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10 Innovative Ways to Hire and Retain Your Dream Team
These ten tips from two employee management experts can help you find the right candidates and keep them around.
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Learn MoreWith scarce benefits and a wage crisis, the poverty and near-poverty rate for restaurant workers is 40%. But that doesn't mean all is lost for dishwashers, servers, counter workers, and bartenders.
In fact, a lot of successful people once worked at restaurants:
No matter where you find yourself on the climb up the restaurant ladder, the good news is: you have a paycheck.
Regardless of the size of that restaurant paycheck, learning financial skills and the ability to make your paycheck go further is truly one of the smartest personal business decisions you can make.
Remember: The above-mentioned Jeff Bezos rose from a minimum wage gig at McDonald’s to becoming the richest man in the world. With a pinch of passion, a dash of determination, and some savvy financial thinking driving your decision-making, your bank account could look like his one day.
Here are a few simple ways to manage your money, and make your paycheck go further.
The results of the National Financial Educators Council’s Financial Literacy Test show participants, on average, score 63%; only 48% of participants achieve a passing score.
While scores naturally increase with age and life experience, you can get out in front of the pack by learning the basics.
There are a ton of financial management blogs that make the ins and outs of making your paycheck go further a lot more friendly. These include:
How do you find these kinds of blogs? In truth, many bloggers have already done the work for you; simply search for “best personal finance blogs” to find lists like the Top 50 Personal Finance Blogs of 2018 or Top 10 Highly Useful Websites to Learn About Personal Finance for Free.
Whether you’re paid by check or direct deposit, you’ll get a pay stub, either in paper form or electronically. Although this isn’t actually required under federal law, it’s generally considered a best practice.
Your pay stub contains a lot of valuable information that you should understand and review on a regular basis. At a top level, your pay stub is a summary of the difference between your gross pay and net pay.
Gross pay represents the total amount you are paid, including wages, overtime, bonuses, tips, and anything that adds to your income.
Net pay is your take home amount after deductions, like income and payroll taxes, savings plans, your portion of insurance coverage, etc.
Rather than get into a detailed discussion of every paycheck component, let’s focus on the big picture: You need to check the numbers.
Make sure that the following are accurate:
Bonus tip — The deductions taken for 401K contributions help lower your taxable income. In other words, you’re not only saving for the future, you’re also saving right now.
Another important thing that employers are required to do is provide you with a W-2 -- Wage and Tax Statement-- at the end of the year. This document summarizes all your earnings and taxable information for the year and is what you use to file your personal income taxes. It must be in the mail or provided electronically by January 31 each year. (If this date falls on a weekend, then the deadline is the next business day.)
The Penny Hoarder offers some simple, straightforward advice on getting started with creating a budget:
In addition to creating a budget, be sure to:
Personal financial management is one place where technology can definitely make your life easier. There are a number of smartphone-friendly tools you can use to make your paycheck go further, including:
In addition to (or in place of) these apps, check with your bank to see if they provide any free (or low-cost) personal finance apps.
And there you have it — five simple ways to make your paycheck go further — even when you work in the thin-margin, tip-dependent, adrenaline-fueled world of restaurants.
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