It is, unfortunately, easier to spend less than it is to make more. As a finance geek, I tend to approach every problem armed with an Excel spreadsheet, so let me illustrate. After taxes, an annual 5 percent raise (optimistic by most companies’ standards) results in an approximately 3.3 percent increase in take-home pay. If your income is $100,000, that’s only $3,300 for the year, or $275 a month. With luck, it will mitigate overall inflation and leave you exactly where you were before. It’s certainly not enough to afford the new Porsche I’ve always dreamed of.
