I wish I could say I am one of those people that are just focused on spending time with family & friends, developing my own interests and getting stuff done at work such that I don’t even notice its pay day. But I’m not.

That being said. I do enjoy engaging in all these various activities but I’m acutely aware of when its pay day for my wife and I. As our salary is paid monthly, pay day is usually at the end of the month for both of us.

This is the day when our monthly salary gets credited into our designated bank accounts for getting through the month of work. For our office jobs in accounting, the month of work could range from getting slammed with multiple deadlines to having not much to do depending on the time in the year.

We get paid the same amount either way since Singapore is not big on overtime pay. On a side note, annual performance bonus is quite a big thing here and it does give employees something to look forward to at the end of each year. In bad times, salary freezes and no annual performance bonus could mean you take on more work for the same pay for quite a while.

That’s a short insight into why pay day is an important day for us. However, it is more significant to me because of what I have to do on pay day. My wife just wants to know the pay has been credited so she can do fun things with the money she has earned. I actually have a list of personal finance management tasks to get through. Lucky her.

1. Ensure the correct monthly salary amount is credited

I log into the internet banking designated accounts to check that the correct monthly salary amounts have been credited. These should usually be the same as the previous month unless there are any reimbursements for work expenses incurred.

2. Funds transfers to other bank accounts

On the same login, I make online funds transfers to other bank accounts. I have to top up the accounts where I set up automatic payments for the monthly credit card bills. Or where there has been drawdowns for investment purposes and withdrawals for spending purposes. The reason being there are usually required minimum average daily balances to avoid being charged a fee.

For low interest bank accounts (< 1% p.a.), I maintain them at only S$500 above the required minimum average daily balances. This is a sufficient cash buffer since I don’t like our funds idling in such low interest bank accounts. Hence the need to manage them in a lean but efficient manner.

For high interest bank accounts (> 1% p.a.), I maintain them at the maximum average daily balance to qualify for the higher interest. There is no point having more funds than this balance amount since the excess cash reverts to earning a low interest (< 1% p.a.).

All excess funds are transferred to a single normal interest residual bank account (1% p.a.). This is where I keep the cash to allocate for savings, investment and spending purposes.

3. Review cash allocation for current month

I don’t update our Google Sheet of assets, liabilities, income and expenses on pay day. This usually happens on the first or second day of each month so I can better capture the movements and balances for the previous month. Besides, I try to coincide this with the updating of the pages on my blog so they can happen concurrently to save time.

What I actually do on pay day is to conduct a cash review. It’s a good time to look at how much cash we have been spending on expenses for the current month. This is especially useful in picking up on spikes in our non-discretionary spending and identifying areas for reduction.

We also work out how much cash we have invested and leftover as savings. Cash deployment monitoring for investing in a downturn is critical since this period of time usually coincides with an increased risk of retrenchment. As long as we can increase our cash on hand savings by S$2,000 each month (after investment cash allocation of S$2,000), we are happy with the progress.

These three steps take about 30 minutes to complete on pay day but gives us a better idea of how we can approach our cash budget for the next month. That way, we don’t have to go through the month worrying about our cash allocation and whether we have sufficient cash savings.

I’m writing this post for myself just as much as for my wife, who might actually read this one since it has less numbers and figures compared to some of my previous posts. This is going to be a fun and interesting one to write about.

It starts with a confession: In our past six years of full-time work, my wife has always out earned me when it comes to our salaries. Not only have I never earned more than my wife, the wage gap has increased over time.

This is why I totally get the debate about gender wage gap – equal pay for men and women. Haha.

One of the biggest benefits of meeting your wife during university before going on to work and build your career is that you get the opportunity to make the transitions together. We got together at a time when money mattered less and we are moving towards a future where money matters more.

It gives me perspective when I look back at how far we have come together and especially so on how much we have progressed individually. In this aspect, I have to say my wife has grown and matured much more than I could have imagined.

As such, this post is my view on how and why my wife earns more than me. It will have my honest thoughts and feelings on the journey we have travelled together on so far to be able to achieve this. And yes, I do see it as an achievement that my wife is out earning me and this should let you understand why it is the case.

More complete skill set

Having studied in Singapore, a place where academic excellence is generally rewarded with better career prospects, studying in Melbourne was a new experience for both of us. You see, the focus in Australia tends to be more on your overall skill set and less on your academic performance.

Even though I am more academically inclined than my wife, she was performing better during the graduate job interviews in our final year. It actually took me a while then to admit this (I was young after all) but I realised it when my wife landed the graduate job role at one of the big domestic banks in Melbourne. She had much stronger corporate skills in teamwork, communication, presentation etc.

Although I was able to subsequently land a graduate job role at one of the mid-tier accounting firms in Melbourne (albeit much later), there was an observable difference in starting salaries. The truth is that as much as a couple would like to go through life at the same pace and enjoy the same success, it almost never happens in reality. What’s more important is that you find a way to work together and contribute to the relationship and to each other’s success.

Higher starting salary

Although we both studied accounting at university, the different industries we work in meant that there can be significant differences in the growth of our salaries. In short, a bank will almost always pay more than an accounting firm even if you end up working more hours at the latter.

Stronger professional network

In the four years of work in Melbourne and Sydney, it became obvious that my wife was able to better navigate the corporate world  as well. Let’s put it this way. Career promotion and job opportunities rely on your ability to network professionally & socially as much as your technical knowledge and capability.

Never underestimate the importance of having drinks with your colleagues because that’s just how you get access to information sometimes. To be honest, I never understood it, which is why I didn’t hang out with my colleagues as much. I only started to do it more when I was in Sydney, a good three years after my wife took to it within six months. That’s how my wife was able to seek out a position in Sydney after having done a six month rotation there earlier.

Better pay negotiation when changing jobs

At some point in time during those first two years in Melbourne, I accepted that there was a good chance my wife was probably going to be earning more than me for the rest of my life. I can either do my best to support my wife’s career development or focus on mine and risk limiting her potential. That’s why I transferred to the Sydney office from Melbourne to be with her.

Besides, the attempt at a long-distance relationship during the six month rotation was terrible. It continues to be one of the lowest points of our relationship having to be away from each other. We ended up spending a bucket load of money on flights to visit each other every weekend. 23 weekends & flights to be exact and I can still remember the number to this day.

A combination of career manoeuvres and opportunistic timing put my wife in a decent position to be relocated to Singapore. Naturally, I had to quit my job and find another role in an accounting firm in Singapore. Haha. I know this sounds bad to some people. You know, after a while, you just want to see how far your wife can go in her career.

What was even more fascinating was how my wife negotiated for a higher salary each time she had to move. Even with the relocation benefits, my wife felt she deserved a higher pay and asked for it. Does this just come naturally to her!? I have to remember to ask her that one day.

So here we are with my wife’s salary significantly higher than mine. I’m sure you are asking yourself what is the point of this post. In any relationship, true equality is almost never going to exist because the two people are going to have different strengths and weaknesses. Progress is also almost always going to be uneven and even one-sided at times.

The Asian cultural norm continues to learn towards the man being the main breadwinner and financial provider. This is proof that it can change and should change as long as both parties work together. Besides, there are many other ways for me to contribute and put my skill sets to use.

Since I do better in the research and management aspect of our funds, I’m responsible for asset allocation, investment and cash deployment to achieve higher returns and increase our passive income. As a tax accountant, I also implement strategies to reduce our income tax payable such as ensuring we claim the available tax reliefs and deductions.

Learning to draw on our individuals strengths contributed to our financial position as a couple. If anything, we have achieved much more together than we probably could have as individuals and this is something I continue to be happy and grateful about.

It’s a public holiday tomorrow and it’s a nice feeling to have a day off after working two days. I’m writing this post on the bus home while my wife is out having drinks with her colleagues. Random thought – If she is going be out late tonight, I might drop by my parent’s place to visit them since I didn’t see them last weekend.

Anyway, this got me thinking about how great it would be not having to work a full week of five days. You just have more energy to do other stuff since you don’t feel as wiped out by mid week. In fact, the ideal arrangement is that we can work a three day week. Either Mon, Wed and Fri so we won’t have to go to work two days in a row or Mon to Wed so we always have a long weekend to go travelling.

Wouldn’t that be fantastic? Now we just have to find those jobs that allow for such an arrangement. The truth is that we like the professional and social engagement that office work offers especially when we have colleagues that we get along with. Self-employment seems to be quite isolating and I’m not sure whether we are suitable for it. But we don’t see ourselves working full-time five days a week as well and not working at all is only possible if we find something interesting to keep ourselves busy with.

Maybe the solution really is to have a three day work week. Sufficient engagement with the outside world to keep ourselves up to date and sufficient downtime to develop hobbies and enjoy leisure activities together as a couple or family if we decide to have children. The other reason for this coming up is that my manager has just returned from maternity leave and negotiated a three day work week at reduced pay. So it is possible!

The purpose of this post was really just to pen down this idea of a reduced work week while taking the bus home. At some point in time, our asset portfolio would reach what I call a critical size whereby the dividends and interest would form the investment contributions instead of savings from our monthly salaries. By then, we should be okay with a lower pay since the salary only needs to cover the expenses while the asset portfolio will keep growing by itself.

This will be the penultimate stage to financial independence because the last stage would be for the dividends and interest to cover our expenses as well. Just something for us to look forward to while having a mid week break!