Mrs. Bee was not feeling well yesterday and had to dip into the PTO jar for a day off from work. I realized my action cost me a few hundred dollars. Was it worth losing out on $260.66 by not going to work? It sure felt nice lounging around the house in my PJs especially being sick, but I felt somewhat guilty to lose out on this chunk of money. Perhaps I could have toughed out the 8 long miserable hours at work. Anyhow, I understand it's not all a lost since PTO days are designed for employees to take. My workplace dishes out 25DOP on the 1st calendar day of the year. If my company would have gone with the accrual system, I would slowly accumulate 2.083/DOP per month instead of all 25 days at once. Therefore, this program is very appealing.
I did an analysis which assumes that in a perfect world where sickdays nor vacation time was taken, I would have accumulated 125DOP during my 5 year tenure at work. If I decide to quit my company today, they would owe me $33,000. Now let's assume if I didn't leave the company today and my salary increases over time, that means my company would have to pay me for the unused PTO days multiply by the salary I'm making at that time. This translates into even more money. But is forgoing 5 years worth of vacation time and other paid time off worth the $33,000 or even more in the future?
4 comments:
Hey Mrs. Bee,
I just spent some time browsing through your site. Nice posts! Good luck with your goals this year.
Personally, I would never sell my vacation days. For me, that would be a recipe for burn out!
What's the difference between DOP and paid time off by the way?
Take your vacation days. I worked over 300 days a year for 15 years (many of them 16 hour days) in the auto industry and got really burnt out. Yes I am grateful I made a lot of money and maxed out my 401K every year. That money is very nice to have but it has taken a long long time to get back to normal.
It's a matter of how you value your time.
If you absolutely need some vacation time, definitely take it. Do we all need the number of days allotted to us annually? For many people, I'd guess the answer is no.
I get 25 days a year of vacation, 2 or 3 personal days, and then the standard set of 8 or so public holidays. Sick days are not included in that - however, In the 10 years I've been with my employer, I've taken less than 10 sick days total. In all honesty, it is too much for me. Unfortunately, I'm only allowed to carry 5 days into the next year, and those days need to be used before the end of March - or I lose them and cannot be paid for them.
If I had an employer who would allow indefinite carryover, and payoff whatever was accumulated when I left, I would definitely do it. And, you are absolutely right - days you accumulate early on in your career with the company is the same as savings/investment because days banked early on at a lower salary will be paid off later when you've got a higher salary.
Mike - I should have made it clear. DOP is an acronym for Days of PTO. I was just too lazy to type out "days of PTO".
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