how old were you when you hit your first $100,000 year?

Its not how much you make, its how much you save. Read the millionaire next door to learn how to retire early and comfortable. The real question should be; how old were you when you saved your first $100k? I was 25, now 27. Fortunately, what I do for a living allows me to make around 100k, +/-, a year and almost all my cost of living is taken care of. Americans love to make a lot of money, and spend it by living well above their means, and trying to "keep up with the Jones' ."

if rich people are so miserable why dont they give up their jobs and money?

oh thats right thats just some feel good crap sold by people who want to feel that they made the right decisions in life.

majority of divorces in this country are contributed to money problems.....but at least their not miserable,,,right? At least they have creditors chasing them down, at least they can't send their kids to real schools, at least they can't go on vacations, at least they can't fly across the country to visit their parents, at least they can't .....oh nevermind, they are to happy to care about stuff like that.

I will graduate in 3 years (will be 27). Here is what the princeton review says about my profession:

Average hours per week: 40

Average starting salary: $134,540

Average salary after 5 years: $172,410

Average salary after 10 to 15 years: $183,400

Maybe that will make up for my $100,000+ in student loan debt...

Psssh.. I made 25G's on the Bears tonight bee-yotch!

$342,000

27 yo

sales/web development

don't hate the playa hate the game

Business owners often work for low draw while investing in growing the business and take profit later. Learned the business from well respected people often working long and hard with small rewards for about 12 year working in every aspect of the business. With mentor loans bought and worked a store for 8 years building my regional business reputation, paying back my loans as fast as possible with out hurting reinvestment in the business and buying the building. Opened another location with a 30% equity operating partner and followed up with two more in the next 3 years.Sold 70 % of the original to the 3 equity partners and used that money to become investing partner in a supplier of raw materials for my business. Puts me with no day to day job other than oversight, I just opened a consulting business to play with in my spare time. My partners are looking to franchise the mini chain and because of a great business lawyer from the start I'll be top toad with minions doing the heavy lifting and me with a fair but not greedy piece of the pie.Yet to see a 100K salary year but my share of realestate&chattle alone worth north of 3 million I guess if we liquidated today but the growth up side is just really starting. I live well but not high on the hog good size apt over the first store, company issued vehicle, two vacation properties co-owned with long term GF who is a supplier to the businesses also, killer all the bells and whistled insurances.

Formal Education-Couple of half hearted years in college with more withdrawl/incompletes that passes.

Never was fast never will be but enjoy the sport all the same my travel to meets/races mostly get written off as location scouting/ sales trips.

I was lucky,learned for good people and followed sound advice.

Try owning something that earns for you instead of earning it yourself in wages.

Most important tool is a good businessplan, financial advisor/lawyer package. Where you need the most luck is picking partners and co-investors.

Lefty wrote:

Is 100K considered a normal salary? Why is it that everyone one this board seems to be making that much money in their 20s?

Apparently you're new to letsrun. Everyone here:

-runs a 14:00 5k

-runs 100 miles per week

-puts 2000 miles on each pair of h-streets they wear

-makes $100K+ per year

-got 1500+ on their SATs

-can bench press over 250 despite still being 14:00 5k guys.

-gets up at 5:00am to get in their 15 miler before a 12 hour workday

$20,000/year. professional distance runner.

sad but true.

a rich POS wrote:

ibanker at CHASE. I don't mind working all day because I only need an hour a day to run. my plan is to get but ass rich and retire at 35 or 40

First to answer the question -- I'm 40 and not yet making $100,000, though an equivalent position in the San Fransicso Bay area would pay me over $100,000 (so that figure by iteself doesn't really mean anything). Fortunately I live in an area of the country that is much less expensive.

The way to retire by 40 is to be investing every penny you don't need right now.

I'll make some assumptions and then give you some figures.

At 23 you're probably still single with no kids.

I'll put you in an area that isn't too expensive but not super cheap like where I live either.

You make $85,000 and wish to make $100,000 in three years. I'll assume you NEVER make more than $100,000.

With all the above being true, you should be able to put 20% away for retirement EASILY.

Now some figures.

If you are starting with NO saved income now and you save 20% of your income (and invest at an 8% return), you'll have $775,559.32 based on the criteria you provided and my assumption that you'll not make more than $100,000 (just being conservative.

Now, assuming that you may live to be 100 years old and that you would be still 25 years away from receiving Social Security, and assuming that that $775,559.32 can STILL earn 8% a year return, let's see how the numbers work for you.

Without touching the principal, at 8% return, that 775,559.32 will earn $62,044.75. If you could live on that 28 years from now then you'd be golden. You'd have to live on that amount until you were 65 before you'd get more money (Social Security).

This is all very possible assuming a few things:

1) If you've bought a house, you need to have it paid off by the time you are 40.

2) When you turn 40, you just want to retire and live somewhat frugally. You'll be able to do it, especially if yuo've got your housing taken care of, but you won't be spending weekends on the yacht.

More possibilitites:

Let's assume you go nuts and invest 40% of your take-home income between now and 40.

That will give you $1,551,118 at age 40. A much better number to work with. Now, at 8% return, you will get $124,090 a year. Spend just $100,000 of that a year so that the $24,090 is reinvested and you'll make an additional TON of money assuming you can do that until you are 65. Even by about age 55 you'll have LOTS more to work with.

The key is early and often.

Compound interest is a lovely thing.

a rich POS wrote:

ibanker at CHASE. I don't mind working all day because I only need an hour a day to run. my plan is to get but ass rich and retire at 35 or 40

So you work all day and make $85k/year. What is all day? 60 hrs/week? That's like 3000 hours/year if you get 2 weeks vacation. That would be around $28/hr.

I make $35/hr, but only make $70k a year. You can figure out how many hours a week that is. I'd rather be me. Good luck!

CC wrote:

If you don't mind me asking, what type of company do you do marketing for? Size of company, etc. If you don't want to give the name of the company, I understand. I'm just curious

Internet Marketing Strategy, and the company is around 100 folks.

We do not do advertising, so we aren't psychically marketing anything, but helping corporations understand Web 2.0 capabilities.

We are in high demand right now, but I don't see it that way forever.

It is also very frustrating trying to explain to the VP of marketing at a Fortune 500 company that people on YouTube aren't automatically going to love his crappy commercial.

It is fine for right now, but in all honesty I don't really need the money, so I would prefer to do something else that has more meaning.

Maybe the real measure of a person's worth is if they actually do something to make the world a better place rather than hording their blessings.

But, then again, what do I know?

Mufafa wrote:

Maybe the real measure of a person's worth is if they actually do something to make the world a better place rather than hording their blessings.

But, then again, what do I know?

That would be fine also, but there is nothing inherently wrong with saving and investing money. In fact, I would argue it is more pious to do so than spending all your money. The more money you save and invest, the more money you have to give away. Compound interest can make a person wealthy, but it can also make a person able to give more to charity.

The only flaw in your premise Flagpole is that an 8% return during the income phase, rather than the growth phase, is exceedingly difficult to accomplish without an inordinate amount of risk. It's one thing to sock the money away in growth funds during the first 17 years and not worry about it; it's quite another to hope that your income, dividends, munis, etc give you a risk free 8% payout year after year. 5% is probably more like it.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The percentage of households and individuals over the age of 25 with incomes exceeding $100,000 in the US.[1][2]Six figure income is a term used most commonly in the United States and Canada to describe individuals or households whose income exceeds one hundred thousand dollars a year. Six-figure incomes are often seen as a great status symbol and one of the primary symbols of economic success.[3] In the United States 15.8% of all households had annual incomes of $100,000 or more,[2] the vast majority of which had two income earners.[4] Among individuals above the age of twenty-five, 5.63% had incomes exceeding the six figure mark.[1]

The discrepency between the percentage of individuals and households with six figure icomes is largely the result of 42% of US households having two income earners. In 2005, 77.15% of households in the top quintiles with incomes exceeding $88,000 had two or more income earners.[4] United States Department of Commerce data indicates that only a small minority of households with six figure incomes are home to an individual with an income of over $100,000, while the majority have two or more persons pulling in less than $100,000. Thus roughly 1 out every 6 households had six figure income while only 1 out of every 20 individuals age 25 or older did so.[1][4]

More>>

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fc/American_Income.png

Boastful too!!!

Kentucky windage puts 63% of all sixfigure guys in the 430 HS miler group if these posts can be believed.

Lets take a look at the other side of the coin(pi).

2006 HHS Poverty Guidelines

Persons in

Family or Household 48 Contiguous

States and D.C. Alaska Hawaii

-48 &D.C.-Alaska--Hawaii

1 $ 9,800 $12,250 $11,270

2 13,200 16,500 15,180

3 16,600 20,750 19,090

4 20,000 25,000 23,000

5 23,400 29,250 26,910

6 26,800 33,500 30,820

7 30,200 37,750 34,730

8 33,600 42,000 38,640

For each additional

person, add 3,400 4,250 3,910

SOURCE: Federal Register, Vol. 71, No. 15, January 24, 2006, pp. 3848-3849

So 100 grand would keep a family of 27 above the poverty line in the lower 48!!

Sagarin wrote:

The only flaw in your premise Flagpole is that an 8% return during the income phase, rather than the growth phase, is exceedingly difficult to accomplish without an inordinate amount of risk. It's one thing to sock the money away in growth funds during the first 17 years and not worry about it; it's quite another to hope that your income, dividends, munis, etc give you a risk free 8% payout year after year. 5% is probably more like it.

Well, you are correct in one way. The 8% growth is what a person should expect to get when investing using a model that is heavily weighted on stocks (great risk). My portfolios are currently 80% stocks and 20% other vehicles. My 10-year return on my retirement accounts is 11.4%, so I'm above the 8% now (8% being what most experts predict retirement accounts to earn the next 25 years -- of course they could be wrong). I plan to retire at 59.5 years old, so by about age 54 or so I will change my portfolio so that it is less heaviliy weighted with stocks.

I would recommend that to this 23-year-old guy, but I didn't because he wants to retire by age 40. I figure if he doesn't yet have enough money that he can simply work for another couple years.

If 8% becomes 6% then he will have to invest more or work longer. If 8% becomes 10% then he'll be living pretty. never a guarantee with dealing with stocks.

Interesting info. It's not too difficult to get into that top 15% of households making $100,000 or more though. If you've got two college-educated people (husband and wife) living in the same house, and each has more than 5 years of experience in a professional field, they are very likely to be bringing home more than $100,000. When my wife goes back to work, we will be easily over the $100,000 line. We'll need it too as the kids will want to go to college and I still want to be able to retire by age 60.

What are the large firms dealing with Internet Strategy? I'm currently working for an IT consulting firm but am interested in learning more about your field. Can you point me in the direction of any reading material? Thanks!

Flagpole Willy wrote:

Interesting info. It's not too difficult to get into that top 15% of households making $100,000 or more though. If you've got two college-educated people (husband and wife) living in the same house, and each has more than 5 years of experience in a professional field, they are very likely to be bringing home more than $100,000. When my wife goes back to work, we will be easily over the $100,000 line. We'll need it too as the kids will want to go to college and I still want to be able to retire by age 60.

With all due respect Flagpole, you should push your kids in school so that they can get an academic merit scholarship instead of having mommy and daddy bail them out with blowing their retirement savings.

and, your calculations look nice and pretty with the 8% return and 11% and whatnot, but you're never taking into account inflation.

it's a bitch.