Buffer not calculated in CRS units despite reprojection

Question

I have a point layer and a raster layer, where I'm trying to create a buffer around both of a certain radius in meters. I've tried saving each as the desired CRS (Albers Contiguous Equal Area) and used Warp for the raster layer. However, the buffer radius is still interpreted as degrees, as is the area of the buffer when I calculate that in field calculator. My current work-around is estimating degrees to meters, but this introduces error I'd prefer to eliminate. Is the problem the CRS I'm using, or am I not doing the reprojection properly?

Process for reprojecting: Right click the layer in the layer tab > Export > Save features as > set CRS to Albers Contiguous Equal Area Conic, and save and add to project.

Answer 1

Did a bit more digging and followed some directions to the letter.

For the point layer followed this post. For the raster layer followed this post.

Problem with point layer was solved by adding the layer in EPSG:4326 and exporting to a file (rather than memory). Problem with raster layer was solved by setting the initial CRS in the Warp as EPSG:4326 and also saving to file rather than memory.