Starting Salaries of Grad Jobs? + First Car: Car Loan or Credit Card? + Do I Have to Pay Super?
The money stuff that you wish they taught in school
A quick apology, this was scheduled to send on Tuesday last week (which is why it’s talking about Easter Eggs!) but for some reason it didn’t send 🤷🏽♂️. I’ll do an extra catch up newsletter over the next week to make up for the missed one.
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Your Questions & Answers
What Do Different Grad Jobs Pay?
First Car: Car Loan or Credit Card?
Do I Have to Pay Super?
What Do Different Grad Jobs Pay?
Q. “There was a question last week about starting salaries for grad jobs (software engineering). Is there more info out there about starting pay in different industries?”
-Will, 17, Qld
Answer
Hey Chris, yep, there definitely is. Let’s do a data dump of what I found online (from good sources). Before we do that though here’s some points to keep in mind:
The average graduate salary in Australia is about $75,000 (Australian Association of Graduate Employers).
The average annual full time salary in Australia is $94,000 (Australian Bureau of Statistics).
All of the data below is the median for the whole set of graduates who have that degree or work in that field. But there are pockets of higher pay depending on industry. Those subsets aren’t shown in the figures below.
For example ‘engineering’ shows a median grad salary of $71,500 in the list below. But mining engineers are more specialised and they tend to work in remote areas. There also aren’t as many of them. So graduate mining engineers earn, on average, $103,000 which is well above the median for their peer group.
It’s also worth remembering that the starting salary is not an indicator of the lifetime earning potential of an industry or career. Plenty of other things like the company you work for, your skill and your performance at your job will determine how much you earn in the long-run.
It’s really interesting data to look at, and hopefully it proves helpful for you.
Salary of Australian Uni Graduates By Industry (Median)
Dentistry: $100,000
Medicine: $80,000
Social and support work: $75,000
Teaching / education: $72,000
Engineering (all): $72,000
Law degree related professions: $70,000
Health services, rehabilitation: $70,000
Nursing: $69,000
Psychology: $68,000
Science, math related professions: $66,000
Business (general): $65,000
Architecture: $65,000
Vet science: $63,000
Media, marketing, communications: $60,000
Tourism, hospitality and recreation related professions: $55,000
Pharmacy: $52,000
First Car: Car Loan or Credit Card?
Q. “I’m getting my first car. It’s pretty old but it’s also pretty cheap so that’s good. How should I pay for it though, is a car loan a good idea? I’ve also just got a credit card which I hardly use with a [$ amount removed] limit. Should I just put it on that?”
-Tahlia, 19, Sydney
Answer
Ooo I’m very glad you asked this Sara. You might not like this answer. But honestly? Neither of these are great options. Let me explain why.
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