as soon as possible?" (okay the cruise actually isn't on my top 10 list... for the moment.) Also I am acutely aware that I am coming late to the game of grown-up wages and have a lot of catching up to do in terms of life stuff like: buying a house eventually, actually having savings, thinking about retirement, etc.

Did I mention that I did my taxes last weekend and owe $987 federal and $102 state on the $8109 that I earned as a third party contractor? Yeah, I don't ever want to get burned like that again (though I do still believe I "needed" to take the contracting designation to get my foot in the door).

In my skimmings from the last month I've learned a few things.

1. There's no real quick way to make money. This was a total bummer to learn.

2. There are a lot of huckster authors who tell you otherwise. (Most egregious example to date: this book which essentially counsels readers to take out as many mortgages as they need to buy a house and then flip houses and borrow against the houses and after two or three years you will be a millionaire. Right.)

4. There are lots of ways to save money, but they aren't "real" revenue streams as much as tax deductions, tweaks to insurance policies, etc.

3. All the legit books have pretty much the same advice. A) figure out your budget B) pay off debt C) set up retirement arrangements asap D) save a lot of money E) get yourself a will, power of attorney, etc.

For the past month weeks I've been tracking every dollar I spend. I knew what all my regular bills are, but I didn't have a solid handle on how much I spend at the grocery store and at restaurants. I had a ballpark figure, but I have been surprised to discover that it is a tad lower than I thought.

This tracking also revealed that I didn't really know how much I spend on "other" things. This month "other" has included several co-pays for various doctors and a large amount of home furnishing stuff. (Who knew? but seriously, it was time to unpack my moving boxes. From July.) Looking are previous bank statements and credit card statements, this "other" category seems to be my money pit. It's not that I'm extravagant--I would argue that all the clothes that I bought in the summer were necessary for my new job, and my conference trips in the fall were necessary for professional development. But it is interesting to see that each month there are (sometimes large) one-off expenses that I wasn't considering when I began figuring out my finances.

On a semi-related note, I got my year end summary from my credit card recently and was extremely (smugly, even?) validated to figure out that for all the car renting I did last year, it was still cheaper than owning a car. [I don't own a car and maintained a long distance relationship for half of last year. After Honey and I moved in together we were still doing a lot of renting for various family and friends events.]

So here are my favorite books to date. Suze Orman's Young, Fabulous and Broke book and her Women and Money book. (Caveat, do not, for the love of all things sane, actually try to watch her on Oprah or her own show. In person she is kinda obnoxious. I discovered this after I had pledged my undying love to her and started e-stalking her. It was kinda a let down.) I like the YF&B book because it is very much targeted for where I am currently. The Women and Money book is good because it has very detailed lists of how to accomplish certain objectives. The first three or four chapters of W&M are blahblah (a lot about how women are emotional with money and how they need to break free of depending on someone else to handle their money, etc.). It's really the step-by-step lists in the final chapter that I found most helpful.

Jane Bryant Quinn has a massive tome (1264 pages!) which gives the low down on pretty much everything you want to know. I gathered some good nuggets, but alot of it is general reference more than process. It explains alot of the cogs behind the process, which is great to know, but there are less "game plans" in this book. So if I want to know more about money markets, I'll probably start with Jane Bryant Quinn, but follow Suze's steps.

There are a lot of bad books out there--condescending ("Ladies, say shoo to Jimmy Choo!"), harebrained ("Clip coupons and make $30,000 this year!"), unhelpful ("Psychological Urges of Spending"). Need I go on?

I think I've come to the end of the line on "personal finances" which I'm sure makes Honey extremely relieved. But this has been an extremely valuable month--I feel like I totally "get it" and have a plan. Thank you public library.

Happy Birthday On the Hunt!

Happy birthday to On the Hunt!

This blog has been kicking it for 364 days. And the only reason I won't be posting on the real anniversary date is because I have a work event tomorrow evening and will be utterly exhausted by the time I get home. Whodathunk I'd be whining about work dinners a year ago? (insert happy dance)

Here's a quick list of highlights from the last year:

4 fields researched: Academic administration, entrepreneur, federal employee, private sector

3 jobs applied for: short term folklorist gig, research policy center, PMF.

2 different interviews types experienced: informational interview, job interview.

1 job landed: research policy center.

3 different statuses within same workplace: part time contractor, part time employee, full time employee.

0 raises.

2 Guest blogs: KSAs and networking.

7 book reviews of job hunting, professionalization, personal finance books.

1 new set of skills learned.

2 “hello real world” money moments: student loans, retirement.

What's on deck for this coming year? I have a feeling a lot more about feeling my way through the workplace. How much "take home" work is too much? Raise conversation redux. How do I financially become an upstanding adult? Hopefully there will be no entries on workplace conflict, unemployment, or involuntary job hunting from scratch.

Happy hunting my friends, and keep reading!

Hello Full Time, I've Heard So Much About You

Oh dear, it has happened again--a lapsed blog.

Well, to catch you up. Remember back in mid-January when I mentioned the departure of a colleague and a verbal offer to go full time? It's a done deal. Actually, it has been since February 1st.

Woohoo! As exciting this is, I must admit, full time is draining. Maybe my exhaustion is exacerbated by this lovely midwestern weather we've been getting lately (but no blizzards yet where I live [sad face]), but I got to tell say, full time wipes me out. Before I was working about 3.5 days a week, with the other time spent "revising" my dissertation and doing life stuff. Losing my day home shouldn't be a big deal, but man.

Anyway, my job gets cooler and cooler by the day. In the conversations leading up to my Letter of Agreement for FT, Boss and I had several very productive chats about what I wanted to be doing, what she was thinking for me, etc.

* I have found one of the major differences between working as a graduate employee/student and a "real person" is that I am expected to take initiative. Especially when it comes to charting my place in the workplace. I am still struggling with "stepping up" and not just waiting for Boss to give me assignments.

For example, from our conversations re: FT, my boss told me about some ideas she had for me. But these were big ideas, like "we should be doing more in local communities." What does that mean in real, implementable terms? This has been my job to figure out. So after a bunch of conversations with co-workers and some work at home (cringe), I am now developing a brand new direction for my workplace which I will be in charge of--writing the grants, developing the programs, etc. It's totally scary, because if this doesn't work, it's on me. But if this does pan out, it will be majorly cool.

So with my transition to full time and leading this new direction, I now have a new title! "Director of Outreach." Cha ching!

The one thing that did not come with the transition is a raise. I pushed, but not very hard. I did get Boss to commit to reopening the raise conversation in 3 months (I even said, "okay, I'll put it on the calendar." She did not like that). I didn't pursue the raise too much because I'm taking on a lot of new duties and ending a lot of former ones. I felt that I didn't have much of a basis to ask for more money on work I hadn't even started. In 3-6 months I will have lots of new work documented (all of it demonstrating my superior abilities, of course) and then I feel like I'll be in a better position to negotiate several things--a raise, the workplace paying my phone bill, the ability to work at home as desired.

So for now I'm making $37,500, before taxes, plus paying 15% of my medical, eye, dental and life insurance. No retirement plan, but I am now salaried which means I get a consistent paycheck every two weeks (no more of this tracking my hours nonsense, yay!).

I put my salary and benefits out there because I think it is important for novice workers, especially women, to know what kinds of salaries/wages we're making. One of the books I read this summer makes a compelling argument that the decorum around not talking earnings consistently leads to women being underpaid. FYI: I am totally underpaid right now considering my level of education, my job duties, and my workplace performance so far. Based on the salaries similarly positioned employees at the nearby University earn, a fairer income for me would be more like $45,000. And this is low. In five years, I think it should be more like $60,000. But I realize this is all going to take time.

So hello new job! The money thing will always be a sticking point, but besides that, everything is awesome!

Planning the Paycheck: Financial Planning and Retirement

First off, two rounds of applause are in order; I just heard that two friends of mine are employed! In NYC no less! Peeps, take an extra lap around the victory track, you deserve it.

This kind of news is awesome awesome awesome. Yay!

Learning about two more PhDers moving into the working world doesn't make me feel so off topic with this post. Cuz today I'm talking about money and retirement funds.

It's totally absurd to think about retirement, I know. Trust me, I know. Let me explain why I'm thinking about retirement, as I imagine many Leadfoot readers are starting or will be starting from the same place as I am.

As you may remember, I traded in my contractor status and became a part time employee January 1. With the sudden departure of a colleague and a verbal offer to go full time as early as February 1, I've finally "made it".

Time to be an adult.

In other words, I'm still digging my way out of credit card debt. I started paying my student loans in December. I don't have retirement benefits at my job. I want to buy a car soon.

I had no idea what to pay off/buy first.

Laugh if you want but Suze Orman is my new BFF.

Several years ago I somehow got a hold of her Women and Money book as a free PDF. Last week I finally pulled up the file and read the book. I wanted to know if I should pay off my credit card debt first or pay off the plastic and save for the car concurrently. And what about retirement or something like that...?

That book opened up a whole world of horrors, but luckily also suggestions for redemption. After gathering and skimming books from the library's "personal finance" section and some serious internet research, I feel like my finances are on track.

If you are only going to read one personal finance book, I recommend Orman's The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke. I hate buying books, especially when they are readily available at the library. I bought this book.

Lessons learned from Orman and co.

1. Pay off credit card debt (and other debts we have with friends, family, etc). Do this as soon as possible. Orman says even if we have to drain savings accounts, pay off the plastic. The interest rates are always higher than savings rates.

2. Get moving on retirement accounts asap. I was swayed by all the math. The more time we have to let money compound interest, the more money we have at the end. (More on retirement stuff below.)

3. Establish a security fund that has 3-6 months living expenses in it. This is going to take me a while to build up, but I plan to use this savings account as both my back-up fund in case I need $1000 fast for a major car repair and as the holding tank in case I lose my job or something horrible. We are supposed to replace money we take out as quickly as possible--makes sense since crises seem to have a way of following one another.

So that retirement thing. I had no idea what I was getting into when I started reading about 401(k)s and RothIRAs and other crazy.

Here's the take aways. Now mind you I'm no finance planner, I'm just reporting on what I think I learned about retirement planning. It could be wrong so go check out some books if you want more info.

1. Employers provide 401(k)s. If you are lucky enough to work somewhere where they have them, pay into the 401(k) the maximum you can per year. Because every cent you put in, your employer matches a percentage. That blows my mind. Suze Orman says even if you are up to your eyeballs in credit card debt, contribute the max to your 401(k) because it's like your employer is giving free money. Mind still being blown.

2. If you're like me and you don't have a 401(k) option, you have to plan your own retirement. Most books recommend using a RothIRA account and doing stock market investments. You'll have to read Suze for all the gory details about why tax wise it makes sense to use a RothIRA instead of a traditional IRA.

3. Instead of contributing money before taxes (as you do with a 401(k) or traditional IRA), we put money into the RothIRA after taxes. I.e. after the paycheck hits our bank accounts. But because we put in money after taxes, when it comes time to withdraw money from the RothIRA in 40 years, there are no taxes then! (I think 401(k) have a minimum 10%-20% tax penalty whenever you finally start pulling the money).

3. Because there are no taxes at the end when the pot is substantially larger, we can only contribute up to $5,000 to our RothIRA account in 2011. We can have several RothIRA accounts, but they can only total $5,000/year. (Why you would have more than one RothIRA is unclear to me since individuals set them up. update: you can have several IRAs [of any variety] but all IRAs together can only total $5,000.)

4. We open up RothIRA accounts at mutual fund companies or stock brokerages. Banks also offer RothIRAs, but the returns aren't great since banks will likely put the money into lower interest things like CDs.

5. As may be obvious from point #4, RothIRA is more of a way to designate how money is taxed than anything else; our RothIRA account contributions are still going onto the stock market if the account is at a mutual fund company or stock brokerage. So if you are wary about the stock market, explore doing an RothIRA through a bank.

6. I assume we are supposed to do more than just set up a RothIRA account for retirement. However, my brain is on overload and my budget pretty much at zero, so other ways to "invest for the future" will have to wait.

So where does this leave us? Well, for me I found this "mutual funds for beginners" article very useful for understanding what I was getting into. This article comparing two major mutual fund companies along with recommendations from the first article helped me decide to go with Vanguard's Star Fund for now and once I hit the minimum for a targeted date fund ($3,000), I'll switch over to that. Basically I want to do this IRA legwork and research once and so I've decided Vanguard is the one for me based on the articles above and other reviews and information (for example, I like that Vanguard is client-owned).

After my next pay check (and hopefully a concrete discussion about moving to FT), I plan to use some of that paycheck, basically drain my savings and open the Star Fund. For now I plan to contribute $100/month, but hope I can bump that up sooner.

Once I get the RothIRA set up with monthly $100 payments, I will be on a serious mission to pay off my credit card. I'm aiming to have that done by May 1. Save up $1,500 for security fund (with the understanding that I need to make that more like $3,000-$5,000). Once I have the credit card paid and $1,500 in the bank, then I plan to save another $2,000 for a car down payment.

Update 1/22/11: After good convo with Honey where Honey slowed me down a little and brought me back from finance lala-land, I'm now keeping my savings in the bank and instead saving up for the RothIRA initial deposit, with the idea that 4-6 months won't make a huge difference in the long run for the IRA and having security is better than hoping nothing happens. The plan now is to 1) pay off plastic, 2) save for Vanguard minimum, 3) save a little more so the security cushion is a bit bigger, 4) then aim for the car down payments. As it is, I transferred my savings account to another bank with a much better interest rate (can you believe my previous bank was paying 0.01% on savings?????) Thank you Suze Orman for making me proactive.

I am sure this post glazed over everyone, but as I've said before, this blog is a place for me to keep track of job-related information and if other folks benefit from it, then awesome.

To be honest I never thought I'd be to the point where I was thinking about retirement and seeing the end of credit card debt. But having a game plan makes life so much easier!

More exciting blog next time, I promise.

Farewell Colleague, Hello Full Time

Today has been quite the day.

1) my work business cards finally arrived. It's so freaking awesome to see my name on something else besides a university business card. Plus trading "graduate student" for "grants and select projects coordinator" is way cool. [for inquiring minds, I did not include my academic letters on the card--no other MA+ holder in the office uses them and in my former job at an academic press, my boss there said that including academic credentials is pretentious. Not that she was the end all be all, but I figure I'd play it safe.]

2) Associate Director announced she is leaving in 2 weeks!

3) Boss pulled me aside after announcement and asked me how soon I can go full time.

Booyah!

I think departure of Associate Director has thrown my Boss for a major loop. It will be throwing all of us for a serious headtrip. Associate Director is super competent, seemingly does the job of three people and basically keeps our office from going completely off the rails.

When Boss pulled me aside (literally, it was a 2 minute conversation between meetings), she said they weren't planning on hiring a new person to replace AD, but that her tasks would be distributed among the rest of us. So, uh, I can go Full Time right?

Boss said that with me going FT I'd do a lot of the planning for this mega event in summer and take on some of Associate Director's other jobs. Plus, "now that you'll be fully here, I have several projects in mind for you, Leadfoot".

Boss was quite regretful that I wasn't going to start FT for another week or so (she has to look at our budget and do some other administrative stuff). Waiting a few weeks is all good--I still have to finish my dissertation revisions. Jeez oh jeez.

So I have a verbal offer for FT and a meeting scheduled for next week to discuss my transition to FT and my new additional duties.

Am still debating whether to bring up the salary bump or to wait a few months in my new role. I've been reading a bunch of personal finance books lately (more on that in another post) and my new BFF Suze Orman (yes that blond chick. don't laugh) counsels "putting in your time" and earning your raise by demonstrating your strong work ethic, etc. etc.

I'm not so sure if Suze is right on this, but her comments have made me pause--am I in a better position to negotiate a salary raise now or after a few months on the job....?

Fingers crossed for written offer next week, yippee!

Official (part-time) Employee, yay!

In the flurry of holidays and dissertation defending and a smattering of other things, I have neglected to update you dear readers of 2010's #1 awesomeness: I got a job!

Okay, I mean I already had at a job. But I was a 3rd party contractor (i.e. no benefits, no unemployment taxes, no job security). Starting January 1, 2011 I became a part time employee!

I'm still working 25-30 hours a week. But on those other 10-15 hours I can do as many risky, life-endangering things as I want because I have awesome adult health insurance. Which even includes life insurance (!). Farewell craptastic student insurance.

The ball started rolling back at the end of November after several weeks of heavy hinting on my part that I needed more from them. Boss and I had a very nice lunch where she told me that they liked my work and wanted to keep me around.

A week or so after our lunch, Boss, Associate Director (who does many things, including HR stuff), and I had a meeting regarding my transition from contractor to employee.

I pushed again on the part time employment, but they explained that they needed some grants to "firm up" before they could offer FT. In response, I told them I was going to have to get another PT job to supplement my job there, so my schedule wasn't going to be as flexible as before. This caught their attention and they pretty much begged me to keep my schedule open through January and that we would try to revisit my hours/wk in February.

In the same conversation I asked if my salary was going to increase because it was bit low. My boss did not like that comment and even when I explained that grant writers and PhD social science researchers at the nearby R-1 university make $4/hour more than me, she dismissed it with "well, we're a non-profit! You can't expect us to pay the same wages as R-1 University!"

Sigh. I mentioned my current wage to my career services counselor lately and she agreed that they were low. So at least I've begun the wage conversation and put Job on notice that I'll be bringing it up again.

But in any case, yay employee status!!!!! The last 10 hours/week are peanuts and I'll get there soon enough.

Am still very excited about this transition. I'm doing the same thing as before, but the change in status has been a big deal for me, and for at least one colleague. I feel like I can whole-heartedly participate in organizational planning conversations and think of myself as contributing in long-term ways. The one colleague I mentioned was awesome before, but now she's even awesomer and we're working together a lot to develop research projects that I'd be doing. So cool.

So there you have it. In just over 5 months I got a job and went from contractor to employee. But that issue of salary is going to keep me hunting, so this blog isn't ending any time soon.