budget

Well this is new.

For those of you who don’t know, Australia pays exceptionally high and Canada pays exceptionally low. So from a fairly decent wage in Oz I’ve gone to half of that in Canada.

When I was first offered my contract (I work in Digital Marketing) I was actually offended. I had prepared myself for a low figure but the figure on the paper was 7grand less than even that. Add to that only 2 weeks holiday, down from 4 and I was shocked.

I negotiated for the company benefits (which kick in at three months) to be added into my salary as I already had comprehensive health insurance as a condition of entry to Canada with my Visa.

I also had it written in the contract I would get a salary review (verbal that it will increase) and a potential role change from Account Coordinator to Account Manager at 3 months.

AND did I mention I have to provide my own phone and laptop? Walking to and from work with my laptop over my shoulder each day is going to cost me in massages. It’s only been a week but I can feel it already.

I do get some great perks though. They have ‘Friday Lites’ which essentially means we work from home from 9-1 at home on Friday then we are done for the day.
I get to attend some cool events. For instance on Thursday I have Centre of Gravity festival in Kelowna so I get to go away from Thurs-Mon and hang out there learning PR.

Getting my head around having a budget is really difficult. Especially when I had it so good before. My spending habits are different to when I was at uni working three jobs 5 years ago.

So now I am learning to budget all over again. I earn enough to stay here, play and travel but that’s about it. Definitely going to be a challenge.

In that respect I’m glad it’s not for too long!