FIRE Flowers! Welcome back!!

Today’s post will focus on the numerator of the FIRE accumulation equation: Income

In my 2024 year end wrap up post I mentioned that I had negotiated a raise for myself and was awarded it at the very tail end of the year. Now that I’ve been cashing those thiccc new checks for a couple of months, I decided it is relevant to our FIRE journey and thus deserving of its own post!

The Backstory

Throughout my employment history, I’ve always applied to jobs slightly above my skillset. Which puts me in weak negotiating positions. So many brave bosses taking such a risk on a summa cum laude math degree! Some bosses have recognized after the first year of working with me that I was worth the risk and bring by salary up quickly. My current leadership lathers on verbal acknowledgement of my aptitude, but cannot find it within the budget to translate it into monetary acknowledgement. Boo.

This Glassdoor article talks about how women struggle with negotiating raises, and with every job offer I wanted to be part of the group of women that at least tried, but I kept choking! The time would come and the words that I had practiced in the mirror that were supposed to tumble out of my mouth didn’t!

The Inspiration

All great stories need a villain, and this story is no exception. You know I work in finance so this should not be difficult to picture: Straight white male. Dark hair. Very tall. Hired into a position paid a minimum of $30k more than mine. Genuinely stupid. At times, I suspect he may be illiterate. He puppy dogs our director. Spends the day chatting away in his office and going out to lunch with him. He is not capable of any actual production for our team, and when he introduces himself in meetings he says he considers himself the ‘guy with an opinion’.

I don’t hate him. I respect the game. When you are dripping in effervescent privilege and the old guard still installed throughout the ranks of a company, why shouldn’t he use it? Fair enough. Well, not literally fair, but whatever.

One day I was venting on the phone with a friend about how little said villain contributed and how sincerely remarkable I’ve been in my role (I’ve exceeded my own expectations for what I’ve done with this team. Seriously. Not to geek out, but I’ve learned and harnessed Power BI in the past year to a level I did not believe possible for me.) After we hung up, I was still marinating in all the things I had just said and realized – I deserve more money. DUH!

The Execution

I set a meeting on my bosses calendar for the following week. My base salary at this time was $105,060.

The meeting invitation said:

I’d like to use this time to review my compensation. 

I do understand that I was hired without experience in Private Equity or PowerBI and that my starting salary at the lowest end of the role range was reflective of the chance you were taking on me. 

Over the past two years I have learned the intricacies of our portfolio, can assist in key areas outside of my reporting specialty, and have demonstrated my ability to network and build rapport with other departments. My PowerBI skillset has grown exponentially to include the build, design, and deployment of reports and maintenance of data streams.  Additionally, I have the role of administrator to three PowerBI workspaces (with another workspace in the pipeline).

I no longer feel that being at the low end of my compensation range is reasonable, and I want to discuss a base salary adjustment to be more aligned with the mid-point of the beginning range and high-end range for my role. This would be between $124,000 and $130,000. 

Looking forward to connecting with you more on Wednesday!

We met. My boss said things like, her salary was also at the bottom range for her role. And that off-cycle raises were very uncommon. But if I would like, she could put the request in. Yes. I would like. Lol. Thanks.

I circled back with her every two weeks.

For 3.5 MONTHS. Ah the slow turning wheels of corporate america.

The request was approved for $14,940. Bringing my salary up to $120,000.

The increase to base salary will increase my bonus (target 10%, usually coming in just above 15%).

And just so my boss could get the final win (wtf) she did deny my merit increase for this year. HA. I think that just sets me up for a sequel really…

Last Bits!

Looking back I wrote half this post with quite a bit of snark! I guess I still have some raw feelings about things. I’m not going to go back and smooth it out – so I guess I just want you reader flowers to know its not directed at you! 🙂

FIRE Update: we crossed $600k net worth this month!

For anyone holding their breath on the sale of our condo – please exhale or you will die. It has not sold. And the outlook is not good for this year. Yikes! We did put just enough things back in it so that we could stay there during our return-to-office weeks. That’s nice. We refer to it as our ‘cabin in downtown Minnesota’ now.

Baltimore is still giving daily happiness doses. I absolutely love it here.

That is it for today! See you in October lovelies!