Give Yourself A Pay Raise

A greater number of working population, the desire how to make more money and getting a pay raise is one of an employee goals and aspirations.

This means you have to prove to your employer that you can be an exemplary worker able provide results, able to create and sell more products, an excellent team leader that can cover your boss while he/she is away on important matters or vacation and so forth.

By making this sacrifice, it means that you have to spend more time with your company and away from your family.

Lots of reasons why employees, have to aim for such a goal?

• It could be a growing family and need more expenses to cover.
• Recently, bought a new house and a car
• Upcoming big occasions such as 18th birthday of your daughter, 50th birthday or  a family wedding
• Vacation of a lifetime
• Or need extra money to pay for bills and to pay off debts

Whatever it is, any additional income would be welcome news to any breadwinner of the family.

What most of us don’t know, is that we can give ourselves a pay raise without asking for a promotion or working more hours. But how?

1) Housing/ Mortgage = By far, the largest expense we have, like many others, was our home. We have a mortgage obligation to fulfill when we took out a loan. Banks approved us for a mortgage as we were fortunate to have good paying jobs.

A single detached family home is what we bought. We enjoyed the security and took pride of having own home and had so many good memories.

As a consequence of our huge mortgage, we need to work hard.  Regular financial obligations include mortgage payments, insurances, property taxes, utilities such as water, electricity and heating, phone, cable, internet and so forth.

In fact, two income almost not enough to cover the expenses of our home and growing family.

The expenses were mounting and increasing every year. It was a never ending cycle that leads to a very stressful life.

There must be a simpler, better way in life with less stress and able to keep more money in our pocket!

We made the hardest decision to sell our home and rent. Our mortgage obligation before, including other bills, insurances and credit cards was around $4500/month and even more in some months.

Now that we are renting, we are paying close to $2000 for rent, insurances and internet for a 3 bedroom suite. Still sounds expensive, right? But this is Vancouver, B.C., Canada the price we pay for living in this beautiful and expensive city.

There is no doubt we missed having our own home but I no longer miss the financial, physical, emotional and psychological aspects that tied with it. 

The yard works and any maintenance is taken care of by our landlord. Something that I don’t need to worry anymore.

People will then ask, Isn’t it that you lose out the equity you build on owning your home as compared to by just renting?

Home appreciation and growth are unpredictable. In some areas of the country you might see a small growth but in other areas it is stagnant and even down in some parts of the country.

As Robert Kiyosaki said ” A house is not an asset, it is a liability, even if it is fully paid off.”

You will only lose out as a renter if you continue to spend your hard-earned money accumulating liabilities and not putting away the extra cash. As a renter, we now aim to save and invest most of our salary, something that we could not do while owning a home. 

Being mortgage and debt free was the best decisions we’ve ever made.  We are now enjoying the freedom to move around whenever and where ever we want. We are no longer tied to one physical place.

2) Remove unnecessary phone, internet and cable package.

Most of us have cable, phone and internet package. On average, we probably pay anywhere from $120-$200 per month depending on the package you have. We decided to discontinue cable and keep internet. We watch videos on YouTube and read news on the web. 

If, you’re savvy enough, you can shop around and move your services to a new provider once your promo period ends. Keeping your bills lower.

3) Cut down expensive mobile plans.

Our cell phone plan has always been prepaid. We never have phones on contract or have data plans. On average people are paying $50-150 on cell phone plans. We only pay our cell phone bills around $10 a month. We do have smartphones that able make calls and send text messages and connect to Wi-Fi whenever there is access.

Our favorite provider is Speak out 711. What’s good about speak out by 711 is that the credit expires in one year (365 days) upon activation. Which means that if you don’t really used your credit and rarely used your phone for calls and text, your credit will last for a year or until you used up all your credit.

They have load credits of $25, $50 and $100. Once in a while they offer $25 bonus if you load up $100 on your phone and a discount on their unlocked in-store phones.

We are a family of four and on average we spend only $40/month.

How about data? I like to search the internet while I’m out. 

Nowadays, there are Wi-Fi almost everywhere so you can easily remove the need for a data plan. If Shaw is your provider, they offer Shaw Go Wifi open hotspot to your Smartphone if you have registered your device.

Furthermore, if you are working, many workplaces now provide free internet and Wi-Fi access.

4) Take public transport instead of driving to work. 

If, you live in areas close to public transport then you can eliminate the use of cars. You pay less insurance and become more physically active as you do some walking to and from home.

5) Bring your own coffee coffee to work instead buying fancy Starbucks or Tim Horton’s. 

Let’s say for example coffee is $5 and you work 5 days a week and buy twice a day. That’s $50 in a week, $200 in a month and a whopping $2400 in a year.

6) Prepare and bring your own food to work.

It is cheaper, healthier and you know exactly what you are eating when you bring your own food.

7) Minimize  and cut your trips to restaurants.

Cook and eat at home or if weather permits, have a picnic in the park or at the beach instead of weekly trips to a restaurant.

8) Shop around for insurance (life, motor, or home).

Every year I always try to shop around before renewing our home and motor insurance. Your current insurer is not necessary the cheapest and there is no need to be loyal to them.

9) Use cashback credit cards or rewards cards instead of using debit card or cash. 

Put away your cash into a high interest savings account (HISA) and pay your credit card full statement balance each month.

You earn cash or points by paying your card in full and on the other hand your funds earning some interest until you use it to pay your credit. It does take a lot of discipline but it’s all worth it.

10) Sell your unwanted stuff. A lot of us, me including is a culprit on this. Over the years we have accumulated a lot of things that either we don’t use it anymore or sometimes they are still brand-new and haven’t been used. 

By selling some of these items, we can create some space at home, generate some extra cash to good use or even add funds to your investment portfolio.

MY FINAL THOUGHTS

Asking for a pay raise is not always possible. The best action we can do is to have a closer look at our current finances and check where we can cut or eliminate expenses we don’t need.

Most of the time, the life stresses we have is our own doing. Living a simple and frugal life is the key to a stress free and happy life.

Do you feel that your regular income is not always enough?

Do you believe that the solutions to your financial problems is a pay raise, work more hours and getting a second job?

What other saving measures you currently do that’s not in my lists? 

Please let me know in the comment section below.