What Color Is Your Parachute?

Salary is something you must think out ahead of time, when you’re contemplating your ideal job or career. Level goes hand in hand with salary, of course.

1. The first question here is at what level would you like to work, in your ideal job?

Level is a matter of how much responsibility you want, in an organization:

 Boss or CEO (this may mean you’ll have to form your own business)

 Manager or someone under the boss who carries out orders

 The head of a team

 A member of a team of equals

 One who works in tandem with one other partner

 One who works alone, either as an employee or as a consultant to an organization, or as a one-person business

Enter a two- or three-word summary of your answer, on the Level of Responsibility and Salary petal of your Flower Diagram.

2. The second question here is what salary would you like to be aiming for?

Here you have to think in terms of minimum or maximum. Minimum is what you would need to make, if you were just barely “getting by.” And you need to know this before you go in for a job interview with anyone (or before you form your own business, and need to know how much profit you must make, just to survive).

Maximum could be any astronomical figure you can think of, but it is more useful here to put down the salary you realistically think you could make, with your present competency and experience, were you working for a real, but generous, boss. (If this maximum figure is still depressingly low, then put down the salary you would like to be making five years from now.)

Make out a detailed outline of your estimated expenses now, listing what you need monthly in the following categories:[38]

Housing

Rent or mortgage payments $ ______________

Electricity/gas $ ______________

Water $ ______________

Phone/Internet $ ______________

Garbage removal $ ______________

Cleaning, maintenance, repairs[39] $ ______________

Food

What you spend at the supermarket and/or farmer’s market, etc $ ______________

Eating out $ ______________

Clothing

Purchase of new or used clothing $ ______________

Cleaning, dry cleaning, laundry $ ______________

Automobile/transportation

Car payments $ ______________

Gas (who knows?)[40] $ ______________

Repairs $ ______________

Public transportation (bus, train, plane) $ ______________

Insurance

Car $ ______________

Medical or health care $ ______________

House and personal possessions $ ______________

Life $ ______________

Medical expenses

Doctors’ visits $ ______________

Prescriptions $ ______________

Fitness costs $ ______________

Support for other family members

Child-care costs (if you have children) $ ______________

Child-support (if you’re paying that) $ ______________

Support for your parents (if you’re helping out) $ ______________

Charity giving/tithe (to help others) $ ______________

School/learning

Children’s costs (if you have children in school) $ ______________

Your learning costs (adult education, job-hunting classes, etc.) $ ______________

Pet care (if you have pets) $ ______________

Bills and debts (usual monthly payments)

Credit cards $ ______________

Local stores $ ______________

Other obligations you pay off monthly $ ______________

Taxes

Federal[41] (next April’s due, divided by months remaining until then) $ ______________

State (likewise) $ ______________

Local/property (next amount due, divided by months remaining until then) $ ______________

Tax-help (if you ever use an accountant, pay a friend to help you with taxes, etc.) $ ______________

Savings $ ______________

Retirement (Keogh, IRA, SEP, etc.) $ ______________

Amusement/discretionary spending

Movies, video rentals, etc. $ ______________

Other kinds of entertainment $ ______________

Reading, newspapers, magazines, books $ ______________

Gifts (birthday, Christmas, etc.) $ ______________

Vacations $ ______________

Total Amount You Need Each Month $ ______________

Multiply the total amount you need each month by 12, to get the yearly figure. Divide the yearly figure by 2,000, and you will be reasonably near the minimum hourly wage that you need. Thus, if you need $3,333 per month, multiplied by 12 that’s $40,000 a year, and then divided by 2,000, that’s $20 an hour.

Parenthetically, you may want to prepare two different versions of the above budget: one with the expenses you’d ideally like to make, and the other a minimum budget, which will give you what you are looking for, here: the floor, below which you simply cannot afford to go.

Enter the maximum, and minimum, on your Level of Responsibility and Salary petal on the Flower Diagram.

Optional Exercise: You may wish to put down other rewards, besides money, that you