How are people paying for their lifestyle

Fly,

No offence, but if you think things are tight on 90k gross with that mortgage then you are living in cloud cuckoo land.
 
Assuming that you are married and each is earning €45K then your monthly take home ignoring pension contributions should be about €5.8K. €2.3K is going on mortgage, childcare and car loan leaving about €3.5K for everything else. Your pension contributions will presumably attract full tax/PRSI relief. How on earth are you finding it tight!? There must be some missing or erroneous information here even allowing for my assumptions while calculating things roughly?!
 
Willesden said:
"How is everybody else surviving? "

Joint income: €60k/year
Click to expand...
Which should be about €4K net per month.
no mortgage, but living in a small apartment in a good-ish area in Dublin
Click to expand...
What rent?
creche fees: €1500/month
Click to expand...
So that leaves c. €2.5K for rent and all other expenses?
have one, loan-free car, which we bought new a few years ago[/quote]
What is the cost of servicing the loan?
only one of us has pension
Click to expand...
What contributions?
€20k savings
no credit card, loans r borrowings
rarely go out, 1 budget holiday a year, with second child, no hope for moving into a house or saving
both of us are teachers

This is how we are surviving the 'celtic tiger'.
Click to expand...
 
Willesden said:
"How is everybody else surviving? "

Joint income: €60k/year

€20k savings
both of us are teachers

This is how we are surviving the 'celtic tiger'.
Click to expand...
If you don't mind me asking - that income sounds very low for both of you being teachers - how many years service have you both?
 
baby_tooth said:
but do ppl not find it a bit funny that some of the most untrained and unskilled are making huge amounts of money
take for example blocklayers.
or perhaps beauticans,
Click to expand...

so they work in an area that does not take 8 years to qualify but i think they might take issue with you they term "unskilled" - ask an unskilled beautician for a brazillian and come back and discuss it.. seems like a snobbish statement if i may say so.
they will get tips and gifts if they are good at that they do.

baby_tooth said:
Or waht about entrepreners...the only ones creaming it are in the constrcution related industries...scary to think of the lack of diversification
Click to expand...

I would class a beautician/ hairdresser/ nail technician who sets up his/her own business and meets market demand as an entreprener and the good business minded make a heck of a lot.

baby_tooth said:
it just seems that the reward system of pay is somewhat out of line with contribution to society....
Click to expand...

Again - that statement is definately open to discussion,
the example of the 2 teachers as above, if these 2 professionals gave grinds, music lessions, after school clubs, reffed sports etc etc as other more monetary minded teachers I know of it is possible they could match any other professionals wages. Just because they worked hard at school for years does not make entitled to a job or to look down on folks who saw a gap in the market, did the beauty therapy course for 18 months and work hard for the "luxuary" of owning their own business. Fair bowls to them as the man said.
 
room305 said:
Badly in comparison to tradesmen! PhD graduates get offered roughly the same as degree graduates in the IT and bio-tech industries. Jobs aren't exactly plentiful either.
Click to expand...

they have no industry experience so why pay a premium for graduates?
why would an industry pay for a BSc grad, say analyical chemist when a person wiht an IT cert can do the job just as well for just over half the money?
 

teachers are very important to society,bricklayers aren't.
simple as that.

Educvation benefits society as it raises the lving standards of the the country, exactly what has happened in ireland in the past.

You say a beautician setting up on their own are entreprenuers, in a sense i agree with you, but how are they contributing to society, how are they advancing our country?

What they are doing is replication. Economic theory and economic common sense will show that there is nothing as advantageous as technological advances that improve society. Throwing money or labour at something will only achieve so much before diminishing returns reduce the cost of providing this service. This is exaclty where we are with alot of trades, equilibrium will arrive in due time, when we realise that we don't need 1 in 8 to work directly in construction. But by this stage, alas we will be back to playing catchup to other economies that have moved ahead in improving thier lot.

Its a static and slowly moving market, it could take years to get back on track.

And for those reasons, generally summisied, is the basis of my point.


And yes, perhaps it does stink of snobbish attitude, but it's also reality, the way of the world, economics makes us all tick, whether we realise it or not!!
 
Glenbhoy said:
If you don't mind me asking - that income sounds very low for both of you being teachers - how many years service have you both?
Click to expand...

One of us works is doing an ordinary office job, other of us is in TEFL.
 
I am getting out of this tread...IMO the bottom line is, that unless you get a degree/professional qualification/trade in your 20s, and then work only within that area for the next 10-20-50 years, you should not expect your opportunities and salary be fantastic.

Yes, we are probably too over qualified with not much experience in our relevant fields...and no school, college or company is willing to give us the job to gain the needed experience.

By the way, the icing on the cake is that I will be made redundant in the New Year.
 

Well surely it depends on the person - just because someone joins the ranks of the "profession" does not mean they will conform to the ideals of the vocation. A bricklayer and beautician can give back to society as much as a teacher if they choose to. I know of one hospice who has beauticians come in and give treatments for free to terminally ill people - one forgotton section of society benefit. Same lady's son plays piano a few evenings a week in a nursing home for his Gaisce award...
How many folks have you heard of going into teachin for 3 reasons, June, July and August? About 6 folks i know are on the postgrad courses for primary teaching, it was not their lifes passion but the taste of the real world was no comparison, they had the money and ambition to change career for one where they work half they year - good luck to them, but maybe they might give back to society less than a caring person outside the ranks of the professions? Who knows. I just think it is too simple to look down your nose at folks who took the road less travelled as we can all contribute to our community.

the question of "advancing society" I think is seperate - however this is going off topic enough as it is
 
Sorry to hear that Will...however after my own job being made redundant i learned the hard way - in no situation can you "exect" a salary, thats why competence, ability and motivation will always win.
My advice - do your best to think of what you can do next and not what you could have or should have done.
I wish you all the best after christmas.
 


sorry to hear that. hope things work out well.
 
baby_tooth said:
teachers are very important to society,bricklayers aren't.
simple as that.
Click to expand...

Does not really make sense to say that. If all the bricklayers in a society became teachers overnight, how long would that society continue to function? No houses would be built, no new schools, architects would go out of business, as would builders providers, all other construction workers also, no new factories etc etc.

Unless of course they started using concrete instead of laying bricks but then you would have to say those concrete layers were as important to society as anybody else.
 
nelly said:
they have no industry experience so why pay a premium for graduates?
why would an industry pay for a BSc grad, say analyical chemist when a person wiht an IT cert can do the job just as well for just over half the money?
Click to expand...

Exactly. The companies do not place a premium on PhD graduates over BSc graduates because the jobs they are offering do not require a PhD holder. It is of little value to company.

So why is the government planning to spend billions in funding to increase the number of PhD graduates?
 
room305 said:
So why is the government planning to spend billions in funding to increase the number of PhD graduates?
Click to expand...


This is something I have wondered myself. The government obviously wants to promote the creation of high value R&D type jobs to replace the lower-skilled manufacturing jobs that we will lose to lower-cost economies over the next few years.

Therefore, by churning out large numbers of PhD graduates I guess they hope that this will entice big Pharma etc will move their R&D divisions here.

Alternatively they might be hoping that some of these graduates will get the ball rolling and start up biotech/IT firms themselves.

Either way, I wouldn't want to be in the first wave of this new doctorate army as there isn't that many jobs currently available for them.
 
nelly said:
they have no industry experience so why pay a premium for graduates?
why would an industry pay for a BSc grad, say analyical chemist when a person wiht an IT cert can do the job just as well for just over half the money?
Click to expand...

Sure why bother educating yourself at all!! The reason you pay more for a BSc grad is because that have proved their ability to apply themselves to their chosen field. If you need to be told the difference between getting a cert or a degree then I just hope to god you ain't involved in HR!!!!
 
Most employers are willing to pay a premium for graduates. In many cases you will only learn the specific skills/knowledge required for the job at a 3rd level institution.

In other cases, employers still prefer to hire graduates of any background and train them to do the job. They do this because they recognise that to get their degree, the person has to possible certain abilities such as dedication, critical thinking, communication skills etc which are required in most employment.
 
Stiofan said:
Sure why bother educating yourself at all!!
Click to expand...
I am all for education - am a grad myself but you should get the job because of your ability to do required work and also to fit into a surrounding - sometimes PhD's won't "fit" the organisation - i am thinkin of one guy who is out of work for a year before finding a place to work, over qualified.

Stiofan said:
The reason you pay more for a BSc grad is because that have proved their ability to apply themselves to their chosen field.
Click to expand...
Agreed. however example a person with a cert could be hired to work as a lab analyst, do the job effectivly, continue studying at night and graduate (commanding as much and often more than their degree counterparts) surely that has proven that they have applied themselves and at the same time been career focused enough to gain both education and experience in tandum - accountancy springs to mind for example. the Finance dept where i work has a fair few of these folks. or HR where folks work at night too...

Stiofan said:
If you need to be told the difference between getting a cert or a degree then I just hope to god you ain't involved in HR!!!!
Click to expand...

I know the difference however in the field i work in the degree is not all that is the job requires - a level of competence and knowledge is also required. Degree grads get a pittance starting off compared to folks with cert or dip or trade and field experience.

It may be contraversial but if it was untrue there would be no unemployed graduates and lots of unemployed undergrads.

Businesses are in business to make money and have cost effective hiring starigies and not merely to give graduates jobs where non-grads can do the same job at 2/3 of the pay.

Obviously you don't agree with my take on things but my theory is based on my own life experience - yours probably just the same.
 
room305 said:
So why is the government planning to spend billions in funding to increase the number of PhD graduates?
Click to expand...

It could be to drive down the salaries of everyone else and once more sell Ireland as a low cost destination. This won't work obviously but the government are not averse to spending billions on pointless exercises.
 
StoppedClock said:
It could be to drive down the salaries of everyone else and once more sell Ireland as a low cost destination. This won't work obviously but the government are not averse to spending billions on pointless exercises.
Click to expand...

Better to spend the billions in lowering tax take and reduce wages that way. Many businesses seem reluctant to take on PhD graduates in any case because they are "over-qualified" and prefer to hire BSc graduates instead.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register