I wanted to reach out and thank this sub for the push to look for other opportunities. No matter how hard I pushed to make my company more money, and in turn, allow a raise for myself, the ones above me would screw it up one way or another. I finally got fed up as I'd asked for a raise a couple of months ago and put a deadline on it. Well, the deadline was Wednesday before last. I let my boss know that I'm less than a month from not being able to pay my bills as I'd burned through my savings and have been negative on my income/expense ratio for quite a while.
I spruced up my resume and applied for 2 jobs Thursday night. By Friday AM, I had a callback from the job I really wanted. Scheduled my second interview for Friday afternoon. That went well and I passed my “technical questions” part of the interview. I was told I would need to have a “practical exam” which meant remoting into their site to set up some servers, etc. I studied my ass off from Friday night until Monday afternoon as well as set up my home lab to practice. Wouldn't you know, I passed the test and had my job offer on Tuesday!
I start the new job tomorrow morning. I'm nervous, but that's to be expected. I'll be making more than 2x what I was at my last job with room to grow and a chance to learn more and enhance my skillset.
I really appreciate all of the stories that I've read over the last few months. As long as you're trying to make yourself more valuable, you deserve to be paid well and should always be looking around to see if someone will hire you for more money. You guys have inspired me and in turn have made my family's life much better. Thank you!
TL;DR: My last employer wouldn't pay me more money no matter how much I brought into the company. I was able to find another job, have 3 interviews and received a job offer in less than 5 days. Thanks for the inspiration!