Believe it or not, lots of people do not know how much they get paid. That is, in terms of total compensation. Of course, there are that handful of people who know exactly what they make – and most people know precisely their “net pay” that gets deposited into their bank account periodically. But in my years of discussing total compensation with my clients (who typically make a fair amount of money) a great deal of the time they do not know accurately enough how much they made in a given year.

January is an ideal time to take a closer look at a print-out of last year’s year-end pay stub to learn valuable details and information. Why is this important?