5 Things You Should Never Do After Getting a Raise

So you’ve received a raise at work? Congratulations! Clearly, you did something right to earn that additional income. Now, it’s time to ensure that you keep doing the right thing.

Here are 5 things you should never do after getting a raise.

1. Act Entitled

Okay, maybe you really did deserve that raise. That doesn’t mean that you have to go around acting like it.

Maintain your professionalism and humility even after your raise. Don’t walk around the office puffing your chest and being arrogant. All this will accomplish is to alienate your co-workers and and breed resentment, making it more difficult to get your next raise (or promotion).

2. Spend It

The temptation that you’re likely to face now that you’ve received a raise is to “live a little.” Of course, living a little usually turns into living a lot as you splurge on something very special.

Resist that temptation. Instead, use the raise to invest in your future. If you’ve had some problems with your credit, you might be able to pay some overdue bills and get your credit score healthy.

Here’s an even better idea: look for ways to cut expenses. That’s the exact opposite of what many people do when they get a raise, but it’s good advice. Every time you get a raise, go through your budget and see how you can reduce some of your monthly expenses. If you do that, you’ll actually increase the size of your raise.

3. Make Minimum Debt Payments

If one of your goals is to reduce your debt load, a raise can be one of the best ways to help you do that. Use some of the raise (not necessarily all of it) to increase the amount of money you’re putting towards debt relief every month. That will help you emerge from debt sooner.

This is especially good advice if you’ve got credit card debt with a high interest rate. Credit card companies are known for setting the minimum monthly payment so that it takes their customers a very long time to pay off the debt. That’s how they maintain a steady stream of income.

4. Forgetting to Add to Your Emergency Fund

You do have an emergency fund, don’t you? If not, then you can use your raise to start one. Simply put, you have no idea what kinds of emergency expenses life is going to throw your way. That’s why it’s a good idea to have a nice wad of cash on hand.

If you’ve already established an emergency fund then you can increase the amount that you contribute to it thanks to your raise.

5. Pay Down Your 401k Loan

If you’ve taken a loan against your 401k retirement plan, then it’s a good idea to pay it down as quickly as possible. After all, you’re borrowing against your retirement – you’ll need that money sooner than you think. Use some of that raise to help pay your loan off.

It’s great that you got a raise at work. Now, make sure that you do the right thing with the money that you’ve received.