It’s Bad Enough This Cubicle is Freezing, But Now You’re Going to Freeze My Raise?
My employer announced today that they are freezing raises. Apparently, there’s some little problem with the economy that’s causing our top clients to slash budgets and lay off their employees, and now our company’s outlook is uncertain.
Worse, a few weeks ago, my husband’s employer announced they are freezing raises. Oh, and they’re also doing away with quarterly bonuses and laying off thousands of employees (my husband is not expected to be one of them).
This is a problem for us for two reasons:
- We owed the IRS $1,000 this year because we lowered our withholding last February (I thought we were doing a smart thing since we kept getting big refunds, but we ended up making a lot more money last year than in 2006, and now we owe). So, we need to change our deductions back to zero, which will leave us at least a hundred dollars less per month. Our budget is super tight because we are paying an extra $1,450 to our smallest debt each month. So, I was going to soften the blow by changing the withholding when we got our raises. Now I’m just going to have to make it work.
- We included estimated raises and bonuses in our get-out-of-debt timeline. While I kept estimates low (3% raises, the lowest bonuses we’ve ever received), I wasn’t expecting zero. So our five year goal (house and everything) is looking pretty unrealistic these days. Hopefully we can still do it in six.
I guess it’s just another challenge to see if we are serious about getting out of debt.
There is at least one piece of good news though. My boss told me they are going to try to make an exception for me and give me a raise later in the year (yesssss!)
4 responses so far
Ugh, what is the deal with all these salary freezes?? I so feel your pain.
yup, money is tight, and companies are battening down the hatches. At my wife’s place of employment, a church, tithes are down and they just had to layoff a whole bunch of people. Times are tough all over, so for me I”m just grateful that I still have a good job that I can depend on right now.
Just discovered your blog through the carnival of perosnal finance. like what i see - subscribing now!
i think everyone’s in the same boat! total suckfest when trying to get out of debt. plus, another fed rate drop - well, woo-hoo! good for the banks, but all it means for me is a drop in the interest rate on the little bit of savings i DO have! cripes.
[...] received an 8% raise despite our “raise freeze” and perhaps due to my “complaining” (see “where’s my money?”) [...]