Making the Most out of Your Next Raise
There’s little that feels better than walking out of your bosses’ office with the news that you got a raise. Or maybe your raise is automatic and you get it just for putting in another year’s work and you’ve been looking forward to the extra money for the last few months.
Raises are wonderful but are you making the most out of your raises? Raises of any amount, but especially small raises, seem to be easily absorbed. You enjoy the increase in lifestyle that your raise has given you for the next few months. But what happens after that? You probably don’t notice the raise anymore. In fact, it’s almost like the raise never even happened.
It took years of this happening for me before I realized that I was simply absorbing that money into daily life and not getting the full benefit of the extra money. Here are some ideas on what you can do with your next raise to feel the full benefits.
- Increase your retirement savings by the amount of your raise.
- Figure out how much of a raise you are getting every paycheck and put into your 401K or IRA.
- Have the raise money directly deposited into your emergency savings account.
- Set aside the raise money in your checkbook and add the extra amount to your credit card or other debt payment.
- Funnel the money into a college savings account for your children or grandchildren.
- Send in the extra money each month to put towards your mortgage.
- Have the money be sent to a separate account that you can use to buy whatever is next on your wish list.
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