Debt Free

This post began as a way to help people get a raise or increase their Christmas or holiday bonus. After all, one of the three legs of your personal finance triangle is the money you earn. Increasing your income will usually have a direct, positive effect on your financial health. During the course of my research on how you can increase your holiday bonus, I discovered that literally 50 times as many people wanted to know about how to get the best gambling bonus, or who had the biggest online gambling bonuses, as wanted to discover how they could maximize their year end, holiday, or Christmas bonus.

That’s just plain wrong (IMHO). Nothing’s wrong with a bit of healthy gaming, online or off, for those so disposed, but when so few people want to learn about how to maximize, or get an increase in their compensation from their employer as want to maximize their online (and presumably off line as well) gambling bonus and income, it says something about the psyche of the average person. What it says I’ll leave up to you to decide.

For the rest of you who would actually rather increase your employee bonus, here are some tips to help you do just that:

Increase your bonus tip 1-

If your bonus is performance based, check very carefully exactly what you are paid on. Give the creators of the bonus program precisely what they want, and you’ll get precisely what you want; extra cash! Often you can get extra money by increasing only one component of your bonus plan, such as profit percentage of your sales. Find what will be the easiest to increase, and what you are the closest to achieving, and target that parameter for your efforts. There’s no sense in spreading your efforts around and losing track of what will generate the largest bonus for you and yours.
 

Increase your bonus tip 2 –

Sometimes you can qualify for not only a bonus from your employer, but from your vendors as well. Don’t forget about those! They can add up to big money or prizes. In many cases you will earn points you can redeem for cash, prizes or the vendor’s merchandise. Big tip here; don’t forget to track your actions that can earn you these freebies, and make sure you turn in the form on time. As above, make sure you examine the bonus program in detail to ensure you’re getting the maximum benefit. For example, if a vendor gives you 50 points for selling widget X in black, but only 35 points for selling it in red, you know what to do, as long as your customer doesn’t mind. Don’t forget these little things.
 

Increase your bonus tip 3 –

Sometimes, it’s not only how much money you actually get, but what you do with it that matters. For example, squander your bonus on a vacation or new wheels for your ride, and you just put all your bonus eggs in a depreciating basket, when you can make the basket grow. You’ll be surprised how large your bonus can add up to, if you pretend you aren’t getting one for the terms of your day to day existence. Use it instead to fund an IRA. If you get a $2,000 bonus things could work out very nicely.

Increase your bonus tip 4 –

Increase through negotiation. On of my coworkers’ wives gets about a third of her compensation in the form of spiffs and bonuses. If the store is running well, and making a nice profit, her boss slides a bonus her way. Here is a place where a bit of negotiation comes into play to maximize said bonus. Hey, if your boss is impressed enough to give you a performance bonus when it’s not in your employment agreement, no is the perfect time to bring up some specific performance targets you can hit to get even more money. Make sure these targets are attainable, however. You don’t want to negotiate yourself out of a bonus.
 

Hopefully these tips can help you grab a it of extra income this holiday season. Have a great, Debt Free (that can be tough this time of year) weekend!