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Ask HN: What would you do to bring in $3K / month?

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Re: Ask HN: What would you do to bring in $3K / month?

#21

Post by Jemaclus »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #19
Jemaclus wrote: post #18

This is probably not the answer you're looking for, but you might consider buying an existing business and doing that. You could check Loopnet for some ideas. For example, in the Denver area (just to pick a random place), there's a laundromat for sale for ~260K, with gross revenue of 214K and an EBITDA of 120K, which would certainly satisfy your 3K/mo revenue requirements. Link here: https://www.loopnet.com/biz/Busin…

> For example, in the Denver area (just to pick a random place), there's a laundromat for sale for ~260K, I'd just live off of the $260K (plus the interest I'd make having it in tbills) until I could draw SS (which is only about 5 years out). In reality, that's probably what I'll do (though I don't have $260K outside of retirement accounts - more like $150K).

Well, certainly, but just to be clear, I wasn't assuming you had 260K cash. I didn't add this in my original post, but a small business loan wouldn't be too hard to get to do something like this, and so there's little-to-no out-of-pocket risk on this kind of thing, and instead you'd just make a few grand a month. It's not passive income by any means, but at least you control your own destiny here.

Anyway, good luck. Hope you figure something out. :)

Re: Ask HN: What would you do to bring in $3K / month?

#22

Post by warrenm »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #14
warrenm wrote: post #11

$3k per month (post tax) is in the ballpark of $60k per year If you're talking $3k/mo pre-tax , that's in the neighborhood of $18.75/hr If you're "not quite old enough to draw Social Security", surely you know how to find a job ...no? You must have had one at some point - and loads of places all over are hiring all the time :)

I'm not too familiar with the tax rates in the U.S. but wouldn't a post-tax take-home of 36K/year be more in the ballpark of 45K-50K/year?

depends on where you live - 16y ago, my pretax $60k/y was just over $3k/mo take home ... between state & fed, I was paying >35% in income and payroll taxes :\

Re: Ask HN: What would you do to bring in $3K / month?

#23

Post by pcthrowaway »

warrenm wrote: post #22
pcthrowaway wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not too familiar with the tax rates in the U.S. but wouldn't a post-tax take-home of 36K/year be more in the ballpark of 45K-50K/year?

depends on where you live - 16y ago, my pretax $60k/y was just over $3k/mo take home ... between state & fed, I was paying >35% in income and payroll taxes :\

16 years ago, a larger portion of 60K would have been in higher brackets. Still, I don't see how you'd pay 40% in taxes.. did you perhaps get some of that back after filing your taxes?

I don't think there's a single state where you can pay 40% (or even 30%) of a 60K salary in taxes. Maybe at 120K

Re: Ask HN: What would you do to bring in $3K / month?

#24

Post by warrenm »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #23
warrenm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

depends on where you live - 16y ago, my pretax $60k/y was just over $3k/mo take home ... between state & fed, I was paying >35% in income and payroll taxes :\

16 years ago, a larger portion of 60K would have been in higher brackets. Still, I don't see how you'd pay 40% in taxes.. did you perhaps get some of that back after filing your taxes? I don't think there's a single state where you can pay 40% (or even 30%) of a 60K salary in taxes. Maybe at 120K

I was also single - which puts you in higher brackets than married :)

but ... ~8% in FICA (SS & Medicare), >6% in state, and then ~20% in Fed income taxes (15% on the amount from ~8k-~30k, 25% to where I was salarywise) - comes out to right about 35% total

As for what I got back ... it was not much - maybe a couple hundred $$ from the state and feds combined

$35% is a good rule-of-thumb to cover several states - you may be lower, you may be higher ...but it is a good starting place to back-of-the-envelope think

Today, the Fed income tax rate on $60k is a little over 14% (single filer) - https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-...

Plus FICA @ 7.65% gets you to ~22%

Worst case state for $60k looks to be in the neighborhood of ~9% (NYS @ ~5% + NYC @ ~3.6%)

Which, in this case, does happen to get you to ~30-31% instead of 35% (and is all based on single and/or married filing separately, and nothing special you get to deduct)

All of which goes to say ... 35% is a reasonable approximation (do 30% if you want as a mildly-more-optimistic approximation) of take-home vs gross pay

And, of course, you can adjust this to your local state's rules easily enough - drop the personal income tax entirely in TN, for example

But FICA never goes away (SS drops after ~$160k, but Medicare's ~1.5% never does)

Neither does Fed income taxes

Of course, if you are married filing jointly, your standard deduction will cut your effective rate quite a bit. Add-on dependent children, and it goes even lower.

And every individual can figure this all out for themselves - but ballparking in the neighborhood of 1/3 of your income going to income and payroll taxes is not a bad place to start :)

Re: Ask HN: What would you do to bring in $3K / month?

#25

Post by pbjtime »

ofcourseyoudo wrote: post #20
pbjtime wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your response sounds like "I don't know" or "I don't like this question" perhaps it's a better use of one's time to just keep scrolling?

But if your response is "I don't like this comment" definitely use your time to tell someone else how to spend their time.

People who push first always cry about being pushed back.

Re: Ask HN: What would you do to bring in $3K / month?

#26

Post by UncleOxidant »

bityard wrote: post #7

Have you tapped into your network? If you're in tech and "not quite old enough" for Social Security, then I assume you are in the middle to later stages of your career, which means you ought to have plenty of former co-workers and managers you could contact to see if they need someone or know of a team looking for help. I would also look into contracting, freelance, or consulting work. It's not as easy as just going…

> Have you tapped into your network?

A big chunk of my network is either retired or about to at this point.

Re: Ask HN: What would you do to bring in $3K / month?

#27

Post by UncleOxidant »

warrenm wrote: post #11

$3k per month (post tax) is in the ballpark of $60k per year If you're talking $3k/mo pre-tax , that's in the neighborhood of $18.75/hr If you're "not quite old enough to draw Social Security", surely you know how to find a job ...no? You must have had one at some point - and loads of places all over are hiring all the time :)

> $3k per month (post tax) is in the ballpark of $60k per year

Not sure about that. Isn't the standard deduction (married filing jointly) $24K now? $24K of that $36K is free of federal tax leaving only $12K to pay taxes on at a pretty low rate. If that's 20% then we're talking $2400 in taxes.

Re: Ask HN: What would you do to bring in $3K / month?

#28

Post by pcthrowaway »

warrenm wrote: post #24
pcthrowaway wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

16 years ago, a larger portion of 60K would have been in higher brackets. Still, I don't see how you'd pay 40% in taxes.. did you perhaps get some of that back after filing your taxes? I don't think there's a single state where you can pay 40% (or even 30%) of a 60K salary in taxes. Maybe at 120K

I was also single - which puts you in higher brackets than married :) but ... ~8% in FICA (SS & Medicare), >6% in state, and then ~20% in Fed income taxes (15% on the amount from ~8k-~30k, 25% to where I was salarywise) - comes out to right about 35% total As for what I got back ... it was not much - maybe a couple hundred $$ from the state and feds combined $35% is a good rule-of-thumb to cover several states - you…

Wow, thanks for that. I didn't realize there was a mandatory FICA payment (and that it was so large) on top of state and federal taxes. I lived in the U.S >10 years ago, but honestly never filed my taxes myself, and probably just had it come out of my paychecks also
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