Tirytory

Just curious really, how many on here are self employed, so no pension, no sick pay, no annual leave? Where your income each money is directly linked to how much you worked the month before?

Are you happy with the risk? Nothing bad will ever happen to me? Or would you never take a job without some sort of protection from employer? What cover do you provide yourself with? Life Assurance? Critical illness?

Thoughts please!!! I really should be studying too!

dbd33

I have been as described in the first paragraph since 1986. How do you make paragraphs now?

JonboyE

The other way of looking it is that you have 52 weeks annual leave if you want.

I self-insure for things like dental and prescription drugs. I do carry some life assurance but we are at the happy stage in life where most things are paid off. If you discount the grown up son in the basement who really should have left home by now we don't have any dependents. I appreciate the risk is a lot higher with a young family.

I work because, for the most part, I enjoy it and to try and make sure retirement will be fun rather than just getting by until lights out.

Tirytory

Is that worth doing? Bet it doesn't cover my eldest needing braces I am not looking forward to that moment here..

Teaandtoday5

$6k for number one son

Tirytory

Seriously- that's half our moving costs to go back to the NHS for braces

Almost Canadian

I am self employed and I would think that one would not entertain doing so until one weighed up the benefits with the risks and decided that one outweighed the other. The risks to which you refer can be mitigated to a large extent by insurance. One of our daughter's orthodontic work is costing us in excess of $10,000.

JonboyE

I lost my extended health benefits when I left paid employment. I asked for a quote for private insurance. I had to sit down for a while once I received it.

Insurers plan to spend 65% of the premiums you pay them and keep 35%. To make sure they keep 35% there are restrictions on what they will pay out. I have not seen a private plan that will cover much, if any, orthodontic work. When I was covered by the work-based plan I still had to pay for junior's braces out of pocket. There might be some coverage for crowns or root canals but it will be a lot less than the dentist's fees. Basically, anything that is expensive is excluded. And, if you end up claiming more than 65% of your premiums they will just put your premiums up next year.

Maybe extended health plans for government employees will have better coverage but I have not found a private plan that I think is value for money. The best value plans are pooled plans like the one the Chambers of Commerce offer. In a pooled plan the expense to premium ratio is calculated over all subscribers so there is less chance an extra filling will bump your premium in the following year.

My solution was to put the equivalent of the insurance premium in a savings account each month. We pay all health costs from this account. It is running a "healthy" surplus.

scrubbedexpat091

You don't need to be self employed to not have insurance, pension, and so on.....

BristolUK

I can see how that happens. I had two lots of dental work in the first few years here that cost less than the premiums and it wouldn't have been covered anyway.

I'm not self employed but half my income (depending on the exchange rate) depends on not having a rogue tenant, extended vacancy or major unexpected rental expense.

My step daughter is employed but the employer keeps staff hours below the level at which they'd get coverage. She did have it for a short period but dental cover was minimal.

In addition to its drug program for social development clients, the Province here has a plan for every NB resident who doesn't have employee or other private coverage.

It's quite affordable for those on lower incomes. Monthly Premiums and co-pays can be as low as $16 and $5 respectively.

Steve_

I would have thought 99.9% of the people using this forum are either unemployed, self-employed or retired.

Canada is a good place to be self-employed because it has low payroll taxes and some semblance of healthcare, although a group dental plan is a nice thing to have.

As compared with the US where you have to pay double FICA which is way more tax and have to buy an ACA plan to get healthcare as well.

And there in a nutshell is why I live here rather than in the US.

scrubbedexpat091

Companies love to do that in the US and Canada, they will proclaim they offer benefits, but they will forget to mention how you need to average 40 hours a week, and how they purposely schedule the bulk of their employees at just shy of 40 hours so they don't qualify. That's been the way almost every company I have worked for has done.

I don't even concern myself with benefits anymore, there is very little chance of a company offering them to employees of my level that isn't going to be a crummy job, I know Tim Horton's does, but man that would be a miserable job, and frankly benefits are not worth being miserable in your job.

BristolUK

Those people who look down their noses at what they like to call burger flippers...what condescending name do they use for TH workers?

R I C H

Self-employed here with 8 staff.

No personal insurances (life/health etc). The business and other property are pensions.

scrubbedexpat091

I've heard donuts tosser, and coffee jockey before.

I don't look down on anyone who does it, I just know I could not survive in a fast paced environment like that, the faster I have to work, the worst I do, the more clumsy I get, and the more stressed, I'd be a stress case in that kind of environment.