By Antony Ngatia
Most people struggle hard to get a job — with the money to be paid as a salary being the prize.
How much we get paid is probably the most important thing to most people. But what people fail to realise is that a job, like any other business venture, has its costs.
In businesses, it is called ‘operation cost’ and it comprises costs of transport, employees and other support services utilised to realise profit. Usually, a business man deducts all the costs of every operations from the gross income realised from sales so as to obtain the net profit.
In employment too, personal finance experts say that one should deduct the costs of all expenses associated with their job such as transport from their income to ascertain how much they really make from their business.
“If we sat down and calculated how much we earn and how much we spend most of us would literally ‘shut ourselves down’ for realising how bankrupt we are,” says Fred Omondi, a financial adviser.
Ordinarily, most businesses are shut down when their expenses exceed income, since they are deemed unprofitable. No one wants to stick to a sinking venture in the name of being in business.
“There is a misconception that a person in job is not in a business. But this is not the case, since even they are in business and so they must balance their math like any other business person,” says Omondi.
Doing the math
So, what are these costs?
First of all, we have the commute cost. “Wherever you live and where you work most often is a distance and thus you have to part with some money to and from work daily,” he says.
With costs of everything being sky high, it is likely for one to spend anything from a few hundreds of shillings to a few thousands only on transport daily, depending on whether they use private vehicles or public means.
