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Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

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Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#81

Post by jberryman »

tastybites wrote: post #32

$100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional. If you're an engineer, all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at your job. The cold, hard truth is if you don't earn at least that much, you either suck at your job or suck at negotiating. Your bosses and many of your peers earn twice as much as that. Edit: IF you work in the corporate world. Clearly if you're a lifestyle-b…

> $100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional.

As a professional what? Man this place can be a fucking drag sometimes.

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#82

Post by waterside81 »

Kind of tangential, but here's a list of people on the so-called "Sunshine List" - public employees making over 100K in Ontario (Canada). By law, they must disclose their salaries to the public.

There's lots of them. And they're not all super-qualified engineers or hackers. We're talking transit employees, teachers, principals etc. Not to demean those professions, but not typically the professions that come to mind in the US when people talk about 100K salaried positions.

http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publications/salarydisclosure/20...

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#83

Post by dhyasama »

bane wrote: post #22
baddox wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$100K baseline? That sounds like you're talking about entry-level, which can't be right regardless of where you live. I believe that the mean annual income for a software developer in the USA is about USD 75k. I found one estimate as high as 90k. In non-coastal areas (even big cities in the Midwest, Texas, etc.), entry level positions requiring a 4-year CS degree are commonly 45k-60k.

Career baseline, not entry-level. Making 100k these days with 5-7 years of experience is not all that unusual.

Baseline and "not all that unusual" are very different things.

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#84

Post by AngryParsley »

Joakal wrote: post #27
smanek wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how quickly you get used to the mindset that it's a good decision to trade money for time. If I value my marginal time at $50/hr, and unconsciously always choose to pay to save time, the mindset becomes ingrained and is hard to reverse. Little things that you quickly grow accustomed to like taxis, dry cleaners, restaurants (plus a few big things like a mortgage or high rent from living alone in a decent ap…

Warren Buffet is one of the top 10 richest people in the world and he's pretty frugal.

Buffet is the exception that proves the rule.

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#85

Post by SageRaven »

Locke wrote: post #33

Earnings are important, I'm sure -- but don't mistake them for wealth. I've known people with ludicrous earnings who still lived pay check to pay check. In fact, I suspect it's all too common. Here's an eye opener: You're a mid-level employee at a medium-sized company and you realize you're as wealthy as your spend-thrift CEO who is making >10x as much as you are.

This is very true.

My last two tax filings showed I [edit: grossed] less than $15,000 for the past 2 years, yet I generally have more discretionary income now than the years when I was making ~$50,000/yr. I also have a wife and two kids.

I have no debt of any kind (house and car owned outright), am quite frugal, have two monthly bills (phone/internet and power), and three yearly bills (property tax, car registration, and auto insurance). Telecommuting from a rural area helps, as does raising some of our own food.

Sure, we don't live like kings, but my kids always have both parents around and we live a good, simple life. I'm not rich, but I feel quite wealthy in terms of quality of life.

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#86

Post by jhamburger »

tastybites wrote: post #32

$100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional. If you're an engineer, all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at your job. The cold, hard truth is if you don't earn at least that much, you either suck at your job or suck at negotiating. Your bosses and many of your peers earn twice as much as that. Edit: IF you work in the corporate world. Clearly if you're a lifestyle-b…

This post is a good example of a phenomenon I keep seeing when it comes to how people view incomes- People pay much more attention to their own circle and to those making more money than them, so they get a skewed outlook on what is 'normal' and 'average'.

That's why everyone in America thinks they are 'middle class', whether they make 30k or 500k.

Lawyers and i-bankers are a different story, but you won't find any statistic to back up your claim that pedestrian engineers who just show up regularly make 100k+.

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#87

Post by nl »

prawn wrote: post #76
rdouble wrote: post #16

Move to Australia and become a tiler.

1. Move to Australia 2. Take up one of many trades (tiling, concreting, wiring, plumbing) 3. Answer your phone. Respond to emails quickly 4. Show up when you say you will, quote when you say you will From my experience dealing with trades working on my house, I am confident that any tradie who is able to do these basic things would have work on tap and expand with lackeys quickly.

That'll make you a millionare!

For 100K you can ignore steps 3 & 4, and you'll still have more work than you can deal with.

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#88

Post by dwc »

jswinghammer wrote: post #62

I think being the sole provider for my family for the last ten years I've just assumed I needed to make more money year after year. I can't really ask my wife to go out and get a job to make up the slack so I get out there and try to be the best programmer I can be. If a company sounded cool but wasn't willing to pay me what I need to provide for my family I just move on. Given the lack of tech talent there isn't muc…

There's a point of diminishing returns to increased income, and it's personal. I have a family, yet I took a job paying less than the previous job because it was enough money and I really wanted to work there. Later, when my wife was unhappy at her lucrative job I encouraged her to switch to a lower paying position at a different company where she wouldn't be so stressed. We still make enough money, and our children are happier since we are happier.

The "don't care about money" thing isn't really true; you must care about money to some degree. But there are people who would rather do things that make them happy than always go for the biggest paycheck.

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#89

Post by nl »

ShardPhoenix wrote: post #60
rdouble wrote: post #16

Move to Australia and become a tiler.

Only while the housing bubble lasts...

It's not a bubble when Sydney rents are the second most expensive in the world because of a lack of supply.

It's not a bubble when interest rates are 8% and loan conditions are amongst the strictest in the world.

It's true that prices could stagnate or even drop somewhat if unemployment started to rise. But that's a very different situation to a true housing bubble like in the US or Ireland that was driven by cheap credit and easy loans.

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#90

Post by Rariel »

tastybites wrote: post #32

$100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional. If you're an engineer, all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at your job. The cold, hard truth is if you don't earn at least that much, you either suck at your job or suck at negotiating. Your bosses and many of your peers earn twice as much as that. Edit: IF you work in the corporate world. Clearly if you're a lifestyle-b…

"If you asked a lawyer, a CPA or a banker if they'd take $100k to work their ass off for a corporate master, they'd laugh in your face"

Actually, I know plenty of lawyers who would GLADLY take 100k to work their ass off for a corporate master. You must be out of touch with the state of the legal job market. Top firms have cut summer programs or significantly scaled them back which has a trickle down effect--the top candidates usually took jobs at top firms. When these top firms stopped hiring 50-100 new associates straight out of law school the top candidates had to find other places to go--the places that the less desirable candidates would often count on (gov jobs, mid level/small firms, nonprofts, political work etc).

75-90k was considered a good wage for a person coming from a decent law school with decent grades. Now you have top candidates from decent/top schools clawing for these jobs. It's really a sad state of affairs right now. Many people I know are unemployed lawyers.

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