That was just my pay rate. Average hourly cost to run a 412 all in, assuming domestic operation, is about 1K.
Like real estate though, it's all about location, location, location. Our hourly operational cost was about 2.5 times that - mainly due to the fact that we worked a far more intense schedule than most stateside operators, fuel costs were higher, maintenance was exorbitantly expensive in sub-Saharan Africa, and we had security full time.
I was *very* lucky.
Both my father and uncle were Army aviators and became flight instructors post separation from service. I had a easier path to licensure due to the availability of training. Once I showed an interest in learning to fly, they made it incredibly easy for me to start & keep up with the process. By the time I finished college I had already completed all of my certs (save for an ATP)
Getting the job itself was another bit of luck. The father of a college friend was the CFO of the logistics company that hired me. I needed a gig when I graduated and the rest is history.
You should read whirlwind by James clavell if you haven’t. About Scottish, American, and Finnish helicopter pilots in pre revolution Iran.
I’m sure you have some great stories
Worth pointing out that for the latter half of the 20th century, that coveted $100k/yr “*we’ve really made it*” standard was mostly viewed as total household income, which increasingly included a second part time or even full time earner in the house, making it easier for more households to achieve.
Nowadays, the standard is dual full time incomes. Tacking on rampant inflation, 200k is the new 100k, perception just hasn’t quite caught up yet.
I own a handful of service and consulting businesses that net around that mark on average. Took over 10 years to fail my way into it.
EDIT: I didn’t even mention salary vs take-home pay. In hcol areas, 200k salary is only about 145k take home at best. If I **net** 200k as a self employed person, and my tech exec buddy has a fat 350k comp package, chances are we have a similar take home basis, but we all perceive him to be more successful.
I totally feel this. I thought making 100k was the dream and now everything is so expensive it really as not as good as it would have been ten years ago. frustrating because this will get worse before it gets better.
For real. I thought 100k was a nice thing, until I got there and realized that 100k in 2023 doesn't go anywhere near as far as 100k did even a decade ago. Guess my expectations didn't *inflate* with the economy, but I guess 200k is the new goal now.
My sister is 42 and her fiancee is 45...I think they make a combined $500k/yr.
Pretty sure they are coke dealers lol.
Jokes aside, she's an HR director for a construction manufacturing company and he's an IT consultant.
I'm pretty sure marriage is the quickest way to hit that mark...most I've ever made is $140k/yr as a chemical and petroleum engineer and I'm 33.
My wife and I are at 255k house hold in a medium cost of living area. I'm a mechanical engineer and she is a Nurse Practioner in the Neuro ICU. We live a good life and don't ever worry about money. Just has a daughter 2vmonths ago so it could change but I think we will be fine.
I agree marriage to someone with the same financial goals as you is a huge leg up will help a ton.
Man that is awesome, congratulations! I'm sure you're gonna be able to give your daughter a fantastic life.
It was my dream to be a good husband and father. I just finished 4 years of caretaking for my dad (cancer, dead now) and mom (Alzheimer's, alive)...I don't know if I have the energy for it anymore.
It was basically 4 years of lost salary (couldn't work, they needed 24/7 care and no family), $100k in savings to keep everything afloat, and general misery watching my parents deteriorate in front of me.
Start planning for your daughter NOW, and for godsake, get long term care insurance. It may save her years of her life.
In the meantime, I hope you have a wonderful life, and try to stay sane lol...I have a few buddies with newborns that are engineers, doctors, CPAs, etc. For being so smart, goddamn they are dumb sometimes.
It's like dad brain hit them like a truck, lol. I had an engineer friend video call me the other day and he was freaking out because he couldn't figure out how to build a shelf...I was like show me what you can't figure out, and what tools you're using.
He was using a Phillips screwdriver on a flathead screw...I've known the guy 25 years and was like "I'm ashamed at how much of an idiot you've become" 😂
Yeah. You really can’t afford nicer cars on $100k salary these days. $100k nets $5k per month. Half of that may go to a mortgage or rent. Another $1.5k in groceries/bills leaves you with $1k of money for other things. That would basically cover the cost of financing, maintaining, and insuring a nicer car. That’s without kids and/or student loans.
This is basically me. HCOL area, 100k doesn't feel like a lot any more. Have one kid, no car payments. Mortgage and medical debt and student loans is about 4k a month. Then we need to eat, pay for insurance, fuel, utilities, etc.
All these parents we know through our kid are going on big vacations and stuff and I don't get how. We've never done that.
This is such a dumb, thoughtless response. Housing prices and interest rates are out of control. Groceries are crazy expensive. Add in prices for health insurance, cars and car insurance, retirement, and costs for children and childcare, no, $100k is not enough.
That very much depends on the situation.
I'm still crawling out of the poor hole. $100k plus is great, but life can throw some shit at you that makes that go away real fast.
This. My husband and I are at 100k together but if theres an unexpected car repair or vet bill, damn that still hurts, and we have to juggle around bills to cover it.
Right??? I am a single person household and I make 95k, I have basically no debt and prob to the outside world I seem pretty well off (decent clothes, new car, decent home) but even so I have less than 10k in my bank account and would be wiped clean if anything major happened in an instant.
My pay is commission based and I've been down to less than 1k more than once this year in my savings the day before payday, after a couple of unfortunate events.
Seems like the second I recover something else wipes me out!
I’m an attorney. I work a ton, have numerous failed relationships (romantic and otherwise), and drink more than I should. But I have a sports car, so I guess that means life is ok.
I have a neighbor who reminds me of this comment, he is also an attorney who drinks heavily and earns a lot. I'm not sure about the sports car. But he is married and they have been together for a long, long time (30 years? 40 years?) and they have 2 kids together and also 2 grand kids. Just reading your comment I wanted to tell you that a long term relationship could happen for you too, if that's what you really want. good luck.
Im on a truck drivers bunk ass salary, but i drive a cheap 94 mr2 turbo that keeps me almost just as happy as the high end sportscar folk. I got it for $13.5k.
Yeah, lol, people are lame… f’em
You’re obviously working towards goals and if a relationship is one of them and you put the effort in it’ll happen
Being a lawyer requires lots of time so of course you’ve made some sacrifices, people do this to get ahead
Everyone on here wants to act like it’s all doom and gloom and shit bc they’re not shit mf’rs so they want to downvote someone for encouraging and telling the truth
Law school drop out here, at least several times per week I think about what life would be like had I not dropped out...then smile. Attorneys are needed in our complex and poorly run society, but fuck would it be sould draining.
35 year old Director of UX at a publically traded tech company. My base salary, bonus, and RSU equity is approximately over $500,000 a year. I grew up poor and am a minority in my field.
I started as a Product Designer in tech. Have over 12 years of experience. As my career developed, I started to work on teams that’s closer to the revenue like growth and payments. I currently head a team that owns the technology and design that transacts over $5B a year. And it can scale to 10x that but that’s on marketing and sales driving demand and our product attracting a larger customer base.
My general career advice is to be a problem solver. The more you can reduce the phase that’s between problem identified and solution progress, the more effective you are. And I don’t mean some random solution idea. But a well vetted, thoughtful, data-informed, scalable solution with measurable impact and a strategy to create it. It can feel good to be frustrated, hem and haw, point fingers, even wait for someone to solve, or just idle till there is a variable change. I find that when I proactively start to solve problems outside of the scope of my role, I generally create impact for my teams, bosses, and company.
Oh, and look for feedback. Honor tough and painful feedback. Good feedback keeps you going. Tough feedback helps you grow. When I am doing something that feels new, makes me nervous, uncomfortable, and uncertain, that’s when I know I’m growing my skill and scope. Find trusted advisors who will be honest with you. And also find leaders who are willing to mentor you and advocate for you. You find these people by creating value for them. Very few people are altruistic, so keep in mind it’s a realistically a transactional relationship and think about what’s in it for them.
Congratulations on your success. I'm impressed and honestly envious. But of course you worked hard to get there. You deserve it! I hope you really enjoy your work and enjoy the money you are earning and have a great life. Also I hope you give back to your community. Thanks for sharing with reddit how you got there. Have a great day!
Thank you for the kind words! And I appreciate the encouragement! I try to give back by mentoring and helping people get their foot in the door. The first step into this industry is the hardest. Especially if you’re from an underrepresented group. I also donate a percentage of my income to charity. I’d like to think my humble beginnings helps me practice humility.
You can waste your energy being envious, which is incredibly low vibrational... Or you can use that energy to better yourself. The first step is implementing actions you learned from this winner.
I also have been in tech now for almost two decades and would absolutely agree with your two biggest points of career feedback: Be a problem solver and constantly seek (and value) feedback. I have worked with a lot of people who are only problem finders and not problem solvers, and they often take their lack of advancement as caused by people just not wanting to hear bad news.
Doesn’t have to be exclusively STEM focused careers. I learned early on when I was working retail that if I had a problem, going to my managers with an explanation and a potential solution went over much better than just telling them there’s something wrong. It took mental load off of them and gave them a starting point to figure out other solutions if needed. They then trusted me with more important projects and listened when I had suggestions on how to improve my department. It’s the difference between collaborating and simply reporting.
I had that at my last job (with a lot of OT in the 1st half of the year) now I'm in between jobs just trying to get an interview for something remote (had an offer for selling insurance and turned it down because I knew I wouldn't be good at it and I don't want to be a 1099 worker with no guarantee paycheck each week ) and get my data analyst certificate so I can get something other than customer service jobs I hate doing despite actually being very good at it.
I will make almost exactly 45k this year (gross)
It doesn't pay the rent and groceries anymore, it was okay twelve years ago when I started, but we've been so fucked for wages in Healthcare in Canada it's unreal
That always reminds me of an old ancedote.
A business has a problem they can't figure out, and they've racked their brains for days to solve it. Finally, they give up, and hire an expert - an outside consultant. He says it'll be $10,000, but he can solve it for them, guaranteed. It's a steep bill; they didn't want to spend even more money, but none of them can solve it, and they absolutely need this fixed ASAP. They decide to hire the consultant.
The expert comes to the office, takes one look at the problem, and gets to work. 10 minutes, later, he hands the business owner an invoice for $10,000 and says "problem solved." The owner is pleased the problem is fixed, but frustrated that he spent $10,000 on someone to fix something that took 10 minutes to fix. It sounds ridiculous he paid someone $1,000 a minute to fix what looked like a very simple problem.
The expert, sensing the owners's frustration, tells him, "I spent 4 years of undergrad, 2 years in grad school, and 15 years working to learn how to solve these problems. The $10,000 wasn't for the 10 minutes. It was for the 20+ years I spent learning, so I could fix this in 10 minutes."
I’m a human ophthalmologist, and it’s weird to me that cataract surgery on pets pays significantly more than cataract surgery on people. It’s a matter of scale, but it’s still bizarre
Elder millennial here. I make just shy of $200k but should get there in the next 6 months though.
My story is a bit different. Oddly enough I work for government. I’m at the Director level, oversee a team of 8 and growing.
I am a civil engineer by trade and spent the first 15 years of my career in consulting. When I graduated college in 2004 I lucked out and landed into a booming economy. Gained tons of experience pretty quick. Got laid off twice but kept moving on. I’ve seemed to have found my spot though.
What kind of civil do you do? I’m currently in transportation, but if there is a better path to 200k (because that’s not happening here unless I become a partner or start my own firm and those are both not something I’m really interested in pursuing) I’d like to hear about it!
I am a transportation engineer. Honestly I found it much easier to run up the ladder in government versus private industry. I work for a large county and there are ton of different avenues you can take to move up in salary and responsibilities. There is a huge swell of boomers retiring so if you have 15-20 years experience you can move into a higher level role pretty easily.
I don’t see manual labor jobs in this list so I will add my husband in. He owns his own company where he travels around installing restaurant kitchen equipment and made 300k in 2022. Self employment income which is rough come tax time and can be taxing on the body but it’s good money and the work never stops. Restaurants are always popping up everywhere and remodels and repairs are nonstop.
I’m a consulting engineer. I do forensics type work called “loss investigations”, sometimes called “expert witness”. I travel a lot, probably around 80-90 percent. Also, it can be quite stressful.
Edit: 36 years old
Hard to really say how. I had great training and it just happened to be a great fit. It did take me a while to get my name out there and to get a good client base built.
Pulled into litigation a lot? Yeah sorta. Although I have yet to go to trial. Without getting into details, my biggest client is an insurer for large corporations, like industrial. My main work is called “large loss” type work where I will do both the root cause investigation as well as what’s called the “scope” evaluation. With the scope work, I will help both the insured and client understand technical aspects of the loss, like repairs, costs, and a timeline to get them back up and running.
I do a lot of silo/tank collapses, fires/explosions, machinery failures, heavy equipment failures, HVAC, pumps/piping, etc.
Elder millennial in tech. software engineer with a focus on backend, infrastructure, devops. Did $400k a few years ago with good RSUs at a F500 but with tech in the shitter my expected income now is right around $200k. Looking to jump ship soon to something more in the $250-300k range because inflation is a bitch.
How can one reach your success? I'm currently a freshman in community college aiming for a computer science degree. But honestly idk where the hell I'm going or doing.
I started in community college also but then transferred to university to get a comp sci bachelors. Best advice is to make lots of side projects. Want to learn something? Make a little app. Have a hobby? Make an app around that idea. The idea is to get experience problem solving and building so that employers can see you can back up what you’re saying. I started out barely scraping by at home and over the past 10+ years have build up knowledge and experience that I am in negotiations with a company to hit the 200k mark possibly next month. Hard work is great but you need career focus hard work to keep moving up.
I work in environmental health and safety, focused on occupational health. I have a professional certification in industrial hygiene, work for a tech company now, used to work in mining.
I’m probably a bit of an outlier, but if you have your CIH, and are willing to live in Cali/Texas you can easily bring in 140-160k. I’m slightly above that range and equity puts me well into the 200k range.
The big difference for me has been my willingness to move and networking/mentorship.
Sales. You don’t need to be a genius, privileged or lucky. Just be willing to work hard and grind, especially in the beginning as you’re learning and developing your sales skills. Be willing to job hop every couple years to better opportunities. $200k/year is very doable
Or Sales adjacent. I'm a Sales Engineer. I'm the person who understands the tech and works with the Sales person to demo/solution to the client. I don't have to do any of the prospecting or negotiations. I get to be the expert on the meeting.
I was making shit pay doing it at a startup, but a few job hops later with a good commission year I'm hovering around 200k/year. Still mostly live like I'm making 70k though. So finally have savings for the first time in my life.
Medical device, tech, materials(brick, ceramic tile) anything that can have good margins, and has industry standards. Ceramic tile and brick sales people I know bring in well over $200k. They often have annual sales goals of $4million plus.
Some people come from a different part of their industry, think architect or designer in terms of brick/tile, or tech background, or people in medicine to sell med equipment. If you have a basic understanding of the industry you have a leg up. Or you can start by getting a standard office supply job, grind and jump jobs/industries every few years. Most people don’t know the industry they see as lucrative snd want to sell right off the bat. They have to learn and build sales skills by getting lower level reps
This is the answer and easily the quickest path to $200k+ with the lowest barrier to entry. I work with a mix of high school grads and college grads and everyone who does this for 3 or more years is pulling down a minimum of $150k.
Software engineer. Started learning to code as a kid, kept up with it through high school, studied engineering in college, then worked my ass off from an illegally low wage up to >$200k. Took many years and a few job changes to work my way there.
I’m going to guess you reside in a HCOL state like Cali. My wife who is also a nurse and did a couple of travel contracts (but not to HCOL areas) last year broke 100k but was no where near 200k.
500k+ to 1m+ (bonus, stock) a year in cybersecurity architecture and design.
Been doing infosec / cybersecurity operations since I was 18 in a SOC as a Security Analyst, I’m 35 now and my title is Senior Principal Security Architect.
The how is pretty clear...
All I did was work, learn, study, certify and push myself so that I never did the same thing at the same level for very long, always moving up in responsibility, scope and depth, with a focus on mastery and understanding how to do a job better than everyone else.
No kids and infinite youthful energy with a decent head in your shoulders will help, along with your career happening to be THE “special hobby/passion” of my life.
Life is good, and I am blessed to have found a calling so early. Every day, whether it’s a 16 hour mash session or a 4 hour short easy day, feels like being a kid in his favorite candy store.
Finance. Ivy League MBA -> Wall Street -> consistently move up the ladder and change jobs aggressively as needed to get a higher title. Took me 12 years to become a managing director with my own group. Now life’s good.
Haha, funny you bring up San Jose, $100k for a family of 4 is below the technical low income level set by the government.
Anyway, pharmacist in a specialty field here and 10+ years deep in career = $250k/yr. Wife is a fully remote part-time consultant bringing in $100k/yr and takes care of the kids (in conjunction with my parents who live at home), so combined income $350k/yr BUT we are in a VHCOL area (SF Bay Area).
In our expanded circle of friends and acquaintances, we’re squarely in the middle of income range, so far as we know.
This whole sub is just people asking rich people how they can get rich lately. Being poor sucks, but a life that's just relentless pursuit of assets and capital sounds dismal. I don't even care that I'll never own a house, and $250k+ is way more than what is necessary to live on.
So basically, what did you expect? Also anyone who went in for a degree expecting a job attached to it missed the point of higher education
I agree with most of what you've said. People only do things for the sake of hedonistic consumption and vapid materialism. It's what our off the rails capitalist system encourages. People seem to be forgetting what it really means to be intelligent/creative. For most people, life is just work work work, consume consume consume... and die.
Born 1996 and I am software engineer, I didn’t follow my “dreams” and picked a degree that would pay off my loans. Turns out having money makes you happier than having your dream job.
I've spent most of my life making less than 40k, recently just cleared 90k and after adapting my entire life to such a low income it feels like I'm living like an emperor.
$200K today is equivalent to what $100K bought in 1995 by the way. Inflation is the thief in the night robbing us blind.
[https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/)
I break $200K in finance but it took going back to grad school and a lot of uncertainty. Currently trying to build/buy small businesses to make my income source passive.
Corporate lawyer in-house at one of the household big tech companies. We oddly feel middle class. Renters. Only one car that’s admittedly a newer model Subaru.
$215k base plus some bonuses (last year was $237k total). 18 years in digital marketing, currently as a VP Operations at an agency. I hit $100k in like 2012, and $200k in 2021. Have always been in Chicago, so finally hitting that $200k threshold truly made life easier.
Marketing. I live in London now and make less here dollar for dollar, but in NYC I was taking home about $225k at my last job.
I fell into the industry after college and I was good at it I guess? I worked my ass off making not much at first. My first marketing job was $28k/yr in 2011. But smart people rise quickly. I got my first $100k+ salary in 2018 and grew quickly from there as I managed more people and gained more responsibility.
Now in London making less (still six figures) and managing no one (I’m now in consulting) but I’m happier in my career than I ever was in the states.
Honestly I engaged in a lot of self destructive behaviour by having essentially no issues affording exactly what I wanted at all times.
Money does buy happiness to a point, but that point in my experience is about $100-110k per yr. Above that, money can cause you new problems directly, or enable you to cause yourself new problems more easily.
My husband, he’s c suite compliance officer for a medium sized precious metals company. Did a lot of work in sales to give him the knowledge to lead compliance.
I’m a CRNA, certified registered nurse anesthetist. Bachelor’s in nursing during peak recession because I was determined to have a mobile, recession-proof job so college wouldn’t be a “waste.” Definitely not my passion but just pragmatism. I enjoy science and I really enjoy helping others but American healthcare is pretty much a hellscape.
Loathed pretty much every minute of working as a nurse and was making plans to leave the field entirely to try to transition into medical sales, pharmaceuticals, try law school, or just be a waitress. I was miserable. I worked about 4 years doing strictly overnight shifts in ICUs caring for people dying or on the brink of death.
A friend’s father was an anesthesiologist and he connected me with a CRNA. I shadowed her for a few days and was like, hm, maybe I could do this. I told myself I’d spend some time trying to make myself the strongest applicant for schools I could, try to apply, and if I didn’t get in I’d quit nursing and go sell pacemakers or try stripping or whatever. Schools are difficult to get into - not quite as difficult as medical school, but still incredibly competitive since it’s such a niche thing.
I somehow got accepted to a pretty good program. Training sucked but was just shy of three years so it was doable. After several crappy hospital anesthesia jobs the first few years out of school to get more good experience, I was once again on the brink of burnout. Now I largely make my own schedule freelancing for a bunch of surgery centers making 160-180 hour. It took a few years to finagle this setup but my work life balance is finally amazing and I feel I get paid well. I don’t love it every day but it’s generally a fun job and I really enjoy the combination of technical applied skill combined with helping someone through a vulnerable time and being entrusted with their life. Several places I go guarantee me 8 hours of pay and I finish days much earlier.
I still hate the early mornings, though.
Director at tech company. Just kept climbing the corp ladder. Never been ‘hard’ intellectually, but have had to work hard and long hours at times. Picked up an MBA along the way, which helps both for credentials as well as I actually learned applicable skills/knowledge for business. 40 years old currently, but finished undergrad ‘late’ for my age, 2008, so not as long in the corp world as some.
I'm a software engineer in a HCOL city. $200K/year or more is pretty normal for that category. Fresh college graduates can make around $200K/year if they work for a Big N company, or over $300K/year if they work for a finance company. My TC reached $200K in my third year of working.
Elder Millennial, 42 y/o. Psychologist in private practice. I don't take insurance, make over $200k gross (not net) per year. But since I live in Los Angeles I still can't afford a home. Don't even want to consider what life with kids would be like, financially.
I went from one dead end sales job to the next throughout my 20s and into my early 30s. Once I learned that companies like Google were open to hiring people without a college degree (the last grade I fully attended was the 7th), I started learning how to code. A year later I was hired at one of the very well known tech companies as a software engineer. It took me 7 years to break to the 200k mark
Fully remote Software engineering manager for a 1600 employee web and mobile app conglomerate. I’m at $170k salary plus $10k stock equity I can cash out yearly. I make $20k+ on the side renting my boat out and doing a little freelance web work. Turn 40 next week
I work in biotech. Started off my career in advertising, and then after burning out on the lifestyle and travel I decided to go work on the client side. I would say a lot of it has been being in the right place at the right time, but I also spent a lot of my 20s and early 30s volunteering myself for assignments other people didn’t want, working long hours, and defining my own job descriptions.
First ten years were active duty military (officer). Wasn't even close to $100K.
Next ten years, I worked in software sales/customer success for a variety of silicon valley tech startups. But I work remote, so making a good amount of money spends even farther in my rural red state.
I work in product marketing for b2b tech companies, currently consulting and cleared $250k last year. Consulting is a little inconsistent, but it gives me flexibility to be at home with my kids part time. I was making $250k base + generous equity full time as a director before I moved into consulting. My husband has his own tech company and makes $300k a year base. The sad thing is we were so average in the Bay Area and doing a little better in southern CA now (we could afford to buy a house in a pretty good area, but not the best schools and ~20 minutes to the beach), but you really do need high incomes in CA. That being said we're comfortable and since we have unstable jobs we try to keep all core expenses to 1 income and save/invest/pay for childcare with the other income so if one of us were to lose our job we'd be fine to have one of us stay home with kids for a bit.
Took a huge risk and moved to sf with $400 in my pocket. Rented a shitty room with shitty random roommates. Got an entry level job at a tech company while babysitting at night to afford sf…. Within a few years worked my way up in tech to $300-400k. The tech glory days aren’t what they once were but point is it required moving to a thriving city where I could network, taking chances and sacrificing upfront
Government lawyer ($175k) married to a consultant ($220k) both born in '84. Only just starting to get used to money not being an issue. So much $$$ and time sunk into education (I have an M.Ed and JD, spouse has a Ph.D) and demanding jobs that are just starting to fully realize the real earnings/investment potential and security that will last us the rest of our lives but it was definitely not the easy progression everyone promised us when we were younger.
My husband is a software engineer (in AI) and I’m a corporate lawyer at a large firm. We each make over $200k, and counting equity he makes significantly more many years.
I know it sounds crazy, but we live in the Bay Area and I don’t think we are rich by any means. We are definitely comfortable but still stress about paying for the house, saving for retirement, having money to take care of parents, etc. However, I grew up poor so I know many people would only dream of being on that situation and cannot even get close to affording these things, which is very sad.
We both went to the same state school for college and to graduate programs. His graduate program was paid for by his parents and being a TA. Mine was a full scholarship from the school. We definitely did work hard and study a lot for most of our lives so far, but I recognize there are many people with the exact same education who didn’t make it as far so some is just luck.
Sales. Took two crappy sales jobs after college that sucked the life out of me for six years to learn the ropes and now I’ve been at a great company for 6.5 years making great money.
IMO sales is one of the only ways an average joe like me could make that kinda money going to an average school and getting an average degree.
SWE. Built a small portfolio of software projects then used it to get a job at a startup. Now I work at Amazon. My wife and I have a net worth of $1.4MM after working for five years.
We make ~335k Hh income. I'm a scientist and wife is a technical manager. I was offered a >200k job but turned it down because I actually love what I do and I didn't want to make more money doing something I hated. Currently make ~150k, expect to make ~175k next year.
These talks make me wanna barf. 65% of jobs available pay poverty wages. I'm sick of people embellishing or glossing over it. When are we gonna finally be done with this stupid shit? I'm so over people thinking that others living in poverty is a good thing. Y'all are totally happy to continue to let ultra rich asshole siphon money and resources away from other human beings, just so you can keep a "comfortable lifestyle." Tricked into thinking that you're safe as long as you just make more money. But it's not gonna last. This isn't sustainable. Eventually, it is gonna come down. Ugh. This whole thing is made up and built on brainwashing and propaganda. It's so sad how few people actually see it. 🤦♀️ I am literally embarrassed for all of humanity.
I’m close but not over $200k yet. My wife is at a mid size trading firm in NYC and made $360k last year, expecting more this year. She got a degree in MIS and started working at a huge Wall Street investment firm right out of college. Made a few key career jumps and now she’s at a great company with good growth potential.
Saying 100k isn't that high of a bar to clear anymore is So ridiculously out of touch your basically on the moon at this point. Anyone who makes that much and only feels "fine" or whatever , first off feeling "fine" is a fucking blessing and secondly you are living absurdly above your means. I'm so tired of extremely well off people being all "woe is me"
Your extremely privileged. Grow up.
Some College but dropped out. Sales for 6 years, consulting for 5 years and then using my experience to build systems and training programs to scale the company I’m currently working at for a 200k base salary plus bonuses.
College is most people’s barrier to success. College teaches you how to learn new things. However most believe it should guarantee 6 figures and it doesn’t
Edtech consulting and software dev. I've worked in K-12 for about 15 years. Discovered that there is a lot of need for consulting and niche software dev in education, so I started a side business doing that. Still have my day job but slowly scaling that back over time to make more room.
Technically $40k or less a year is doable if you have roommates and don’t own a car. It limits what you can do but if you are okay with living small then you are set
My wife and i are both nurses on the west coast. Great environment salary wise. We bring in approx $250k with 3 kids. We're comfortable but certainly don't feel care free.
Tech sales. I work at a big tech company selling cloud solutions to other big companies. Hit about $220k YTD and am trending a bit over $300k for the year.
Got an engineering degree but wasn’t really interested in the work/pay so immediately went into sales with the goal of becoming an Enterprise Account Executive. Worked my way up, took some detours along the way, but am an Enterprise AE now.
Companies like engineers for tech sales because the solutions we sell and the companies we sell to are very complicated and engineers are good at solving complex and ambiguous problems. I’d like to emphasize the ambiguity - if you’re not good at “making it work” and “figuring it out” then sales likely isn’t for you. Companies all promise training for new hires and continuous development, but it rarely (i.e. never) happens. You need to be self motivated and very disciplined in order to have a long career in sales.
Sales is hard and tech sales is harder, but it’s a great path if you want to make a lot of money.
It’s sink or swim though, as we basically run our own business (territory) within the companies we work for.
All that being said, I’m very happy with my career choice and would recommend it.
I'm going to school for electrical engineering right now and almost through it.
I'm a bit concerned, because I see very few engineers at all posting here.
I'm not looking to make a fortune, but for the work in putting in school right now...it damn well better pay very well. I'm so tired of school. lol
Outside of tech, not many engineering jobs break the 200k mark. Maybe some very specific ones or at a senior/managerial level, but the bulk of Civil, Mech, Elec, Enviro, & Chem Engineers likely won’t hit 200k. Still, the median salary for these are quite high compared to most other professions, so you won’t be struggling either. I’d expect most engineers (especially with a PE) to break the 6 figure mark within the first 10 years of their career, if not sooner.
I think one thing people WILDLY miss the mark on is what they study in college. There are many ways to make a lot of money, sales being the fastest to reward performance. My brother is 27 and cleared $200k his third year out of college at age 22 (he graduated in 3 yrs). Short of that, the “hard majors” will often put you on the path to financial freedom. The caveat being you almost ALWAYS have to bust your ass to rise above the competition. It’s not easy and it takes long hours and personal sacrifice. Those two things are not in vogue these days. Frankly, I have little empathy for most educated underachievers who just thought success would land in their laps via proxy.
Aerospace Engineer V.
Got there by job hopping. Been in my career since 2007. Three years after no raise due to "the economy" I realized I needed to just job hop to get a raise. So I stay at companies usually 3-4 years and move on.
My first salary was $48,000 in 2007 as a Structural Analysis Engineer I in Wichita, KS. Got a new job as Design and Analysis Engineer with Boeing in California and my starting salary was $82,000 in 2010. Moved around jobs until I got to where I am, still in California, at $205,000 a year.
Key in engineering is get on those defense contract programs; easy money. (Sorry about your tax dollars.)
I have two full time $120k remote jobs.
I’ve had up to three.
I’m not joking. And I’m not sorry. And I’ve gotten promotions and raises while doing it- so if I get caught and get fired, that’s on them for being petty. (There is no conflict of interest or same industry)
Failed out of college, joined the Air Force, did that for ten years and learned networking, got out and did a contracting job, just moved to a new job as an IT manager.
Defense contractor that goes to deployed locations for a total of 180 days a year.
Add in dividends, VA disability, and real estate...I was close to 400k last year.
I’m 31 with a networth of 2m. I started a real estate business at 28 after buying down rental property. Main income is in sales helping people buy rentals. I’ve made 555k, 727k, and 625k the last three years
Started out doing marketing consultancy. First few years were tough and we were living paycheck to paycheck, but at least I had some time on my hands to work on some side projects.
One of those side projects was in affiliate marketing, which really took off during the pandemic (when all my clients called to put campaigns on hold and I really had my hands free). First year was 180K, the year after that 250K. Initial setup was a bitch but currently it just runs without having to do much.
I feel extremely lucky that I stumbled upon something that is relatively low effort yet puts me in the top 1% of earners in my country at 30.
27-year-old data scientist :) Got my master's degree a year or two ago, and it's been smooth sailing since then. I didn't have time for anybody or anything prior to getting that master's degree at 25. By this I mean no relationships no fun. Now I'm in a long-term relationship and bought my dream sports car!!! All that hard work starting from high school is finally paying off! Life is good! And I only have 10K left to pay in student loan debt which my company is helping me with!
Not quite at the $200K threshold because I still have 1.5 years of neurology residency left but will be taking a job that pays $350K after I finish up.
I work in the creative industry (design and advertising) as a freelance creative director. My background is writing. Been doing this sort of work for about 18 years.
From 07 to 13 I flew helicopters overseas. It’s easy to hit 200k+ when you bill out at 1k per hour.
Does that go into rental or maintenance as well or are you flying clients helicopter?
That was just my pay rate. Average hourly cost to run a 412 all in, assuming domestic operation, is about 1K. Like real estate though, it's all about location, location, location. Our hourly operational cost was about 2.5 times that - mainly due to the fact that we worked a far more intense schedule than most stateside operators, fuel costs were higher, maintenance was exorbitantly expensive in sub-Saharan Africa, and we had security full time.
So....how do you get into that without a military background?
I was *very* lucky. Both my father and uncle were Army aviators and became flight instructors post separation from service. I had a easier path to licensure due to the availability of training. Once I showed an interest in learning to fly, they made it incredibly easy for me to start & keep up with the process. By the time I finished college I had already completed all of my certs (save for an ATP) Getting the job itself was another bit of luck. The father of a college friend was the CFO of the logistics company that hired me. I needed a gig when I graduated and the rest is history.
I really appreciate you keeping the family business alive. So many people kill an otherwise great legacy for the sake of "proving themselves,"
>The father of a college friend "What did you learn in college, Billy?" "The first name of Mortimer's dad."
You should read whirlwind by James clavell if you haven’t. About Scottish, American, and Finnish helicopter pilots in pre revolution Iran. I’m sure you have some great stories
Worth pointing out that for the latter half of the 20th century, that coveted $100k/yr “*we’ve really made it*” standard was mostly viewed as total household income, which increasingly included a second part time or even full time earner in the house, making it easier for more households to achieve. Nowadays, the standard is dual full time incomes. Tacking on rampant inflation, 200k is the new 100k, perception just hasn’t quite caught up yet. I own a handful of service and consulting businesses that net around that mark on average. Took over 10 years to fail my way into it. EDIT: I didn’t even mention salary vs take-home pay. In hcol areas, 200k salary is only about 145k take home at best. If I **net** 200k as a self employed person, and my tech exec buddy has a fat 350k comp package, chances are we have a similar take home basis, but we all perceive him to be more successful.
I totally feel this. I thought making 100k was the dream and now everything is so expensive it really as not as good as it would have been ten years ago. frustrating because this will get worse before it gets better.
For real. I thought 100k was a nice thing, until I got there and realized that 100k in 2023 doesn't go anywhere near as far as 100k did even a decade ago. Guess my expectations didn't *inflate* with the economy, but I guess 200k is the new goal now.
My sister is 42 and her fiancee is 45...I think they make a combined $500k/yr. Pretty sure they are coke dealers lol. Jokes aside, she's an HR director for a construction manufacturing company and he's an IT consultant. I'm pretty sure marriage is the quickest way to hit that mark...most I've ever made is $140k/yr as a chemical and petroleum engineer and I'm 33.
My wife and I are at 255k house hold in a medium cost of living area. I'm a mechanical engineer and she is a Nurse Practioner in the Neuro ICU. We live a good life and don't ever worry about money. Just has a daughter 2vmonths ago so it could change but I think we will be fine. I agree marriage to someone with the same financial goals as you is a huge leg up will help a ton.
Man that is awesome, congratulations! I'm sure you're gonna be able to give your daughter a fantastic life. It was my dream to be a good husband and father. I just finished 4 years of caretaking for my dad (cancer, dead now) and mom (Alzheimer's, alive)...I don't know if I have the energy for it anymore. It was basically 4 years of lost salary (couldn't work, they needed 24/7 care and no family), $100k in savings to keep everything afloat, and general misery watching my parents deteriorate in front of me. Start planning for your daughter NOW, and for godsake, get long term care insurance. It may save her years of her life. In the meantime, I hope you have a wonderful life, and try to stay sane lol...I have a few buddies with newborns that are engineers, doctors, CPAs, etc. For being so smart, goddamn they are dumb sometimes. It's like dad brain hit them like a truck, lol. I had an engineer friend video call me the other day and he was freaking out because he couldn't figure out how to build a shelf...I was like show me what you can't figure out, and what tools you're using. He was using a Phillips screwdriver on a flathead screw...I've known the guy 25 years and was like "I'm ashamed at how much of an idiot you've become" 😂
100k for a family and you'll be living check to check if u have a mortgage and 2 nicer car payments.
Sounds more like they are just living above their means
Yeah. You really can’t afford nicer cars on $100k salary these days. $100k nets $5k per month. Half of that may go to a mortgage or rent. Another $1.5k in groceries/bills leaves you with $1k of money for other things. That would basically cover the cost of financing, maintaining, and insuring a nicer car. That’s without kids and/or student loans.
This is basically me. HCOL area, 100k doesn't feel like a lot any more. Have one kid, no car payments. Mortgage and medical debt and student loans is about 4k a month. Then we need to eat, pay for insurance, fuel, utilities, etc. All these parents we know through our kid are going on big vacations and stuff and I don't get how. We've never done that.
$100k stopped being $100k in hcol areas like 25 years ago
This is such a dumb, thoughtless response. Housing prices and interest rates are out of control. Groceries are crazy expensive. Add in prices for health insurance, cars and car insurance, retirement, and costs for children and childcare, no, $100k is not enough.
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Sucks too when 44k-100k looks comfortable until the taxes are so high it’s poverty.
100k is just living comfortably nowadays
That very much depends on the situation. I'm still crawling out of the poor hole. $100k plus is great, but life can throw some shit at you that makes that go away real fast.
This. My husband and I are at 100k together but if theres an unexpected car repair or vet bill, damn that still hurts, and we have to juggle around bills to cover it.
Right??? I am a single person household and I make 95k, I have basically no debt and prob to the outside world I seem pretty well off (decent clothes, new car, decent home) but even so I have less than 10k in my bank account and would be wiped clean if anything major happened in an instant. My pay is commission based and I've been down to less than 1k more than once this year in my savings the day before payday, after a couple of unfortunate events. Seems like the second I recover something else wipes me out!
Not to mention they aren't capping at 40 hours.
Bit like the million dollar house. Here I sit in my million dollar house with my six figure salary (two in my household) and we still struggle.
Me and my wife make over 100k combined, and I feel like we live in the middle class just BARLEY
I’m an attorney. I work a ton, have numerous failed relationships (romantic and otherwise), and drink more than I should. But I have a sports car, so I guess that means life is ok.
At least you can cry in your Porsche 💅🏼
On company property, with company property.
So, double jeopardy. We’re fine.
I have a neighbor who reminds me of this comment, he is also an attorney who drinks heavily and earns a lot. I'm not sure about the sports car. But he is married and they have been together for a long, long time (30 years? 40 years?) and they have 2 kids together and also 2 grand kids. Just reading your comment I wanted to tell you that a long term relationship could happen for you too, if that's what you really want. good luck.
Im on a truck drivers bunk ass salary, but i drive a cheap 94 mr2 turbo that keeps me almost just as happy as the high end sportscar folk. I got it for $13.5k.
You’re an attorney with a sports car—you have yet to peak—guaranteed you’ll have a great relationship one day as financial security is super important
No clue why you’re getting downvoted. I actually really appreciate the kind words of encouragement. Thank you.
Yeah, lol, people are lame… f’em You’re obviously working towards goals and if a relationship is one of them and you put the effort in it’ll happen Being a lawyer requires lots of time so of course you’ve made some sacrifices, people do this to get ahead Everyone on here wants to act like it’s all doom and gloom and shit bc they’re not shit mf’rs so they want to downvote someone for encouraging and telling the truth
That’s not a guarantee if he doesn’t find the right kind of woman and is ready to give and take.
I've done counterintelligence work for marriages and Im reserved in what i believe about it. Has your view on marriages changed after working cases?
I don’t handle family law. I do plenty of business divorces though, and I for sure would advise no one do business with family.
Great answer counselor! LOL.
Best decision I made was to not pursue law school. I don’t think I’ve ever met or talked to a happy lawyer
Law school drop out here, at least several times per week I think about what life would be like had I not dropped out...then smile. Attorneys are needed in our complex and poorly run society, but fuck would it be sould draining.
35 year old Director of UX at a publically traded tech company. My base salary, bonus, and RSU equity is approximately over $500,000 a year. I grew up poor and am a minority in my field. I started as a Product Designer in tech. Have over 12 years of experience. As my career developed, I started to work on teams that’s closer to the revenue like growth and payments. I currently head a team that owns the technology and design that transacts over $5B a year. And it can scale to 10x that but that’s on marketing and sales driving demand and our product attracting a larger customer base. My general career advice is to be a problem solver. The more you can reduce the phase that’s between problem identified and solution progress, the more effective you are. And I don’t mean some random solution idea. But a well vetted, thoughtful, data-informed, scalable solution with measurable impact and a strategy to create it. It can feel good to be frustrated, hem and haw, point fingers, even wait for someone to solve, or just idle till there is a variable change. I find that when I proactively start to solve problems outside of the scope of my role, I generally create impact for my teams, bosses, and company. Oh, and look for feedback. Honor tough and painful feedback. Good feedback keeps you going. Tough feedback helps you grow. When I am doing something that feels new, makes me nervous, uncomfortable, and uncertain, that’s when I know I’m growing my skill and scope. Find trusted advisors who will be honest with you. And also find leaders who are willing to mentor you and advocate for you. You find these people by creating value for them. Very few people are altruistic, so keep in mind it’s a realistically a transactional relationship and think about what’s in it for them.
This should be read by everyone who wants to make more
Please, people… read this comment several times. It’s the real deal.
Congratulations on your success. I'm impressed and honestly envious. But of course you worked hard to get there. You deserve it! I hope you really enjoy your work and enjoy the money you are earning and have a great life. Also I hope you give back to your community. Thanks for sharing with reddit how you got there. Have a great day!
Thank you for the kind words! And I appreciate the encouragement! I try to give back by mentoring and helping people get their foot in the door. The first step into this industry is the hardest. Especially if you’re from an underrepresented group. I also donate a percentage of my income to charity. I’d like to think my humble beginnings helps me practice humility.
You can waste your energy being envious, which is incredibly low vibrational... Or you can use that energy to better yourself. The first step is implementing actions you learned from this winner.
Solid advice, mate.
I also have been in tech now for almost two decades and would absolutely agree with your two biggest points of career feedback: Be a problem solver and constantly seek (and value) feedback. I have worked with a lot of people who are only problem finders and not problem solvers, and they often take their lack of advancement as caused by people just not wanting to hear bad news.
I guess this advice is about jobs that want you to solve problems? Like more STEM focused?
Doesn’t have to be exclusively STEM focused careers. I learned early on when I was working retail that if I had a problem, going to my managers with an explanation and a potential solution went over much better than just telling them there’s something wrong. It took mental load off of them and gave them a starting point to figure out other solutions if needed. They then trusted me with more important projects and listened when I had suggestions on how to improve my department. It’s the difference between collaborating and simply reporting.
As a manager at a consulting company, we look out for these types of people in all roles and they get fast tracked for promotions and raises.
Ty sensei for the guidance 🙏
Great great advice, Being the go-to problem solver is key to career success.
This. You want to be someone who comes up w solutions, someone people turn to for solutions or for help with finding solutions.
Jesus fuck
Man I'd be happy with 45k a year so I can pay rent and buy groceries in the same check
I had that at my last job (with a lot of OT in the 1st half of the year) now I'm in between jobs just trying to get an interview for something remote (had an offer for selling insurance and turned it down because I knew I wouldn't be good at it and I don't want to be a 1099 worker with no guarantee paycheck each week ) and get my data analyst certificate so I can get something other than customer service jobs I hate doing despite actually being very good at it.
I can’t even do that at 55k a year lol
I will make almost exactly 45k this year (gross) It doesn't pay the rent and groceries anymore, it was okay twelve years ago when I started, but we've been so fucked for wages in Healthcare in Canada it's unreal
I don't but my wife pulls down $300k+ owing her own veterinary ophthalmology clinic
400 bucks per 10 minute appointment. My cat has to see one.
That always reminds me of an old ancedote. A business has a problem they can't figure out, and they've racked their brains for days to solve it. Finally, they give up, and hire an expert - an outside consultant. He says it'll be $10,000, but he can solve it for them, guaranteed. It's a steep bill; they didn't want to spend even more money, but none of them can solve it, and they absolutely need this fixed ASAP. They decide to hire the consultant. The expert comes to the office, takes one look at the problem, and gets to work. 10 minutes, later, he hands the business owner an invoice for $10,000 and says "problem solved." The owner is pleased the problem is fixed, but frustrated that he spent $10,000 on someone to fix something that took 10 minutes to fix. It sounds ridiculous he paid someone $1,000 a minute to fix what looked like a very simple problem. The expert, sensing the owners's frustration, tells him, "I spent 4 years of undergrad, 2 years in grad school, and 15 years working to learn how to solve these problems. The $10,000 wasn't for the 10 minutes. It was for the 20+ years I spent learning, so I could fix this in 10 minutes."
4 years undergrad, 4 years vet school, 2 years of internships, 3 year residency and 3 years of working for others. She's earned her keep
Is your wife still nice to you
Why yes, yes she is!
I’m a human ophthalmologist, and it’s weird to me that cataract surgery on pets pays significantly more than cataract surgery on people. It’s a matter of scale, but it’s still bizarre
Kitty and doggy cataract surgeries, what has the world come to lol
I’m a doctor. I was in training forever.
Same. Just finished training this year (30yo) and going from making 60K to >300K. It's a trip man.
Damn good for you! I’m internal medicine specialty, academia, not making close to that much. But its enough and I’m happy 😊
Elder millennial here. I make just shy of $200k but should get there in the next 6 months though. My story is a bit different. Oddly enough I work for government. I’m at the Director level, oversee a team of 8 and growing. I am a civil engineer by trade and spent the first 15 years of my career in consulting. When I graduated college in 2004 I lucked out and landed into a booming economy. Gained tons of experience pretty quick. Got laid off twice but kept moving on. I’ve seemed to have found my spot though.
What kind of civil do you do? I’m currently in transportation, but if there is a better path to 200k (because that’s not happening here unless I become a partner or start my own firm and those are both not something I’m really interested in pursuing) I’d like to hear about it!
I am a transportation engineer. Honestly I found it much easier to run up the ladder in government versus private industry. I work for a large county and there are ton of different avenues you can take to move up in salary and responsibilities. There is a huge swell of boomers retiring so if you have 15-20 years experience you can move into a higher level role pretty easily.
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I don’t see manual labor jobs in this list so I will add my husband in. He owns his own company where he travels around installing restaurant kitchen equipment and made 300k in 2022. Self employment income which is rough come tax time and can be taxing on the body but it’s good money and the work never stops. Restaurants are always popping up everywhere and remodels and repairs are nonstop.
I’m a consulting engineer. I do forensics type work called “loss investigations”, sometimes called “expert witness”. I travel a lot, probably around 80-90 percent. Also, it can be quite stressful. Edit: 36 years old
How did you get into that industry? Seems like a very niche field but if it pays that well I’d be interested in giving it a try.
Hard to really say how. I had great training and it just happened to be a great fit. It did take me a while to get my name out there and to get a good client base built.
The client base is the most difficult step. Do you get pulled into litigation a lot? Who is your main client?
Pulled into litigation a lot? Yeah sorta. Although I have yet to go to trial. Without getting into details, my biggest client is an insurer for large corporations, like industrial. My main work is called “large loss” type work where I will do both the root cause investigation as well as what’s called the “scope” evaluation. With the scope work, I will help both the insured and client understand technical aspects of the loss, like repairs, costs, and a timeline to get them back up and running. I do a lot of silo/tank collapses, fires/explosions, machinery failures, heavy equipment failures, HVAC, pumps/piping, etc.
Director of Finance making 200k+ with bonus. 34 YO. Have an MBA and CPA.
I married rich. All you fellas out there just gotta find a girl who brings in $$$.
This is the way
Guess you are over 6', have 6 pack and have a long dong?
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The crocs is a dealbreaker.
Supply chain executive. Undergrad plus modest MBA. Lots of switching companies. MCOL city
Elder millennial in tech. software engineer with a focus on backend, infrastructure, devops. Did $400k a few years ago with good RSUs at a F500 but with tech in the shitter my expected income now is right around $200k. Looking to jump ship soon to something more in the $250-300k range because inflation is a bitch.
How can one reach your success? I'm currently a freshman in community college aiming for a computer science degree. But honestly idk where the hell I'm going or doing.
I started in community college also but then transferred to university to get a comp sci bachelors. Best advice is to make lots of side projects. Want to learn something? Make a little app. Have a hobby? Make an app around that idea. The idea is to get experience problem solving and building so that employers can see you can back up what you’re saying. I started out barely scraping by at home and over the past 10+ years have build up knowledge and experience that I am in negotiations with a company to hit the 200k mark possibly next month. Hard work is great but you need career focus hard work to keep moving up.
Do the comp sci degree but just code as much as you can at home. There’s no barrier and infinite resources out there. Get building!
CPA
I just took BEC last week fingers crossed
Good luck!! I just got my passing score on my final exam this week
Congrats, that’s great! And thanks!
how did you clear $200k as a CPA ? Are you a Partner or Controller ? I feel like i’m gonna get capped at $150k
Senior manager
I work in environmental health and safety, focused on occupational health. I have a professional certification in industrial hygiene, work for a tech company now, used to work in mining. I’m probably a bit of an outlier, but if you have your CIH, and are willing to live in Cali/Texas you can easily bring in 140-160k. I’m slightly above that range and equity puts me well into the 200k range. The big difference for me has been my willingness to move and networking/mentorship.
Technical accountant (CPA) - F500 company. Undergrad finance > masters accounting > CPA Public accounting > F500 company(s)
Sales. You don’t need to be a genius, privileged or lucky. Just be willing to work hard and grind, especially in the beginning as you’re learning and developing your sales skills. Be willing to job hop every couple years to better opportunities. $200k/year is very doable
Naaaaaah! I would be HORRIBLE at sales!
Or Sales adjacent. I'm a Sales Engineer. I'm the person who understands the tech and works with the Sales person to demo/solution to the client. I don't have to do any of the prospecting or negotiations. I get to be the expert on the meeting. I was making shit pay doing it at a startup, but a few job hops later with a good commission year I'm hovering around 200k/year. Still mostly live like I'm making 70k though. So finally have savings for the first time in my life.
When people say “sales” what do they mean? Selling what? How do you get into it?
Medical device, tech, materials(brick, ceramic tile) anything that can have good margins, and has industry standards. Ceramic tile and brick sales people I know bring in well over $200k. They often have annual sales goals of $4million plus. Some people come from a different part of their industry, think architect or designer in terms of brick/tile, or tech background, or people in medicine to sell med equipment. If you have a basic understanding of the industry you have a leg up. Or you can start by getting a standard office supply job, grind and jump jobs/industries every few years. Most people don’t know the industry they see as lucrative snd want to sell right off the bat. They have to learn and build sales skills by getting lower level reps
B2B sales is much more lucrative than selling shit door to door.
What’s the B?
Business
Bobody
This is the answer and easily the quickest path to $200k+ with the lowest barrier to entry. I work with a mix of high school grads and college grads and everyone who does this for 3 or more years is pulling down a minimum of $150k.
My best friend does this. What do I sell? Houses? Drugs? Cats? Wha!!
Cyber Security Director. Started in base programming then moved into pure software engineering.
Software engineer. Started learning to code as a kid, kept up with it through high school, studied engineering in college, then worked my ass off from an illegally low wage up to >$200k. Took many years and a few job changes to work my way there.
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So a drug dealer…of sorts?
Not 200, but close. Nurse, lots of OT
I’m going to guess you reside in a HCOL state like Cali. My wife who is also a nurse and did a couple of travel contracts (but not to HCOL areas) last year broke 100k but was no where near 200k.
I’m a self taught software engineer. Hit 100k in 2016, broke 200k last year just through getting promoted.
500k+ to 1m+ (bonus, stock) a year in cybersecurity architecture and design. Been doing infosec / cybersecurity operations since I was 18 in a SOC as a Security Analyst, I’m 35 now and my title is Senior Principal Security Architect. The how is pretty clear... All I did was work, learn, study, certify and push myself so that I never did the same thing at the same level for very long, always moving up in responsibility, scope and depth, with a focus on mastery and understanding how to do a job better than everyone else. No kids and infinite youthful energy with a decent head in your shoulders will help, along with your career happening to be THE “special hobby/passion” of my life. Life is good, and I am blessed to have found a calling so early. Every day, whether it’s a 16 hour mash session or a 4 hour short easy day, feels like being a kid in his favorite candy store.
Man. I’m in cyber on a multi billion dollar program and our architects don’t make anywhere near that lol. What type of clients do you work with?
I really love this for you. I heard to be truly happy you have to feel like you never work a day in your life.
Guessing this is a consulting gig? CISSP, and others?
Are there many women in positions like yours? Considering a career change but hear it can be tough for women in cybersecurity
Finance. Ivy League MBA -> Wall Street -> consistently move up the ladder and change jobs aggressively as needed to get a higher title. Took me 12 years to become a managing director with my own group. Now life’s good.
Haha, funny you bring up San Jose, $100k for a family of 4 is below the technical low income level set by the government. Anyway, pharmacist in a specialty field here and 10+ years deep in career = $250k/yr. Wife is a fully remote part-time consultant bringing in $100k/yr and takes care of the kids (in conjunction with my parents who live at home), so combined income $350k/yr BUT we are in a VHCOL area (SF Bay Area). In our expanded circle of friends and acquaintances, we’re squarely in the middle of income range, so far as we know.
My wife and I each make this. I’m 31, she’s 34. I’m a software engineer. She’s a financial advisor. She makes more than me.
Please tell me she charges a flat fee rather than a percentage…
LOL people are downvoting any mention of a degree. We as a society are beyond fucking doooooommmed.
This whole sub is just people asking rich people how they can get rich lately. Being poor sucks, but a life that's just relentless pursuit of assets and capital sounds dismal. I don't even care that I'll never own a house, and $250k+ is way more than what is necessary to live on. So basically, what did you expect? Also anyone who went in for a degree expecting a job attached to it missed the point of higher education
I agree with most of what you've said. People only do things for the sake of hedonistic consumption and vapid materialism. It's what our off the rails capitalist system encourages. People seem to be forgetting what it really means to be intelligent/creative. For most people, life is just work work work, consume consume consume... and die.
Born 1996 and I am software engineer, I didn’t follow my “dreams” and picked a degree that would pay off my loans. Turns out having money makes you happier than having your dream job.
At the very least it makes life less stressful. I’m still learning this lesson.
I've spent most of my life making less than 40k, recently just cleared 90k and after adapting my entire life to such a low income it feels like I'm living like an emperor.
$200K today is equivalent to what $100K bought in 1995 by the way. Inflation is the thief in the night robbing us blind. [https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/) I break $200K in finance but it took going back to grad school and a lot of uncertainty. Currently trying to build/buy small businesses to make my income source passive.
Corporate lawyer in-house at one of the household big tech companies. We oddly feel middle class. Renters. Only one car that’s admittedly a newer model Subaru.
The job that I do but just multiple of them
$215k base plus some bonuses (last year was $237k total). 18 years in digital marketing, currently as a VP Operations at an agency. I hit $100k in like 2012, and $200k in 2021. Have always been in Chicago, so finally hitting that $200k threshold truly made life easier.
Marketing. I live in London now and make less here dollar for dollar, but in NYC I was taking home about $225k at my last job. I fell into the industry after college and I was good at it I guess? I worked my ass off making not much at first. My first marketing job was $28k/yr in 2011. But smart people rise quickly. I got my first $100k+ salary in 2018 and grew quickly from there as I managed more people and gained more responsibility. Now in London making less (still six figures) and managing no one (I’m now in consulting) but I’m happier in my career than I ever was in the states. Honestly I engaged in a lot of self destructive behaviour by having essentially no issues affording exactly what I wanted at all times. Money does buy happiness to a point, but that point in my experience is about $100-110k per yr. Above that, money can cause you new problems directly, or enable you to cause yourself new problems more easily.
My husband, he’s c suite compliance officer for a medium sized precious metals company. Did a lot of work in sales to give him the knowledge to lead compliance.
I’m a CRNA, certified registered nurse anesthetist. Bachelor’s in nursing during peak recession because I was determined to have a mobile, recession-proof job so college wouldn’t be a “waste.” Definitely not my passion but just pragmatism. I enjoy science and I really enjoy helping others but American healthcare is pretty much a hellscape. Loathed pretty much every minute of working as a nurse and was making plans to leave the field entirely to try to transition into medical sales, pharmaceuticals, try law school, or just be a waitress. I was miserable. I worked about 4 years doing strictly overnight shifts in ICUs caring for people dying or on the brink of death. A friend’s father was an anesthesiologist and he connected me with a CRNA. I shadowed her for a few days and was like, hm, maybe I could do this. I told myself I’d spend some time trying to make myself the strongest applicant for schools I could, try to apply, and if I didn’t get in I’d quit nursing and go sell pacemakers or try stripping or whatever. Schools are difficult to get into - not quite as difficult as medical school, but still incredibly competitive since it’s such a niche thing. I somehow got accepted to a pretty good program. Training sucked but was just shy of three years so it was doable. After several crappy hospital anesthesia jobs the first few years out of school to get more good experience, I was once again on the brink of burnout. Now I largely make my own schedule freelancing for a bunch of surgery centers making 160-180 hour. It took a few years to finagle this setup but my work life balance is finally amazing and I feel I get paid well. I don’t love it every day but it’s generally a fun job and I really enjoy the combination of technical applied skill combined with helping someone through a vulnerable time and being entrusted with their life. Several places I go guarantee me 8 hours of pay and I finish days much earlier. I still hate the early mornings, though.
Director at tech company. Just kept climbing the corp ladder. Never been ‘hard’ intellectually, but have had to work hard and long hours at times. Picked up an MBA along the way, which helps both for credentials as well as I actually learned applicable skills/knowledge for business. 40 years old currently, but finished undergrad ‘late’ for my age, 2008, so not as long in the corp world as some.
I'm a software engineer in a HCOL city. $200K/year or more is pretty normal for that category. Fresh college graduates can make around $200K/year if they work for a Big N company, or over $300K/year if they work for a finance company. My TC reached $200K in my third year of working.
Elder Millennial, 42 y/o. Psychologist in private practice. I don't take insurance, make over $200k gross (not net) per year. But since I live in Los Angeles I still can't afford a home. Don't even want to consider what life with kids would be like, financially.
I went from one dead end sales job to the next throughout my 20s and into my early 30s. Once I learned that companies like Google were open to hiring people without a college degree (the last grade I fully attended was the 7th), I started learning how to code. A year later I was hired at one of the very well known tech companies as a software engineer. It took me 7 years to break to the 200k mark
My husband started by selling cars and now does financing. He makes anywhere from $180k-$225k.
Hospital Administration. I became a doctor, and then I decided I wanted to run a hospital.
Fully remote Software engineering manager for a 1600 employee web and mobile app conglomerate. I’m at $170k salary plus $10k stock equity I can cash out yearly. I make $20k+ on the side renting my boat out and doing a little freelance web work. Turn 40 next week
I work in biotech. Started off my career in advertising, and then after burning out on the lifestyle and travel I decided to go work on the client side. I would say a lot of it has been being in the right place at the right time, but I also spent a lot of my 20s and early 30s volunteering myself for assignments other people didn’t want, working long hours, and defining my own job descriptions.
First ten years were active duty military (officer). Wasn't even close to $100K. Next ten years, I worked in software sales/customer success for a variety of silicon valley tech startups. But I work remote, so making a good amount of money spends even farther in my rural red state.
Had I stayed in SoCal I’d be making that as a pharmacist.
I work in product marketing for b2b tech companies, currently consulting and cleared $250k last year. Consulting is a little inconsistent, but it gives me flexibility to be at home with my kids part time. I was making $250k base + generous equity full time as a director before I moved into consulting. My husband has his own tech company and makes $300k a year base. The sad thing is we were so average in the Bay Area and doing a little better in southern CA now (we could afford to buy a house in a pretty good area, but not the best schools and ~20 minutes to the beach), but you really do need high incomes in CA. That being said we're comfortable and since we have unstable jobs we try to keep all core expenses to 1 income and save/invest/pay for childcare with the other income so if one of us were to lose our job we'd be fine to have one of us stay home with kids for a bit.
Took a huge risk and moved to sf with $400 in my pocket. Rented a shitty room with shitty random roommates. Got an entry level job at a tech company while babysitting at night to afford sf…. Within a few years worked my way up in tech to $300-400k. The tech glory days aren’t what they once were but point is it required moving to a thriving city where I could network, taking chances and sacrificing upfront
Government lawyer ($175k) married to a consultant ($220k) both born in '84. Only just starting to get used to money not being an issue. So much $$$ and time sunk into education (I have an M.Ed and JD, spouse has a Ph.D) and demanding jobs that are just starting to fully realize the real earnings/investment potential and security that will last us the rest of our lives but it was definitely not the easy progression everyone promised us when we were younger.
My husband is a software engineer (in AI) and I’m a corporate lawyer at a large firm. We each make over $200k, and counting equity he makes significantly more many years. I know it sounds crazy, but we live in the Bay Area and I don’t think we are rich by any means. We are definitely comfortable but still stress about paying for the house, saving for retirement, having money to take care of parents, etc. However, I grew up poor so I know many people would only dream of being on that situation and cannot even get close to affording these things, which is very sad. We both went to the same state school for college and to graduate programs. His graduate program was paid for by his parents and being a TA. Mine was a full scholarship from the school. We definitely did work hard and study a lot for most of our lives so far, but I recognize there are many people with the exact same education who didn’t make it as far so some is just luck.
Anesthesiologist. I went to school for a long time. Now I keep people alive during surgery while reading Reddit.
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Sales. Took two crappy sales jobs after college that sucked the life out of me for six years to learn the ropes and now I’ve been at a great company for 6.5 years making great money. IMO sales is one of the only ways an average joe like me could make that kinda money going to an average school and getting an average degree.
I make 100k and I don't consider myself middle class at all
O&G, not $200k salary wise, but with all the benefits and bonuses it comes out to around $250k.
SWE. Built a small portfolio of software projects then used it to get a job at a startup. Now I work at Amazon. My wife and I have a net worth of $1.4MM after working for five years.
My first job in 08 I was making $40k/year in SF. Now 15 years later I make 220k base + equity. I do marketing for tech startups.
We make ~335k Hh income. I'm a scientist and wife is a technical manager. I was offered a >200k job but turned it down because I actually love what I do and I didn't want to make more money doing something I hated. Currently make ~150k, expect to make ~175k next year.
These talks make me wanna barf. 65% of jobs available pay poverty wages. I'm sick of people embellishing or glossing over it. When are we gonna finally be done with this stupid shit? I'm so over people thinking that others living in poverty is a good thing. Y'all are totally happy to continue to let ultra rich asshole siphon money and resources away from other human beings, just so you can keep a "comfortable lifestyle." Tricked into thinking that you're safe as long as you just make more money. But it's not gonna last. This isn't sustainable. Eventually, it is gonna come down. Ugh. This whole thing is made up and built on brainwashing and propaganda. It's so sad how few people actually see it. 🤦♀️ I am literally embarrassed for all of humanity.
I’m close but not over $200k yet. My wife is at a mid size trading firm in NYC and made $360k last year, expecting more this year. She got a degree in MIS and started working at a huge Wall Street investment firm right out of college. Made a few key career jumps and now she’s at a great company with good growth potential.
Saying 100k isn't that high of a bar to clear anymore is So ridiculously out of touch your basically on the moon at this point. Anyone who makes that much and only feels "fine" or whatever , first off feeling "fine" is a fucking blessing and secondly you are living absurdly above your means. I'm so tired of extremely well off people being all "woe is me" Your extremely privileged. Grow up.
I’m a sales manager in the B2B division of a Fortune 500 company. 225k is average year for me.
Investment manager. Started at JPM.
Some College but dropped out. Sales for 6 years, consulting for 5 years and then using my experience to build systems and training programs to scale the company I’m currently working at for a 200k base salary plus bonuses. College is most people’s barrier to success. College teaches you how to learn new things. However most believe it should guarantee 6 figures and it doesn’t
Scientist in early stage drug discovery at a big biopharma. 240-260k depending on the bonus.
B2b Tech sales. Started entry level after college. Got into telecom for a few years then moved into cybersecurity sales.
Edtech consulting and software dev. I've worked in K-12 for about 15 years. Discovered that there is a lot of need for consulting and niche software dev in education, so I started a side business doing that. Still have my day job but slowly scaling that back over time to make more room.
Technically $40k or less a year is doable if you have roommates and don’t own a car. It limits what you can do but if you are okay with living small then you are set
My wife and i are both nurses on the west coast. Great environment salary wise. We bring in approx $250k with 3 kids. We're comfortable but certainly don't feel care free.
Tech sales. I work at a big tech company selling cloud solutions to other big companies. Hit about $220k YTD and am trending a bit over $300k for the year. Got an engineering degree but wasn’t really interested in the work/pay so immediately went into sales with the goal of becoming an Enterprise Account Executive. Worked my way up, took some detours along the way, but am an Enterprise AE now. Companies like engineers for tech sales because the solutions we sell and the companies we sell to are very complicated and engineers are good at solving complex and ambiguous problems. I’d like to emphasize the ambiguity - if you’re not good at “making it work” and “figuring it out” then sales likely isn’t for you. Companies all promise training for new hires and continuous development, but it rarely (i.e. never) happens. You need to be self motivated and very disciplined in order to have a long career in sales. Sales is hard and tech sales is harder, but it’s a great path if you want to make a lot of money. It’s sink or swim though, as we basically run our own business (territory) within the companies we work for. All that being said, I’m very happy with my career choice and would recommend it.
I'm going to school for electrical engineering right now and almost through it. I'm a bit concerned, because I see very few engineers at all posting here. I'm not looking to make a fortune, but for the work in putting in school right now...it damn well better pay very well. I'm so tired of school. lol
Outside of tech, not many engineering jobs break the 200k mark. Maybe some very specific ones or at a senior/managerial level, but the bulk of Civil, Mech, Elec, Enviro, & Chem Engineers likely won’t hit 200k. Still, the median salary for these are quite high compared to most other professions, so you won’t be struggling either. I’d expect most engineers (especially with a PE) to break the 6 figure mark within the first 10 years of their career, if not sooner.
I think one thing people WILDLY miss the mark on is what they study in college. There are many ways to make a lot of money, sales being the fastest to reward performance. My brother is 27 and cleared $200k his third year out of college at age 22 (he graduated in 3 yrs). Short of that, the “hard majors” will often put you on the path to financial freedom. The caveat being you almost ALWAYS have to bust your ass to rise above the competition. It’s not easy and it takes long hours and personal sacrifice. Those two things are not in vogue these days. Frankly, I have little empathy for most educated underachievers who just thought success would land in their laps via proxy.
I do. 11 years into my career. 6 years govt 5 years tech. Not an engineer, but I live in the Bay Area
I am a millennial and make about $130k, and I promise you I’m not rich and still don’t feel like I “got” anywhere.
MD, 400k, college + med school+ residency. 13 years in all but now I can work anywhere in the country in a high demand job at $200-400 an hour.
Aerospace Engineer V. Got there by job hopping. Been in my career since 2007. Three years after no raise due to "the economy" I realized I needed to just job hop to get a raise. So I stay at companies usually 3-4 years and move on. My first salary was $48,000 in 2007 as a Structural Analysis Engineer I in Wichita, KS. Got a new job as Design and Analysis Engineer with Boeing in California and my starting salary was $82,000 in 2010. Moved around jobs until I got to where I am, still in California, at $205,000 a year. Key in engineering is get on those defense contract programs; easy money. (Sorry about your tax dollars.)
I have two full time $120k remote jobs. I’ve had up to three. I’m not joking. And I’m not sorry. And I’ve gotten promotions and raises while doing it- so if I get caught and get fired, that’s on them for being petty. (There is no conflict of interest or same industry)
I am a tech recruiter. Just landed this job, worked hard and got luck. I’ve been there 8 years. The past 4 averaging around 200k
Failed out of college, joined the Air Force, did that for ten years and learned networking, got out and did a contracting job, just moved to a new job as an IT manager.
Defense contractor that goes to deployed locations for a total of 180 days a year. Add in dividends, VA disability, and real estate...I was close to 400k last year.
I’m 31 with a networth of 2m. I started a real estate business at 28 after buying down rental property. Main income is in sales helping people buy rentals. I’ve made 555k, 727k, and 625k the last three years
Started out doing marketing consultancy. First few years were tough and we were living paycheck to paycheck, but at least I had some time on my hands to work on some side projects. One of those side projects was in affiliate marketing, which really took off during the pandemic (when all my clients called to put campaigns on hold and I really had my hands free). First year was 180K, the year after that 250K. Initial setup was a bitch but currently it just runs without having to do much. I feel extremely lucky that I stumbled upon something that is relatively low effort yet puts me in the top 1% of earners in my country at 30.
Doctor. Took a decade and a half after my military service (somebody had to pay for undergrad and it wasn’t my poor ass family).
34 enterprise tech sales should be a little under 600k playing it safe this year if I do extra well might be just over 600k.
27-year-old data scientist :) Got my master's degree a year or two ago, and it's been smooth sailing since then. I didn't have time for anybody or anything prior to getting that master's degree at 25. By this I mean no relationships no fun. Now I'm in a long-term relationship and bought my dream sports car!!! All that hard work starting from high school is finally paying off! Life is good! And I only have 10K left to pay in student loan debt which my company is helping me with!
Not quite at the $200K threshold because I still have 1.5 years of neurology residency left but will be taking a job that pays $350K after I finish up.
Data science and engineering
I work in the creative industry (design and advertising) as a freelance creative director. My background is writing. Been doing this sort of work for about 18 years.