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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?

#91

Post by spoiledtechie »

bretpiatt wrote: post #78
kujawa wrote: post #54

1) live in San Francisco and code for a few years. 2) there is no step 2. 2a) on St Patrick's day, despair that you've already paid more in rent this year than your father in Montana will pay all year.

Agreed, comparison of San Francisco in $100k to San Antonio, TX where I'm at now... Comparable salary in San Antonio, TX $58,363 If you move from San Francisco, CA to San Antonio, TX.... Groceries will cost: 24%less Housing will cost: 66%less Utilities will cost: 13%less Transportation will cost: 11%less Healthcare will cost: 15%less

Your also missing something though. The amount put away into a 401K is much higher in SF then in San Ant. TX. I would much rather work on San Fran for a few years, make a ton for my 401k then move some where cheap and rural in my 30s. San Fran people also have more cash for trips compared to Antonio. Overall, The higher salary is better in the long term.

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

#92

Post by rdl »

OstiaAntica wrote: post #57
jdbeast00 wrote: post #4

work for the government? i wouldn't call it success though

One-fifth of the federal govt earns six figures or more. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-12-10-federal-p...

The median salary for city workers in Palo Alto is above $100k. The amusing thing is many of the jobs below $100k are meter-readers and other parking enforcement. The city runs its own utilities, etc., so has a fairly sizable workforce relative to population.

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

#93

Post by fromfargo »

reason wrote: post #63
idlewords wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe true for the people you hang out with. In the rest of the world, there's plenty of people who prefer doing meaningful or engaging work over earning the highest possible salary.

And I take it physicians, lawyers, dentists, and other professionals, on top of all of the entrepreneurs who have sold their beloved companies for millions, aren't doing meaningful or engaging work. If you're good at any of the careers I just listed, you can easily make at least $300-400k+ per year. It's attainable, and there's a ton of meaningful work to be had at those levels. Success and meaning can be found at le…

Maybe you're a douche. I'll take my 'meaning' over your dogshit personality.

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

#94

Post by riledhel »

SageRaven wrote: post #85
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,…

I'm not rich, but I feel quite wealthy in terms of quality of life. actually, that's all that matters.

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

#95

Post by smanek »

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.

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), local transport (owning a car) there isn't much more to do.

If you really value your time, you can fly a private jet at the cost of maybe a few thousand dollars per hour saved, I guess.

And Warren Buffet, even in his frugality, does all of these things.

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

#96

Post by rorrr »

jberryman wrote: post #81
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.

Professional is almost any area that requires either higher education or some hard to learn skill.

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

#97

Post by jamesaguilar »

defen wrote: post #42
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…

It depends where you live. In San Francisco or New York, 100K isn't going to go very far. In Houston or a rural area, it will. According to a cost of living adjustment calculator I found online, 100K in Houston is equivalent to 186K in San Francisco. http://swz.salary.com/costoflivingwizard/layoutscripts/coll_...

Isn't going to go very far is such an interesting statement. When I was making 100k a year in SF, I felt plenty wealthy. I guess if you have really expensive tastes 100k won't seem like much, but it's more than enough to be happy and do everything you could reasonably need to do.

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

#98

Post by nostrademons »

defen wrote: post #42
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…

It depends where you live. In San Francisco or New York, 100K isn't going to go very far. In Houston or a rural area, it will. According to a cost of living adjustment calculator I found online, 100K in Houston is equivalent to 186K in San Francisco. http://swz.salary.com/costoflivingwizard/layoutscripts/coll_...

That is so incredibly misleading.

The problem with these cost-of-living adjusters is that they don't consider which goods are location-dependent and which aren't. So yes, your rent will probably be double in SF what it is in Houston. However, if you make $100K, rent is only a small portion of your income. And a dollar of savings in SF is just as good as a dollar of savings in Houston.

The way COL-calculators should work is that they should take a basket of monthly expenses typical for someone in the given income bracket, index that to the given location, and then subtract that from your salary offer in the new area. It's not a straight linear sliding scale. I would much rather be making $186k in SF than $100K in Houston, because I'd only be spending about $40K in living expenses in SF vs. $25K in Houston, and $186k - $40K = $146k is much greater than $100K - $25K = $75k.

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

#99

Post by nostrademons »

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.

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

#100

Post by SageRaven »

riledhel wrote: post #94
SageRaven wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

I'm not rich, but I feel quite wealthy in terms of quality of life. actually, that's all that matters.

I like to think so.

I don't want to give the impression than I'm down on anyone earning (or aspiring to earn) large amounts of money. At one time I aspired to break the $100k/yr mark by age 30 (certainly not too ambitious, but it seemed doable at the time).

Obviously I had a change of heart in the intervening years, and so far I'm quite pleased with things. To each their own.

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