Build a spreadsheet that turns two offers into yearly totals you can compare.
When you have two job offers, the figures rarely arrive in a form you can compare directly. The salary comes in an email, your guess at the bonus is on a notepad, and the leave was valued on a separate page. Each number was worked out in its own way, so part of any gap you see between the offers may come from the arithmetic.
One spreadsheet fixes this. It puts both offers next to each other and totals each one with the same rows in the same order. You can use Excel or Google Sheets, and it takes about 25 minutes to build.
Start a blank sheet. Column A holds the labels, column B holds the first offer and column C holds the second. Type these labels down column A in this sequence, and don't change the order:
Base salary for the year AWS or 13th month (only if the contract states it) Fixed allowances paid every month, totalled 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. Every row above the guaranteed subtotal is either in the contract or paid for as long as you hold the job, and the subtotal adds up those rows only. The bonus has its own row underneath, so you can always see how much of each offer depends on things outside your control.
Hui Min (an invented example, and all her figures are made up) is choosing between S$4,200 a month and S$4,000 a month, a difference of S$200 a month, and has to reply by Friday. She has a page of notes from lessons 1.1 to 1.3. The numbers on it are sound but scattered: a bonus estimate in one corner, a leave value in another, an hourly rate circled twice. She needs one sheet that totals both offers the same way.
For the base salary row, multiply the monthly salary by 12. She types S$50,400 under the S$4,200 offer and S$48,000 under the S$4,000 offer.
An AWS, or 13th month, is one extra month of pay. Enter it only when the contract states it, and type zero if it doesn't. Hui Min's S$4,000 contract includes one month, so that cell reads S$4,000. The S$4,200 offer gets a zero. Fixed allowances are the ones paid every month, added up for the year. Neither of her offers has any, so both cells are zero.
The employer CPF rate depends on your age. Find it on the CPF Board website, enter it in a spare cell, and type the date you looked it up next to it, for example "checked 3 March". Rates and ceilings get revised, and the date tells you when the figure was last confirmed. Make the CPF row a formula: monthly salary x the rate cell x 12. If the salary is above the monthly CPF ceiling, use the ceiling in the formula in place of the salary. Lesson 2.3 explains the ceiling. If you're not a citizen or PR, the employer pays no CPF for you, so the row is zero and the comparison comes down to cash and benefits.
For Hui Min the formula gives S$714 a month (S$8,568 a year) on the S$4,200 offer and S$680 a month (S$8,160 a year) on the S$4,000 offer. These are illustration figures, not current rates. CPF is also charged on AWS and bonus, which count as additional wages. Leave that out the first time you fill in the sheet. If the two offers end up close, go back and add it in.
You already worked out the values for benefits, leave and costs in lesson 1.3, "Put a price on benefits, leave and the hours you work", so copy them in. Enter benefits at what they're worth to you in cash, and extra leave at your daily rate. Next to each benefit, write the assumption you made so you can check it later. Costs, such as a bond you might have to pay back, go in as negative numbers.
On the S$4,200 offer, Hui Min has outpatient cover worth S$120. On the S$4,000 offer she counts outpatient at S$120, dental at S$150, and S$400 for the part of the flexible benefits allowance she expects to actually use, which comes to S$670. That offer also has five extra days of leave, which she values at about S$923. Neither offer has a bond, so costs are zero for both.
The subtotal row is a SUM of every row above it. Her results are S$59,088 for the S$4,200 offer (S$50,400 + S$8,568 + S$120) and S$61,753 for the S$4,000 offer (S$48,000 + S$4,000 + S$8,160 + S$670 + S$923).
Under the subtotal, enter your cautious bonus estimate. This is the conservative figure you worked out in lesson 1.2, "Bonuses that are promised and bonuses that are hoped for". Hui Min uses S$3,500 for the S$4,200 offer and S$2,000 for the S$4,000 offer. Set the total row to equal the guaranteed subtotal plus the bonus estimate. Her totals are S$62,588 and S$63,753.
Read the sheet from the bottom up. Compare the two totals first, then the two guaranteed subtotals. The S$4,000 offer is ahead by S$1,165 in total and by S$2,665 on guaranteed pay. Less of its value depends on a good year, and it involves fewer hours.
The notes row is for anything that would be misleading as a number. It also holds hours and hourly rates. Hui Min copies her hourly rates from lesson 1.3: about S$17.62 for the S$4,200 offer and S$22.73 for the S$4,000 offer, both before commute. She also writes that the S$4,200 job is at a firm she admires, with a manager who trains new hires closely, and that she expects to learn more there within a year. That may or may not be worth more than S$1,165 to her.
The spreadsheet doesn't make the choice for her. It shows exactly what a non-money preference would cost her, so whichever offer she picks, she picks it deliberately. If she accepts the S$4,200 offer, she does so knowing the cost, and the decision is still hers.
Check your own sheet before you decide. It's finished when every row is filled in for both offers, the CPF rate has a date next to it, every benefit has its assumption beside it, and the notes row has at least one line. Once yours meets all of that, say which offer you would take and what you would give up for it.
Fill in the sheet for two real offers, or for the two offers from the lesson. Then write two sentences: which offer you would take, and what you give up by taking it.
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