Will this business ever wise up and pay better?

I struggle with finances, but only because of child support and my ridiculous lifestyle.

I like my job, which certainly helps. But whenever I get the itch to think about maybe finishing my career in newspapers -- the new newspapers, with print and Web and all the other cutting edge things -- I realize it's going to be nearly impossible, because they simply don't pay enough.

I got lucky here, and will probably retire here. But given the state of the business, and I mean this in the best possible sense, I'm also probably stuck here, unless it's another Web job or something really big in the print/online biz.

 

I suppose I'm in the best possible situation. They pay us well here, a consistent raise annually if you're not a total assclown. And the cost of living isn't through the roof. It's not lost on me that we're very fortunate.

 

Not as long as you may think.

I save 9 percent of my salary every year. It's taken out of my check. I don't see it, so I can't spend it.

In 5 years, even accounting for no raises, that would be 45 percent.

And just the slightest positive return on that 45 percent would easily bump it up to 50 percent.

 

There's also the trick of having taxes withheld beyond your bracket. And thus getting a big return each March. And of course, there's no saying that can't be placed into a low-risk venture.

 

There's another factor to consider in addition to pay.. and that's benefits.

Does your company offer a good health plan that covers your family? If so, how much - if anything - are they making you pay towards it? What are the deductables? Is your health plan at the paper better than the health plan your spouse's company offers him/her?
Do you get dental (or vision) insurance? Co-pays/deductables?
Retirement plans? Pension, 401k, etc.
Not expecting answers to those specific questions, but just throwing them out there as a factor to consider in addition to just basic salary.

 

I know there are all kinds of tricks for saving money, and that it can be done. But five years is assuming you have the 9 percent you can save. That's not always realistic for everyone, especially when you're making an entry-level salary. Even if you don't buy the XBox.

I've always viewed getting a large return as giving the government an one-year, interest-free loan. I'd rather get a smaller return from doing the paperwork as close to zero as possible and handle that money instead of letting them do so.

 

I think giving the government an interest-free loan every year is a terrible idea.

So I do the opposite. I claim 2-3 extra exemptions, get an extra $2,100 in my paycheck every year, and invest that extra money every pay period.

Much better than letting the government have it for 12-15 months and THEN investing it.

 

By claiming the extra exemptions do you wind up owing money at the end of the year or are you breaking even via other deductions?

 

I don't have the answer for that, but that is one of the advantages of our method. You're never sweating that.

 

I've done both. Was a full-time journo for 9 years -- small-town SE for 4 of those.

This shows you just a bit how dire the pay scale is in journalism ... I'm a first-year teacher at a medium-sized suburban HS now. Not tremendous wages, but I make more $$ now than I did with nine years' experience as an SE. The one big benefit of teaching, besides the obvious lifestyle benefits (being done at 2:20 p.m.), is that you get extra cash for everything you do that happens after the bell rings. Take tickets at a game, run the scoreboard, help coach a team, teach summer school, help run elementary basketball camp ... it all adds up.

With freelancing cash (in part thanks to a fellow SportsJournalists.commer), it's helping out a lot more.

I loved journalism ... still do. But the pay and the round-the-clock hours eventually did me in. I saw myself as a 45-year-old with my kids just entering middle school (the oldest is on the way this summer), tossed out on my can because I "made too much money," being forced to either grovel for a peasant-wage job or be out of work just to make ends meet, and figured it might be time to find another career.

Teaching, actually, can provide a decent (but not tremendous) living, with an awful lot more job security, much better hours and opportunities to make extra money.

The problem in both, however, is supply and demand. If teachers were in higher demand, they'd get paid better (and in areas where there ARE shortages -- like science and math -- some districts provide bonuses for those subjects. States like Florida, where there are huge teacher shortages, also pay a comparatively good wage). If there weren't 20 sportswriters standing in line waiting to take your job tomorrow that would work for $8.50 an hour, you'd make a whole lot more than $8.75. Heck, I know if I quit, there would be 60 people apply for my job as a history teacher, because it pays a "good wage" (for teaching).

Sadly, supply-and-demand rule any business. So does, especially at the small-paper level, the pervasive attitude among management that news copy is "non-revenue-generating" and therefore needs to be put together as cheaply as possible. So does, unfortunately, the "monopoly" mentality. Hey, the readers have two choices -- our paper or no paper. Given that, they'll probably take our paper, so why shell out tons of cash for a great editorial staff when you can put out a passable newspaper on the cheap that the people will buy anyway (and, of course, increase profit margins). The expectations for those people, of course, don't change, but the salaries (and the hours) do.

Electrical engineers don't get paid tons of cash because their businesses really want to pay $70K a year for electrical engineers. It's that there are only a few people willing (and able and qualified) to do the job. Unfortunately, several publishers have set the bar so low in journalism that there will always be scores of people willing, able and "qualified" -- (the pub will see "qualified" as a pulse and able to put a subject, predicate and period together) that will be willing to work at whatever wage they throw out.

 

Two years ago I got a $28 refund. That's as close to "break even" as I have ever achieved.

Last year I got a $1,500 refund (because of a special casualty deduction made available to people who had hurricane losses). Otherwise I would have owed about $130.

This year I probably will owe about $250.

 

I'm spending five days in a time share on Sanibel Island in March ... my way.