over worked & underpaid?

M

millies

Well-Known Member
Joined
20 December 2012
Messages
209
Visit site
As the title says.... I work 7 thirty till 4 thirty on week days, and 8 thirty till 5 thirty at week ends and I have one day off a week (which changes weekly). I am paid £100 a week (in not a working pupil doing an apprenticeship) plus I get livery for one horse for free, occasional lessons on her and ride her during work Time. I work quite hard, always do all jobs I have, muck out around fifteen in a morning and skip them out on an evening plus jobs in between, thirty mins for lunch. I know I probably sound like I'm moaning, but I just wondered if anyone else thought this was fair? In the 'horsey' world this seems totaly acceptable, but my friends seem horrified at the hours I work and the pittance I'm paid :')
 
I guess you have to be dedicated for it! That's why I don't work with horses (tried it years ago) and now have a professional career.

..sometimes think though that I'd rather play with ponies than sat at my desk with a pile of work staring at me..

:p
 
Horse is done on my day off (not excercised) I don't know how much livery normaly is as they only do competition livery, all other horses sre their own . (please excuse spelling, I'm on my broken phone :') )
 
I think to work that out you need to find out how much it would cost to have your horse in livery - does this include feed, hay etc. This would also include fuel to cost to get to a yard bearing in mind that if you were working say in an office job on DIY livery then you would have to make journeys to the yard and to a work place.

Then work out how many hours a day you spend looking after/riding your horse during work time.

Then work out how many lessons you have with your employer and how much they would cost.

Then deduct from the hours you work time spent riding/caring for your horse during work time.

Then add on the amount of pay you get the costs of keeping a horse at livery, the lessons and costs of getting to the yard. This will give you a better idea of how much a week you are actually earning.
 
My daughter gets paid the same, she lives in the family house as she also care for the kids, awful money but they get away with it by offering accomodation!
 
I would say I spend no mire than an hour and a half each day riding and caring for mine. I get one or 2 lessons a month which would be around forty pound an hour. At a rough guess livery wouldn't be more than £150 a week? Bedded on straw, hay 3x Dailey and a scoop of mix .
 
I tried working it all out but then I remembered I hate Maths. For facts and figures plug these numbers; minimum wage into this site; salary calculator

As far as I'm aware, the only deduction that can legally count towards your wages where NMW is concerned is your own accommodation, (so they cant make any deductions for perks that take you below NMW for your age group) but I'm not certain. The people on the MoneySavingExpert forum (google it) will be of more help on that front.

Ultimately, it's not about what you earn, or what's legal, it's about wether it's worth it to you, and we can't tell you that.
 
When I worked with horses 4 or 5 years ago now, I got about £180 a week after tax and paid about £110 back a week for keeping my horse there. It was like living on the dole without being able to watch tv all day! :D

I loved it though, until I bust my knee. :(
 
If you get accommodation, livery for your horse and then £100 on top it doesn't sound that unreasonable really. Assuming full (non-exercise) livery on a decent yard is somewhere around £150, accommodation say £50-100 per week plus your £100 then you're getting the equivalent of £300-£350 per week which as an apprentice does seem to be quite fair.

ETA don't forget that if you were paying for livery and accommodation out of your wages it would be paid for after tax so you'd have to get paid more to get the equivalent. Eg to be able to pay out £100 for your housing you'd need to actually earn £130 as you'd lose 10% of it to NI and 20% to tax.
 
I'm not an apprentice (i have some qualifications and have worked on other competition yards, so a little experienced) , and I don't have accomodation included, only perks are twice monthly lessons and livery. I do really like my job, but sometimes I just wonder if I'm being a mug busting my gut for not very much. Thanks guys, its nice to see what other people think (:
 
used to work 5.30am till 8.30 pm doing 47 horses i got payed £15 a day and still had to pay for my livery for my horse... i was a bit of a mug :o
 
There is no money to made in horses, well maybe the odd few night make big bucks but generally it's hard work for little reward. I'd always only keep it as a hobby.
 
Stormymoments - did you not end up paying them more than you earned!?! Knowing I'm not the only one makes it slightly better :') I honestly don't understand how employers get away with some of the things they do. Even when I didn't have my horse there I was still only paid the same.
 
Out of curiosity (sorry if I'm being cheeky) those of you that don't work with horses, what 'normal' jobs do you have and what hours Di you do, do you get over time etc. How do you afford horses both financialy and time wise ?
 
I don't think it's that good a deal if you don't get accommodation and you have qualifications and experience. In my last grooms job I lived out, came out with £230 a week and full keep for a stabled horse which I did alongside the hunters.

20 years ago I was a working pupil, we didn't get paid but we got lessons daily and extra coming up to exams, a couple of stable management lectures a week, free grass livery for one horse plus accommodation. After passing my BHS exams I got full accommodation inc food, £60 a week wages and grass livery. If we wanted stabling we had to pay but wasn't very much.

My livery yard pays £7 an hour and the staff live out but it's just basic work, feeding, turning out / bringing in, mucking out etc and the current girl does Mon to Fri full time.
 
Millies - I'm a metering engineer in oil and gas, I work from home , my office or the clients office, depending on project means my work can be flexible, but as far as horse goes its full livery for me, I would not and could not have it any other way.
 
i work in a petrol station ;) my basic hours are 24 but i work 37 i get payed 6.55 an hour and then after 10pm or before 6am i get payed 9.26 an hour i get time and a half for over time and time plus time and a half on bank holidays :) i pay £200 rent to my parents and then the rest goes towards food shopping and ponies :) time wise if im on a late i do everything in the morning so someone only has to wheel them in at night and if im on an early someone wheels them out and i bring them in and do everything :)
 
My kind of dilemma is that whilst working with horse generally the wages are pants so il never be able to afford my car, bills, house , holidays etc. But if I don't work with horses I'd have to keep mine on at least assisted livery which would be costly and I don't have any non horsey qualifications to get a ok job to pay for it.
 
Ok, so allowing for lunch & your horse you do 39hrs per week. For arguments sake if you had your horse diy on there, let's say it would be £50 per week plus £10 per week lessons. So you earn £160 per week. Which is £4.10 per hour. To equate to £6 per hour, livery would need to equate to £124per week for diy & one day with services. So crap even by horsey jobs standards.
 
Ok so 1.5 x 6 = 9 hours a week and you normally work a 9 hour days with half an hour for lunch.

So effectively you are doing an 8 hour day excluding looking after your own horse, this is what most people who work in an office would do but excluding the saturday.

So 80 a month lessons and say if you were on DIY livery you would be looking at £200 a month at least basic so say £300 a month for your lessons and livery and taking into consideration that you do not to do extra journey's to get to the yard which you would do if you were not working there.

Then £10 a day for them to look after your horse on your day off which would be £40 a month.

So you are working contracted 46 hours a week and getting about £100 I presume after tax but the other benefits as a package come to about £80 a week. If you are recieving £100 a week after tax then you would be getting about £128 a week pre tax and that works out at about £2.78 an hour which is illegal as it is below the minimum wage unless you are an apprentice. If £100 is your actual wage before tax and you are over 21 you are owed about £185 a week for all the time your employer has employed you! Information on the minimum wage is below

https://www.gov.uk/your-right-to-minimum-wage

https://www.gov.uk/your-right-to-minimum-wage/worker-disputes-over-minimum-wage

If the yard are deducting from your salary the cost of livery and lessons then you may find your salary is more before these deductions but if they are doing so you should see on your payslip what they have deducted for you using these services.

Unpaid overtime is normal in many jobs but the overtime only kicks in if you are working beyond your contacted hours.

millies said:
I would say I spend no mire than an hour and a half each day riding and caring for mine. I get one or 2 lessons a month which would be around forty pound an hour. At a rough guess livery wouldn't be more than £150 a week? Bedded on straw, hay 3x Dailey and a scoop of mix .
Click to expand...
 
Well I don't have a contact, I'm just expected to be there in time unless told its my day off. I don't pay tax yet (either I'm not old enough at nineteen or I don't earn enough) I don't get a pay slip, I just get a cheque each week usually. I worked there about 6 weeks before I took my horse there and was still paid the same, so I'm not actually getting anything deducted for my livery. So would I be being unreasonable if I asked for a pay rise ?
 
millies said:
As the title says.... I work 7 thirty till 4 thirty on week days, and 8 thirty till 5 thirty at week ends and I have one day off a week (which changes weekly). I am paid £100 a week (in not a working pupil doing an apprenticeship) plus I get livery for one horse for free, occasional lessons on her and ride her during work Time. I work quite hard, always do all jobs I have, muck out around fifteen in a morning and skip them out on an evening plus jobs in between, thirty mins for lunch. I know I probably sound like I'm moaning, but I just wondered if anyone else thought this was fair? In the 'horsey' world this seems totaly acceptable, but my friends seem horrified at the hours I work and the pittance I'm paid :')
Click to expand...
I would have thought that stable rent, bedding, hay and a lesson a week would be "worth" at least £100 per week so you need to factor those costs into your total wage.

As far as the law is concerned you can't be forced to work more than an average of 48 hours a week unless you choose to do so and when you have worked 6 consequetive hours you must be given 20 minutes uninterrupted rest away from your work. If you are over 21 then the National Minimum Wage is £6.19 per hour. However, the afore-going rules refer to adults and are different for under-18s.

However, as lessons are part of your emoluments then your employer could possibly argue that you are classed as a pupil, in which case the adult minimum wage of £6.19 would not necessarily apply.

You could approach your employer with a carefully worked out argument for why you think you deserve a rise, explainng exactly what you do and stressing how useful you are to the business and see what s/he says. However, if they say they can't afford to increase your pay then you'll have to decide whether this job is better than no job.

If you are under 18 it might be a good idea to get your parents or guardian to discuss this with your employer.
 
Sorry I think you are getting a rough not to mention illegal deal here. My junior staff work 8 -5 or equivalent with an hour for lunch and get paid nmw £6.19 an hour. They work a 5 day week with one weekend day off. Those with their own horses get 50% off our normal rates and their horses get done with the others not in their own time. They have time to ride each week day during the day and lessons if training for exams. Any other lessons are at a reduced rate. (All deductions for livery has to be taken off the net wages so NI and tax is taken off gross pay). My senior staff work the same hours but get significantly more per hour and get their livery free too. I would love to pay more but sadly can't afford to and still find it hard to get people who genuinely want to work with horses.
 
Last edited:
There is reasonable employers out there, I worked on a point to point yard purely riding out 5 hours a day Mon to Fri and came out with £190 a week.

Minimum wage for your age is £4.98 an hour and I would certainly be asking for payslips! I certainly wouldn't be happy mat being expected to pay around a hundred pounds a week for full livery on a yard where I worked full time.
 
millies said:
Out of curiosity (sorry if I'm being cheeky) those of you that don't work with horses, what 'normal' jobs do you have and what hours Di you do, do you get over time etc. How do you afford horses both financialy and time wise ?
Click to expand...

Im on DIY, am a student in the week and work 10am - 11pm Sat and Sunday - been in the same job for a long time though and get a more than generous hourly rate and a very understanding OH :D

I used to work in a hotel, lived in free, had meals included and got £120 a week salary - just for comparison that was over 18 years ago.
 
Last edited:
I was paid £100 a week at the livery yard, looked after 25 horses but when a livery left they would knock my money down. I had no perks and my horses were kept at my own place because I would have paid full cost for looking after them. I loved the job but working all year round with no holidays and even having to go in Christmas Day while the bosses sat and had a cosy Christmas grated on me as they had no kids and even when I asked if I could have Christmas morning off to see them open presents they wouldn't agree so I won't work with horses now. I don't get a day off from my own but I don't mind as they are my responsibility, to work for someone who wouldn't even let me have time off to recover from a particular bad miscarriage...well it goes without saying.
 
Just to give you something to compare to, I noticed a job being advertised only yesterday working 6 days p/w, inc acc for you and livery for one horse plus £600 p/m pay on top. I think that's a great deal! If I was single and a few years younger....!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top