Earning More: Planning a Career, Not Just Taking a Job

There is a point in most budgets where cutting stops working. The essentials are already as low as they will go, and the gap between what comes in and what goes out is still there. When that happens, the problem is not your spending. It is your income, and no amount of careful budgeting will fix it.

This article is about the other side of the equation: the working life that produces the income in the first place. It is written for everyone who earns, whether from a salaried job, a trade, a small business, farming, driving or piece work. You do not need to be on a corporate career ladder for this to apply. Most people in Sri Lanka are not, and planning matters just as much without one.

What this article covers is how to think about raising and protecting your income over time. It does not cover the decision to work abroad, to start a business, or what to do the week you lose a job. Those come next in this chapter.

Treat your earning power as your largest asset

For most people, the ability to earn is worth more than anything they own. A house or a plot of land is valuable, but the stream of income from decades of work is usually larger. It is worth managing as deliberately as you would manage savings.

That means asking, once a year, the same kind of questions you would ask of an investment:

• Is what I do still in demand, and will it be in five years?
• Am I becoming more skilled and more valuable, or standing still?
• Does my income depend entirely on one employer, one client or one buyer?
• If that single source disappeared tomorrow, what would I do?

You do not need answers that are certain. You need to have asked the questions before circumstances force them on you.

Skills are the part you control

You cannot control the economy, the exchange rate or your employer's decisions. You can control whether you are becoming more useful. In a market where prices have risen faster than wages, the people who protect their income best are usually those whose skills are scarce and hard to replace.

Building skill does not always mean returning to full-time study. It can mean:

• learning the part of your trade or workplace that others avoid;
• adding a practical, verifiable skill, from a language to a software tool to a machine you can operate;
• taking on responsibility that stretches you, even before the title or pay follows; and
• keeping a simple, honest record of what you have actually done, so you can show it rather than describe it.

The aim is to be the person who is harder to do without. That is worth more than a job title.

Weighing the cost of a qualification

Sri Lanka gives a good state education free to those who win a place, and competition for those places is intense. Beyond that, many people pay for a professional qualification, a private degree, or study overseas, and these can cost a great deal, sometimes funded by borrowing or by selling or pledging an asset.

A qualification can be a sound investment. It can also be an expensive one that changes little. Before you commit money you do not easily have, weigh it honestly.

• What does it actually lead to? For some regulated professions a qualification is essential and the path is clear. For more general subjects, be realistic about what it changes.
• Compare against the pessimistic case, not the brochure. Look at what people a few years into that field actually earn, at the lower end, not the success stories used to sell the course.
• Count the full cost. Fees are only part of it. Include the income you give up while studying, and the cost of any borrowing, which has to be repaid whether or not the qualification pays off.
• Beware fees set in foreign currency. A course priced in another currency, or studied abroad, can cost far more in rupees than planned if the rupee weakens partway through. Households have had studies disrupted for exactly this reason.

None of this means avoiding education. It means treating it as the significant financial decision it is, rather than assuming any certificate pays for itself.

Do not depend on a single source of income

A person with one employer is in the same position as a saver with everything in one place: fine until something goes wrong. Contracts end, businesses close and industries shrink. The recent years showed how fast a seemingly secure job can disappear.

You do not need to do several things at once. But it is worth knowing what your fallback would be, and keeping the door to it open. That might be a skill you keep current, a side activity that could grow, contacts you stay in touch with, or a qualification that travels across employers. The point is to not be left with nothing to turn to.

Protect the income you already have

Raising income is only half of it. Protecting what you have matters just as much, and it is easy to ignore while a job feels safe.

Notice the early signs that an employer is struggling, because they usually appear well before any announcement. Keep some savings you can reach quickly, because there is no unemployment insurance in Sri Lanka and nothing automatically replaces a lost wage. And understand your basic rights at work, including what you are owed if employment ends, before you ever need them.

These are covered properly later in this chapter. For now, the point is simply that a career plan includes defending your position, not only advancing it.

A simple yearly review

Once a year, or after any big change, take an hour and ask:

• Has the last year moved me forward, held me still, or set me back?
• Is my main source of income more or less secure than it was?
• What is the one skill or step that would most improve my position?
• Is there a decision I am avoiding because it is uncomfortable?

Write down one action and do it. A career is built from a series of small, deliberate moves, not from a single dramatic one.

Where to go next

Raising your income is usually the most powerful thing you can do for your finances, and it depends on your circumstances.

If your budget will not balance because income is simply too low, and you are borrowing to cover ordinary costs, deal with that cash-flow pressure first; it is more urgent than any long-term career move.

If working abroad is the option you are weighing, the next article looks hard at what that really involves, for you and for the household you leave behind.

If you would rather work for yourself, the article on starting a business sets out the questions to answer before you give up a regular wage.

If you think your employer may be in trouble, later articles in this chapter help you read the warning signs and prepare.

If you now have a plan to earn more, decide in advance what the extra money is for, so it builds something rather than quietly disappearing.

Do the one that fits your situation. The others will still be here.

This article is general information about personal money management. It is not financial, investment, tax or legal advice, and it does not take account of your personal circumstances. Product terms, interest rates, tax rules and regulatory limits change. Confirm current details with the relevant institution or regulator, and consider taking licensed professional advice before making a significant financial decision.