Salamander
Fire Walking

I got my annual raise today. It works out to 3.25%, which is slightly over the 3% rate that the head of my department was given to work with for our entire department. My .25% is someone else's loss. I feel gratified that they value my work so highly, but I feel badly that someone else is going to lose out because of it.

I also have a profit sharing meeting this afternoon; I'll find out what my cut of will be then. You have to take some of it in cash, but I intend to take as little as possible. Without my ex-husband's retirement plan to fall back on, I've got to do some serious saving if I'm to retire at 65. Any delusions of retiring at 55 are long gone.

Even though the Professor and I are sharing expenses, it's important to me to know I can cover everything on my own if I have to. This raise helps with that, even with the increase on the rental, I should have more I can set aside. If I'm frugal with the electric this summer (i.e. go easy on the air conditioner) I may even come out ahead. The Professor keeps reminding me that he's chipping in for half, and that I needn't worry about it. It seems ungrateful to say that he's missing the point. I still need to know I can do it on my own.