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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?

#141

Post by foljs »

nostrademons wrote: post #99
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…

You've got a pretty narrow definition of professional. Where're all the elementary school teachers? And if you think that teaching is not highly-skilled, professional work, I'd like to see you keep a class of 5th graders from destroying the place.

Actually he has a pretty narrow definition of wages also.

Here are the mean wages in various sectors:

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/naics4_511200.htm

As it shows, $100K/year is FAR from common and very far from what you get for "barely showing up"...

It's just that people are just so narrow minded and only notice trends in their circle of friends and colleagues. He's like Warren Buffet saying "Surely, everybody makes one billion dollars a year, else you're just not trying enough"...

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

#142

Post by jsvaughan »

HaloZero wrote: post #123
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…

being a little pretentious aren't u? 100K a year is damn good. It's not "Fuck you" money but it's a damn good and a comfortable life. That's successful in my book.

$100k = £62k which might be enough to get you a mortgage on a 1 bedroom house round here in the SE UK (based on 3x income)

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

#143

Post by gjm11 »

amvp wrote: post #48
aaronblohowiak wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think spend-thrift means tight with your money, or parsimonious if you prefer.

To be thrifty, is to be careful with your money. Oddly though, a spendthrift is the opposite. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/spendthrift

Here's how the etymology works:

thrive: prosper

thrift (~= having-thrived): prosperity, hence money

thrifty: acting so as to get or maintain thrift, hence not spending much

thrift (derived meaning): the quality that thrifty people have; again, not spending much

spendthrift: a person who spends his or her thrift; hence, someone who spends a lot

spendthrift (derived meaning): the quality that spendthrifts have; that is, spending a lot.

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

#144

Post by gjm11 »

smanek wrote: post #95
Joakal wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 geometric mean is more natural; that's about $300k.)

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

#145

Post by nostrademons »

timr wrote: post #139
rdouble wrote: post #129

Earlier 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…

"rent = $1000 studio or share" Uh huh. Now, do that when you're 35, with a wife and two kids. I think it's easy to forget that people in other parts of the country do things like raise families. Also, most people don't generally want to live with roommates past their 20s. It gets old. I know where you're coming from -- I live a fairly frugal lifestyle, and I'm doing fine while renting an apartment in SF with no wife…

If you're married with kids, presumably you have a second income. The great-grandparent poster did figure in $1000/month for childcare. That $6k/month becomes $12k/month if your wife makes as much.

Anyway, my parents raised my sister and I on a single teacher's salary that was a lot less than $100K. Yes, kids do cost more than being a bachelor. However, a lot of the expenses I see batted around as justification for why you need $100K just to live today are utterly ridiculous. 90% of American households get by with much less than that.

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

#146

Post by rdouble »

timr wrote: post #139
rdouble wrote: post #129

Earlier 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…

"rent = $1000 studio or share" Uh huh. Now, do that when you're 35, with a wife and two kids. I think it's easy to forget that people in other parts of the country do things like raise families. Also, most people don't generally want to live with roommates past their 20s. It gets old. I know where you're coming from -- I live a fairly frugal lifestyle, and I'm doing fine while renting an apartment in SF with no wife…

Well, I did say it was a bachelor's perspective.

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

#147

Post by willyt »

petercooper wrote: post #102
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. 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)…

$100k == £60k. 60 less 33% / 12 = 3300 take home per month. London rent for 2 bedrooms is about £1500-2000 anywhere you would want your kids to go to school. £100 for commuting. £200-£300 for food. Car £150. Local tax £200 ...

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

#148

Post by shazow »

acangiano wrote: post #3
Tyrant505 wrote: post #2

From someone who's been failing startups since 2000, I can't imagine what I would do with that much money... It's really baffling..

Sadly, 100K isn't that much these days if you have a family and you live in an expensive city like Toronto or New York.

I lived very comfortably in downtown Toronto (Church/Adelaide, the Spire), in my own fancy highrise apartment ($1200/mo rent), for a measly $56k right out of school. On top of that, managed to save about $15k in my first year.

Then I moved to Palo Alto. Now that's expensive. :P

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

#149

Post by retube »

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 puts you in the top 15%. Maybe that doesn't fit your definition of successful, but I'd argue that having a good, stable, professional job was not only successful, but being, in the majority of cases, off the back of a decent education, pretty fortunate too.

Source: http://www.americablog.com/2011/01/us-income-distribution-20...

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

#150

Post by jasonkester »

retube wrote: post #149
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 puts you in the top 15%. Maybe that doesn't fit your definition of successful, but I'd argue that having a good, stable, professional job was not only successful, but being, in the majority of cases, off the back of a decent education, pretty fortunate too. Source: http://www.americablog.com/2011/01/us-income-distribution-20...

That list includes everybody in the US, gas station attendants and CEOs included. Computer programmers live in a tiny slice of that graph, way over on the right.
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