Two days ago I wrote a post titled Life-Sucking Work. Yesterday, I received a somewhat unexpected raise and I’m happier than ever. Ha.

I am very very happy about this raise. I received a 15% increase and have been at my job for just five months now. I was also given a promotion, but because my responsibilities aren’t *really* changing, I call it more of a title-change-disguised-as-a-promotion-to-make-me-feel-good. But I’ll still take it.

This raise makes me quite happy for a number of reasons:

1. It feels good to have my work recognized. Though I whine and complain about my job in the privacy of my home (and in the privacy of the internet), I do work hard. I believe I’ve had a real impact on my company and improved a number of processes while I’ve been there.
   
2. I didn’t feel underpaid to begin with. In past jobs, raises often came at a time when I’ve already felt bitter, tired, and underpaid and then one day that raise FINALLY comes and I can’t even be happy because all I can think is “I deserved this months ago.” (I know, I’m a delightful employee). However the timing of this raise felt right. I work in a small department, and I’m about to be the only employee in my particular department as my boss is going on parental leave for one year. I was hoping to be compensated for the fact that I will definitely be taking on a lot of her work but I wasn’t sure it would happen.
   
3. The husband also got a raise. Husband just received a raise as well a couple of weeks ago. For some reason, the fact that we both got increases around the same time just makes it all the more exciting. Perhaps because we know the impact to our finances will be even greater.
   
4. We Bought A House. I had a blog post ready to go tomorrow about how we finally bought a house, but then this happened – so I will still post it in a few days. We budgeted for a home based on our current salaries and savings. We know that we can afford the mortgage payments and still have funds left over to invest. But now with this additional income we will be in an even better position to save and continue pursuing FI.

They say money doesn’t buy happiness – blah blah blah. It did for me today.