Inflation effects

Usually my grocery order with Walmart is around $275-300. This covers me 2-3 weeks. The order I placed, for pick up today, is $323. I really don't feel like I ordered anything different, or extra, then normal. In fact, my list seemed smaller than usual. Are prices just going up that much? Short of comparing prices to previous orders, I'll have to assume so. 

Just more chipping away at my income/budget. With no raise in 2 1/2 years now, it's now affecting what I had budgeted in the future years, for getting our house paid off (adding to the house payment more each year) and saving for retirement. I had only budgeted minimal raises, but still extra money each year, nonetheless, that I am not getting. I wonder if my boss will see all my PTO days requested in our system, for her to approve, and wonder "oh, why is she suddenly putting in for so many days?". In the past years I have always taken the time off between Christmas and New Years and then misc days here and there, as things came up I needed days off for. I rarely schedule PTO months in advance, ever.

Another thing, along with no raises, is we also lost one of our benefits/perks last year. The perk of only having to work until noon (7-noon) every other Friday. That benefit equaled almost 10 days of pay each year. Not to mention we typically only had to work until noon before every holiday off.

While I'm in no way unhappy with my job or have any desire to leave it, I do feel like the company has started to shift it's focus away from making it's employees one of it's top priorities. The good salary, regular raises, extra perks has always made it so that I really didn't mind if I didn't take all my earned days off. I also think they will start seeing more people leave, as we've just been experiencing the past couple months. When it's "just a job", like any other job/workplace, people are more open to leaving.

It's also evident that they are ignoring raises by the fact that annual performance reviews aren't being done any more (as of 2 1/2 years ago). Of course they don't want to give a performance review and say, oh, you are doing great, meeting or exceeding expectations but, no raise. 

Since I do payroll and have access to all the salaries, I did a review of who has and hasn't gotten any raises. In the past they were typically done during the first quarter of each year, with most getting done in March. In early 2020, I see 3 people squeaked by, through March, and Covid hit and life as we knew it came to a screeching halt.

Also, I now see just this month, 3 of the sales people and another in a fairly high position (a dept lead) did just finally get raises. My guess, on the salespeople is, they panicked, as 3 quit in 2 months.

The 2 owners always get a raise on January 1st of each year. The 4 exec mgrs usually always do, too, but their last one was Jan 2020. But what about the other 45 employees, who have all not had raises now in 2 1/2 years? What's the plan for them, I wonder. Are they just going to do away with performance reviews now and if you think you deserve a raise you have to ask for one? I have been with this company almost 16 years and we have never been put in that position before. Annual reviews were always done (though sometimes not always timely, they were done) and most often, at least a small salary raise. The owners and exec mgrs are still getting bonus's, as usual.

A few years ago management hired this consulting firm to assess our company culture, blah blah. I'm not sure what they really learned or got out of it (very expensive). I certainly didn't see any changes made as a result of it. Not really sure what the point of spending $142,000 on it was. I think it was mainly to "train" management, but again, I didn't see any changes from it. I do know each employee had to do an anonymous pretty extensive survey about their manager and the company.

So, now I will review my annual income and budget again and will have to see if there are any areas I can cut back. Not likely though. I'm already pretty bare bones when it comes to spending. I could also start up doing MTurks for some extra income again - use my days off I'll be taking for that, LOL. I am now getting an extra $50 a month, from my company, put into an HSA that I just started in June, so that's an extra $600 a year. 

I also do not know if we are getting our 401k match and profit sharing contribution. Usually it's deposited in summer of each year, June or July, but nothing has been paid so far this year. Nothing was mentioned (that I know of) of not getting it this year (for 2020), but those zoom meetings I watched were sometimes bad connections, so I could have missed it. I do know we have accrued for the expense on the books.

So, so far I have noticed increased gas, increased food/household goods, increased property tax, increased propane cost. 

My company, obviously is seeing higher costs to pay their expenses, too. But guess what? Their revenue is also increasing. Because our mfg's are increasing the cost they charge our customers for their goods, which in turn means increased commission revenue for my company. They are making the money to cover this inflation. Who's suffering? The end user. The employee, who's salary doesn't also go up to stay in line with inflation.