Been there, done that a few times. I’d have been better off with an hourly wage. The royalties keep a-comin,’ but most things that pay royalties don’t pay very well to begin with, and those checks are often for less than a large pizza a year. You have to be in the top tier to make a better living at writing (for royalties) than you would as a salaried tech writer, for example. For every Tom Clancy, Stephen King, or J.K. Rowling, there are a bunch of folks that don’t earn back the $5K advance on a novel they spend a year writing.
Mostly, the things that pay royalties are better for bragging rights than income.
Ah, all that whining, and I forgot to answer the OP. I make most of my living from Salary, some from direct sales of things I produce myself, and a trace amount from royalties, investments, and the like. (I’m assuming we’re not counting retirement funds, which is overwhelmingly investment.)
I’m “salary non-exempt” which means I get paid for at least 40 hours no matter how few I work, but I also get overtime if I go over 40. I also get a monthly bonus and quarterly profit sharing.
Various types of bonus–mine’s an annual performance-based bonus that can range from 0% to 25% of your annual salary with a target of 15%-17%
Income from investments (passive income)
Income from trading securities
Plus I get some awesome benefits:
Company contributions to my 401k (100% matching of my contributions up to the max allowable plus an annual contribution on top of any matching that can range from 0% to 6% of annual salary/wages, depending on how the company does)
Health club dues or fitness equipment purchase reimbursement up to $750 annually
*Company stock purchase plan where they match 50% of my purchases up to a percent of salary/wages (varies depending on your salary/wages)
Tuition reimbursement up to 100% depending on the courses/grades earned
Various company programs where they work out deals for us to get discounted rental cars, cell phone service, internet service, etc. with selected companies
Really good health care coverage. Seriously, mine is great.
Parking or public transportation reimbursement up to $50/month
There’s also some employee assistance program where you can get counseling, assistance with adoptions, etc., but I don’t know a lot about that program.
I am paid a salary plus bonus (not a stratospheric investment banker bonus, as I work in developing financial related software, but a nice one nonetheless), and also earn returns on investments.
I also get an employee discount in purchasing stock in the firm I work for, which over the past 5 years has worked out enormously well, and most or all of the same perks mentioned by MaddyStrut (gym membership, health care, company matching to my 401(k), transportation reimbursement, etc.). They are pretty much par for the course for working in the financial sector in NYC.
Many sales jobs operate this way with some proportion of compensation as salary (or wage) and as incentive. This differs somewhat from what I think of when I consider bonus, which is usually a lump sum based of company goals and/or arbitrary rewards for accomplishments and different from commission which is a percentage of overall revenue brought in.
Perhaps I’m splitting hairs here, but it seems that the whole point of the OP.
Well, actually, the distinction is less obvious than I thought.
From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary: salary: fixed compensation paid regularly for services
wages: a payment usually of money for labor or services usually according to contract and on an hourly, daily, or piecework basis
Perhaps not the *whole * point, but I am interested in the various *types * of income that Dopers receive. And I agree with you that incentives are different from bonuses.
Tutoring job pays wages, but its 3 different wages depending on what exactly I’m doing at the time. When I got hired, I was actually really skeptical of this, and was afraid they were advertising the job as paying $X an hour when in reality the actual task involved was only 3% of the time spent there. Fortunately that isn’t the case. The job doesn’t pay out overtime, so we’re not allowed to work past 8 hrs/day 40 hrs/week. We also don’t get paid time off :mad:
Substitute teaching pays per day. Its a pretty good deal in my opinion, since some assignments are really easy/shorter than others, but I pretty much get paid a flat rate. I’m also free to work any day I feel like.
Salary (though, according to my employer, it’s a wage. We’re paid at a hypothetical 20 hours of work per week, but we get the same amount every month, regardless of how many hours we actually worked.)
Now and then, I make some self-employment income.
And, at the moment, I’m selling off all my stuff, which results in more cash, but less stuff. Does that count as income, and, if so, what type?
I get a salary. My company earns billable hours for me. I also earn a bonus depending on how large a percentage of my total available billable hours were billed to a customer.
If I go over the target percentage of billable time, they multiply my bonus.
I work for the Federal government. I can click on the “salary table” and see my annual salary. So I guess I am salaried. However, I can *also * click on the hourly wage table and see my hourly wage. So I guess I earn a wage. To break the tie, I look on my biweekly earnings statement and see a box that lists my annual salary and another box that lists my hourly wage.
I wish someone would tell me whether I am paid a salary or a wage.
(I also get lots of good benefits and a bonus or two during the year)
You’re being paid wages, then. A “billable hour” is what the customer pays for, which may or may not be the same as what the person performing the work is paid. Billable hours do not even have to match the hours that were actually work; I bill out slightly more hours than I actually work, because the customers have usually contracted for a fixed number of billable hours.
It depends on whether or not your pay varies according to how many hours you work. If it generally does, you are paid wages. If it generally does not, you are paid a salary. There’s probably some federal labour rule that requires you be informed in both ways.
This could be a salary, though, depending how you piece it out. If your firm is incorporated I’d be shocked if you weren’t paying yourself a salary. If you’re just carving off profits from time to time with no fixed amount in mind other than what you think the firm can afford, yeah, that’s probably a distinct form of income.
I get a weekly salary.
I earn overtime or comp time for any hours over normal hours.
I get a separate extra duty rate for jobs that are contracted from outside sources.
I get a uniform allowance.
I get shift differential.
I get a separate check for holiday pay.
(category = Windfall?)