You will build a spreadsheet that turns two offers into comparable yearly totals.
Hui Min has two offers, a page of notes from lessons 1.1 to 1.3, and a deadline on Friday. Her notes are full of good numbers scattered in the wrong places: a bonus estimate in one corner, a leave value in another, an hourly rate circled twice. What she needs is one sheet that puts both offers side by side and adds them up the same way.
This exercise builds that sheet. You can do it in Excel or Google Sheets in about 25 minutes. The worked example uses Hui Min's offers, and every figure in it is a made-up example.
Open a blank sheet. Put the labels in column A, the first offer in column B and the second in column C. Use these rows, in this order:
Base salary for the year AWS or 13th month, only if the contract states it Fixed allowances paid every month, for the year Employer CPF on salary, for the year Benefits, at your own cash value Extra leave, at your daily rate Costs, such as a bond you might repay, entered as a negative number Guaranteed subtotal Cautious bonus estimate Total Notes
The order matters. Everything above the guaranteed subtotal is either written into the contract or paid as long as you have the job. The bonus sits below it on its own, so you can always see how much of an offer depends on things you do not control.
Enter base salary as the monthly figure times 12. Enter the AWS only if the contract states it. Hui Min's S$4,000 offer writes one month into the contract, so she enters S$4,000. Her S$4,200 offer does not mention one, so she enters zero. Neither offer has a fixed allowance.
For employer CPF, go to the CPF Board website, find the contribution rate for your age, and type it into a spare cell with the date you checked it next to it, for example "checked 3 March". Then make the CPF row a formula that multiplies the monthly salary by that cell and by 12. If your salary is above the monthly ceiling covered in lesson 2.3, use the ceiling instead of your salary. Rates and ceilings change, which is why the date sits beside the figure.
In Hui Min's example sheet, employer CPF comes to S$714 a month on the S$4,200 offer and S$680 on the S$4,000 offer. Those are illustration figures, not current rates. Over a year that is S$8,568 and S$8,160. The AWS and bonus attract CPF too, as additional wages. Leave them out for a first pass, then add them if the gap between the offers is close.
If you are not a Singapore citizen or PR, your employer does not contribute to CPF for you, so this row is zero and the comparison rests on cash and benefits.
Copy in the values you worked out in lesson 1.3, Put a price on benefits, leave and the hours you work. Hui Min values the S$4,200 offer's outpatient cover at S$120. For the S$4,000 offer she has outpatient cover at S$120, dental at S$150 and the part of the flexible benefits allowance she would really use at S$400, a total of S$670. Its five extra days of leave are worth about S$923. Neither offer has a bond, so costs are zero.
Now make the guaranteed subtotal a SUM of the rows above it. For the S$4,200 offer that is S$50,400 plus S$8,568 plus S$120, which is S$59,088. For the S$4,000 offer it is S$48,000 plus S$4,000 plus S$8,160 plus S$670 plus S$923, which is S$61,753.
Enter the cautious bonus estimate from lesson 1.2, Bonuses that are promised and bonuses that are hoped for: S$3,500 for the S$4,200 offer and S$2,000 for the S$4,000 offer. The total row adds the guaranteed subtotal and the bonus. That gives S$62,588 against S$63,753.
Read the sheet from the bottom up. The S$4,000 offer is ahead by S$1,165 in total and by S$2,665 on guaranteed pay alone, even though its salary is S$200 a month lower. Less of its value depends on a good year. And it takes fewer hours, which Hui Min puts in the notes row with the hourly rates from lesson 1.3: about S$17.62 against S$22.73 before the commute.
The notes row is for the things a number would distort. The S$4,200 job is at a firm Hui Min admires, with a manager who trains new hires closely, and she thinks she would learn more there in a year. That might be worth more than S$1,165. It might not. The sheet does not decide for her. It tells her exactly what she would pay for the extra learning, so the choice is hers to make on purpose.
A finished sheet has every row filled for both offers, a date beside the CPF rate, an assumption beside every benefit, and at least one line of notes. When yours looks like that, you are ready to say which offer you would take and what you would give up for it.
Complete the sheet for two real offers, or the two offers from the lesson and write two sentences on which you would take and what you are trading.
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