Remember, you should be seeing more money in your net salary check because of less Social Security withholding (although because there is no more Making Work Pay Credit, it should not be a full 2% of your gross salary.) Whatever additional money you get, try and shift it over to a savings or investment account instead of spending it (or spend some and save some). If you set up an automatic withdrawal from your checking to your savings, you won’t even miss the money, and the compounding will start to build some money for you (although if you keep it in a !% savings account, it may take some time – but eventually interest rates will go up again so it will still amount to something – especially if you do this over 10 or 20 years).
You could take some of this money (or unspent Christmas Bonuses – even though that is an oximoron, isn’t it) and put it into a traditional IRA before April 15 and get a tax deduction as well as deferred taxes on the earnings until retirement. That is always something to think about.