Ha. For the record, I'm an artist and make less than 6000 a year, for nearly a decade now. As you can imagine, I have very few expenses.
Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?
171–180 of 216 posts
Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
>....if you make $100K, rent is only a small portion of your income. I'm not sure what you are thinking here. If you make 100K, your take home pay after taxes is ~$6,000. For any reasonable place to live in SF - your going to be between 1800 and 2500 for a two bedroom. Thats not "a small portion of your income" Additionally - you may have health care costs of as much as 750 per month if you have a spouse and child on…
I was one of the poor, unprofessional slobs who only made $100K or so in SF and NYC. I thought I was living a pretty good life, but maybe I should be ashamed that I'm not a millionaire CPA (huh?). Here's a typical programmer bachelor situation. I made about $6000K after tax and contributions to retirement account in SF and NYC. car = $0 insurance = $0, paid for by employer other debts = $0 iPhone = $80 rent = $1000 s…
FYI, no one is paying $1,000/month for rent in NYC... At least not anywhere reasonably close to Manhattan.
Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was one of the poor, unprofessional slobs who only made $100K or so in SF and NYC. I thought I was living a pretty good life, but maybe I should be ashamed that I'm not a millionaire CPA (huh?). Here's a typical programmer bachelor situation. I made about $6000K after tax and contributions to retirement account in SF and NYC. car = $0 insurance = $0, paid for by employer other debts = $0 iPhone = $80 rent = $1000 s…
FYI, no one is paying $1,000/month for rent in NYC... At least not anywhere reasonably close to Manhattan.
I shared a 3BR apt in Williamsburg and paid $1000, then moved into a 1BR down the street that was $1500. 12 minutes to Union Square.
Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, the money/time tradeoff breaks down pretty quickly - you've almost certainly used all the easy wins by the time you're even earning mid six-figures. Basically, there are only so many hours of outsourceable stuff in your day. Once you've made the trade for cooking (eating out/chef/stay-home-spouse), cleaning (maid/stay-home-spouse/etc), errands, scheduling, minor research, and other miscellany (secretary),…
You say "by the time you're even earning mid six-figures ", but "mid six-figures" is a whole lot of money. (Of course it's not much relative to Warren Buffett. but then what is?) ... Oh, wait, by "mid six-figures" do you mean $150k or $500k? Even $150k is a very nice salary by most people's standards, but I was assuming you meant $500k. (Six figures: 100k to 999k. Midpoint of that range is $550k. Perhaps the geometri…
The point he was supporting was "no matter how rich you are, there's only so much time you can get by trading money for it," in which context $500k/year isn't out of place--especially, as you noticed, with Warren Buffett as the example.
Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?
#175How should such sum ($100k) be counted?
Do you take a company car into account?
Bonuses?
Yearly stock grants?
Employer deductions into pension?
Or is it just the base salary?
Because all of this can make a big difference
Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?
#176$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. 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. This appears to be true of the Americans I know but this level of salary is.. uncommon amongst the Europeans (particularly the British)…
It's not that uncommon, it's in what people look at as 'salary'. In Europe, salary is not just what you get (net pay), it's not even your gross salary (as it is on your pay slip), it also includes the taxes your company pays on your salary, too; plus any pension benefits, health care/SS contributions (including those paid by the employer), etc.
Once you count those, European 'salaries' come much closer to US equivalents (discounted for regional differences etc, of course). The 'US salary' is much more 'what it costs the employer' than the 'EU salary'.
Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
$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. This appears to be true of the Americans I know but this level of salary is.. uncommon amongst the Europeans (particularly the British)…
It's not that uncommon, it's in what people look at as 'salary'. In Europe, salary is not just what you get (net pay), it's not even your gross salary (as it is on your pay slip), it also includes the taxes your company pays on your salary, too; plus any pension benefits, health care/SS contributions (including those paid by the employer), etc. Once you count those, European 'salaries' come much closer to US equivale…
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Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean spending $700K for a house a half notch above a fixer-upper isn't sane? :)
700k? What dream world are you living in? What I wouldn't give to be able to buy a house for 700k. Relevant: http://www.crackshackormansion.com/ The worst part about that site: It's a year old. It's worse now.
Oh my...
Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?
#179Tip 1: Be born American. If that doesn't work, emigrate.
To be more specific, to be born Jewish American (or to be born in India and move to the US): http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1002/almighty-dollar...
> (or to be born in India and move to the US)
This chart is be religion, and not everyone born in India is Hindu.
Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?
#180I 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…
It's really I don't care about money after taking care of expenses and having a little left over to splash out every now and then. I think it's more commonly used in terms of the engineer deciding between $100k and $200k under vastly different conditions than the engineer deciding to work for free or very low pay.