The Moonlighting Debate
The definition of moonlighting is working a second job at lesser pay to supplement your income. Recently I’ve begun to wonder if the time may have come for me to stop.
My day job isn’t full time year round but I rock gray mode pretty hard, last few months notwithstanding. My needs are generally pretty humble.
Okay, cost benefit analysis. Let’s say my take home per shift is about $50. That’s a little under 5 hours in wages. Karl Marx (always good to bring him up when evaluating an aspect of capitalism) defined wages as renumeration for a loss of freedom. But it’s not just that, it’s an hour and a half travel time and 45 minutes of prep. Let’s say that’s about 7 hours. Take home from the cost benefit analysis is a little over $7 per hour.
There’s another dimension to it. Last weekend I worked both days. So I essentially lose my whole weekend for an extra $100 in my pocket.
Now to be fair the cost benefit above doesn’t show money I’d potentially be spending if I weren’t working but I don’t think it would be that much. Let’s face facts I’m a bit of a homebody. Watching TV or DVDs, doing computer stuff, or playing on the Wii doesn’t carry a huge price tag.
And obviously you can’t put a dollar value on spending time with your son so any cost benefit will ignore that aspect.
Seems like a slam dunk? Not quite.
For one thing, I like money. I like the security it affords my family, I like the flexibility of not worrying about how much money I have in my bank account when I make a purchase. Although there’s inflexibility in scheduling when you work 2 jobs.
I also like to travel. With Mindi getting her license family roadtrips to San Francisco and Edmonton are within reach. After seeing In Bruges Jon wants to go to Europe in October, or perhaps the east coast (Orlando, DC, New York). Can I currently afford to do all that? Yes but it would require liquidating some assets (CoW-speak translation: cash in some GICs, not sell the couch).
Mindi returning to work also increases the family’s cash flow despite daycare.
We also don’t know what tax time will be like.
There’s also the cool games and concerts I get to see and the fact that it will be an Olympic venue. And there’s the medical and dental coverage although I may be able to go on Mindi’s plan at no extra charge. Every time I try to use my dental coverage I always seem to run into roadblocks anyways.
So here’s the plan: continue as before but if they annoy me, scheduling conflicts mount, or I get a massive tax return I’ll walk.
What do you think?
