Are you Hustling backwards?!
Onwards to new adventures!
One of my favourite programmes on the BBC used to be ‘Wanted Down Under’. It followed families who wanted to relocate to Australia or New Zealand, from helping them find homes, jobs while also giving them a reality check via a comparison cost of living between the UK and their dream new life in a bid to find out if the dream was affordable. For some the better salary and cost of living afforded by moving made the dream a reality and for others it meant hustling backwards, with their dreams deferred or abandoned.
Making the decision to leave home and start a new and hopefully better life in a new place or country is something humans have been doing since time immemorial and it’s a decision that is never taken lightly. For some it is the lure of a better work life balance, affording them more family time or more time to indulge in life long hobbies or passions. For others it is the promise of a regular paycheck and the job security that comes with it, a way to support themselves and their families free from worry and stress of not knowing if they would be able to do so day after day. It is this latter reason that i would like to focus on, because more often than not, the lure of a regular paycheck and job security blinds us and we do not take into account the full picture of what the cost will be and if it is at all worth it.
How can i make sure that my take home pay will be sufficient?
In my book ‘ The Extreme Sport of Nursing While Black : A Survival Guide’ , I talk about the importance of negotiating your salary so that you get paid your worth as well as really scrutinising your contract for any issues before signing on the dotted line. While this is still sound advice, i would like to add another tip, especially for Nurses being recruited from abroad, and that is to carry out a cost of living calculation to find out if would be able to live comfortably with the money you would be paid, your take home pay.
The first step would be to find out what your take home pay would be after all deductions, do not be fooled by the salary figure quoted, as that is normally your gross and not net which is likely to be significantly lower! Remember to ask during the recruitment process and not after you have signed your employment contract! The Salary Calculator is a handy site that helps you calculate how much your take home pay would be approximately. You can customise to see your take home pay yearly, monthly, weekly or even daily. This would give you a rough idea of what you are actually being paid and from that you can then do your cost of living calculations.
Armed with this information and your calculations, you can then make an informed decision whether it is worth it to take that job and uproot yourself from all that you know, or if you can negotiate for a better pay or hold out for one or better still, if staying and diversifying your income portfolio would be best. Whatever decision you make, make it work for you and having the full picture salary wise is one step in that direction and towards a financially secure future.
Here’s to Hustling forwards, always!
The Wandering Nurse x
