How a Saver Spends Vacation/Personal Days
It’s hard to believe, but my one-year anniversary at work is coming up, and with it, faster accruing vacation times and two new personal days.
The way it works is this: After your three-month probation, you get paid holidays and two personal days, as well as accruing vacation hours up to one week (40 hours). After a year, you start accruing up to two weeks over the next year, never able to earn more than 80 hours total.
(Random question: what are your personal/vacation days like? Are my benefits pretty normal?)
Even harder to believe than the fact that I’ve almost hit one year is the fact that I’ve use 0% of my vacation days and still have five hours of personal time left. California will eat three vacation days, and I’ll probably use some more this summer/early fall. The personal hours, all five of them, will expire if I don’t use them fast.
So, discovering this last week, I quickly filled out a blue slip for a half day the next Friday (today). My manager was funny, saying I didn’t have to use them. Um, let’s see: I came to work when I was tired/exhausted/sick/sniffly/etc., manned the office on Christmas Eve, have never, ever taken a sick day—and that was because I wanted to work more? HA!
I came then because I’d rather use the time for fun now. That’s just me.
How do you spend your vacation/personal days? Are you a spender or a saver, and does that match with your PF philosophies?
Filed under budgeting, the everyday |
11 Responses to “How a Saver Spends Vacation/Personal Days”
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We get 23 days Paid Time Off (PTO) in your first year of employment, and 28 days PTO every year after that. PTO is accrued in a certain number of hours per pay period. You can use days before you have them, but if you leave the company before you’ve earned that time, you have to pay them back for it.
23 and 28 days is a lot, but that includes all holidays. I save my days so that I can take the full week of Christmas off (and up through NYE) and the Friday after Thanksgiving.
I’m finding myself in the situation where I have a chunk of PTO that I haven’t allocated yet and we have no big week-long vacation planned for the summer. I might just take a week of and hang out at home & at the pool!
A few things:
1) I get up to 10 vacation days per year, 80 hours, which doesn’t include holidays. We also get 7 paid holidays off per year. There is no probation period, but you earn the hours a fraction at a time each week, so in the beginning you don’t have a lot of time off. The hours are also transferrable to the next year without cap.
2) How did you get your twitterings on the side? I’ve been trying to find a good way to do that and am missing the code…
3) My 1 year anniversary at my job is also coming up (June 18th actually) and I find it hard to believe. Time flies! Time to kick it in gear and get stuff done…!
I think the average starting vacation days in public accounting is 3 weeks, but I think that is to somewhat make up for the lack of social life anyone has during the Jan-Apr 15 busy season.
Suddenly I’m feeling very undervalued, vacation-time speaking! LJK, 23/28 days!!???
L @ Spilling Buckets:
1) 10 vaca days is what I’ll be getting come my one-year anniversary, so at least I feel sort of close to your company’s time-off policies.
2) For your twitterings, what you want is a Twitter badge. Try going here: http://twitter.com/badges. Are we connected on Twitter yet? What’s your name there?
3) Congrats! We’ll be celebrating together.
Jude: I have a friend who’s an accountant, and she was like gone all through the busy season, working round the clock. So, OK, you guys should get three weeks.
As a member of management, I receive 10 vacation days, 5 discretionary days and 8 holidays from the date of hire. Another week at 5 years and then I’m not sure when then next increase is.
Our union employees receive more.
I try to use my time off to travel. I’d like to take a week off and leave the country so that makes me a spender. I can’t think of a reason to take a day off if I am not traveling lol.
That should read “I like to take a week off and leave the country”.
Where I work we start with 10 days (5 if you start after July) and then your total increases by 1 a year until you’re up to 20. I wish I were at LJK’s place!
But we’ve got a generous suite of holidays, so I won’t wish that too hard.
We’re only allowed to carry over 10 days. In theory, you could save up and take a month and a half off, but I look at my 10 days as part of my emergency fund: if I’m ever let go (or when I leave on my own volition) they’ll have to pay me for those. I think the amount will be like an extra-large paycheck, because I don’t think my contribution to my 401(k) will be taken out when they pay me for those days.
I do a lot of weekend side trips when I’ve had work travel to interesting places. That eats a lot of my “fun” budget but not a lot of vacation days. I used to go to a little mom & pop hotel at the beach once the summer rates ended (it’s still warm enough for another month after that), but that costs money. The last couple of years I’ve just stayed home and done what I normally do at the beach (read, sit in the sun, take long walks) at home.
Sorry I haven’t commented earlier on your other posts this week– my computer’s been sick, but I finally got it working tonight.
I get 15 days the first year, accrued over time (x amount of hours per pay period). But we can “borrow” up to 40 hours of vacation time if we haven’t accrued enough yet.
I tend to save them until I need/want them, but I don’t deny myself a vacation if I have the hours. And I definitely try to plan my vacations to coincide with holidays/weekends when I can…The Boy gets way more vacation time than I do (15 days, PLUS a week at Christmas, PLUS a day off for “shopping” around the holidays PLUS a day off for your birthday!), so we have to try to balance it out.
15 days + a week at Christmas + a day for shopping + your birthday!!???
Sometimes I think I must’ve chosen the wrong field, LOL.
I’ve been at my job for 5 1/2 years, and I get 18 days (15 days of vacation, 3 personal days). We also have a “summer hours” policy where you can work extra during the week and take a half-Friday off from work every week from Memorial Day through Labor Day, or work extra over a two-week span and take an entire Friday off during the second week. It’s great because it allows you some vacation time in the summer without sucking up your usual vacation. Also, we get off 2 hours early on the Friday before a holiday that falls on a Monday. We get about 10 paid holidays per year, also. My boyfriend is a hairstylist and gets NO paid vacation or holidays.
He can take off, but he has to make sure he has the money to cover it.
i’m more or less a city employee and i’m allocated 15 days (120 hours) for vacation in my first year with 6 personal days, 9 holidays and 10 sick days. after the first year, it goes up to 160 hours (20 days) until you’ve been employeed for 5 years when it goes up to 25 days. im glad my time off is in line with most european countries (i travel a lot) and not the average american.