Sort of down on myself -- I'm happy with my current position in life, but I feel like I can be doing a lot more. I'm currently making about 7 grand a year (yes, 7), but I want to make 100 grand. Should I be satisfied with that?
Sort of down on myself -- I'm happy with my current position in life, but I feel like I can be doing a lot more. I'm currently making about 7 grand a year (yes, 7), but I want to make 100 grand. Should I be satisfied with that?
1)make a list of the things you want to do or buy (this year, and in life in general)
2)calculate how much each of those things will cost
3)see if you can or will be able to afford them for 7k or 100k. If not, then you should not be satisfied with only 7k or 100k
100k is good money. However, you should probably be considering different career paths rather than just a specific salary. I mean, wanting to make 100k/yr. isn't much of a goal - its like saying, "I want to be good at sports."
Besides, it takes a while to get up to a salary of $100K. It doesn't just happen over-night or at the beginning of a job. You need to work your way up to it. The most important thing - as the others have said above - is to find a job you like as well as decide what you "need" and "want" in life and see what amount of money will get you those things.
100k is not much money today...go back 40 years and you could live off 30k a year with all the pirks and raise a family of six without mom working, today 100k gets you very little
Dumb f***.
RuKiddingMe!! wrote:
100k is not much money today...go back 40 years and you could live off 30k a year with all the pirks and raise a family of six without mom working, today 100k gets you very little
$100K/year where Flagpole lives - a small fortune
$100K/year in DC - a living wage
$100K/year in Manhattan - sign up for foodstamps.
Cost of live matters!
Depends entirely on where you live.
Small town in the midwest or south, you're making bank at 100k if you're single and you can easily support a comfortable middle class family.
SF Bay Area or some other expensive ass place, you'll still be doing fine but not exactly rolling in it if you're single (I make 75k in the Bay Area, am single, live comfortably but certainly not lavishly). You could probably support a family on 100k here, I'm sure many do, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to.
i make >100k. also wife is lawyer.
100k p/a probably puts you in the top 0.1% of the worlds earners. If you can't live comfortably off that you're a greedy a mofo.
pervymcgee wrote:
$100K/year where Flagpole lives - a small fortune
$100K/year in DC - a living wage
$100K/year in Manhattan - sign up for foodstamps.
Cost of live matters!
This is 100% correct.
Flagpole wrote:
pervymcgee wrote:$100K/year where Flagpole lives - a small fortune
$100K/year in DC - a living wage
$100K/year in Manhattan - sign up for foodstamps.
Cost of live matters!
This is 100% correct.
I would suggest that cost of living in DC has not reached New York levels, but the gap has closed, especially with the strength of the DC real estate market over the last year. Maybe Chicago for living wage? LA?
My wife and I lived in the DC area from 1995-1998, and during that time our combined income was about $80,000. We were making it but just barely, and buying anything other than a townhouse was not in the cards. We moved back to Ohio in part so that we could have a lower cost of living so that she could be a stay at home mom.If you're single and living in a DC apartment and walk to work (not taking the expensive metro) then you could make it on $100,000. Got kids though and want to live in at least a town home, and you take the metro in every day and pay to park your car there, etc...then $100,000 is right on about a living wage for that area.
dfgg wrote:
Flagpole wrote:This is 100% correct.
I would suggest that cost of living in DC has not reached New York levels, but the gap has closed, especially with the strength of the DC real estate market over the last year. Maybe Chicago for living wage? LA?
Metro is expensive? Unless you're commuting from very far away it's going to be around 5 dollars a day (4 dollars if you take the bus). If you make, say, a GS-12 salary of 75k, this is not going to set you back that bad. It's not my favorite way of spending money, but it's cheaper and faster than a car. Megabus and Boltbus trips average about 25 dollars roundtrip or so (you can also get $1.50 bus tickets) making owning a car not really necessary.DC's bad, but someone making 60k here is not destitute. Unless nonwhite people scare you and you can't live outside Georgetown or Kalorama, it's not THAT bad.
Flagpole wrote:
My wife and I lived in the DC area from 1995-1998, and during that time our combined income was about $80,000. We were making it but just barely, and buying anything other than a townhouse was not in the cards. We moved back to Ohio in part so that we could have a lower cost of living so that she could be a stay at home mom.
If you're single and living in a DC apartment and walk to work (not taking the expensive metro) then you could make it on $100,000. Got kids though and want to live in at least a town home, and you take the metro in every day and pay to park your car there, etc...then $100,000 is right on about a living wage for that area.
If you are looking to make a 100K and not a lawyer, Doctor, Hedge FUnd guy, you have to into sales. Sales is the fastest way to get to 100K if you dont have a ton of experience. I dont care if its a stock broker/Financial Advisor, Software Sales or Car Salesman, sales is the way to go. As far as 100K a year in Manhattan, It is very doable and no you would not be signing up for foodstamps. I think the cost of living thing is a bit overdone when people talk about living in NYC. The Average weekely salary of Manhattanites is $1450 about 70K a year...and trust me many many many more do not make that..I didnt even start making that until a few years ago and my life was comfortable before. Granted you cant live in Chelsea or the VIllage, but most common people are moving uptown anyway (harlem, east harlem, hamilton heights, washington heights)
My advice follow your dream and do what makes you happy. You would be better off making 60K and being happy then 100K and feeling Shi***
Real talk bro, $100,000 is shit today. First, any job that will make you that much will come with a hefty amount of student loans which will reduce discretionary income well below $100k. Second, with the spending and deficit of the United States government, the combination of taxes and inflation have made $100k f***ing nothing, and in the exorbitant cost of health insurance and its less than nothing, and if you want a family you probably will need a wife that makes more than $100k too or you will be reduced to poverty.
My suggestion, figure out what job pays $250k and go after that.
Excellent Stuff wrote:
Depends entirely on where you live.
Small town in the midwest or south, you're making bank at 100k if you're single and you can easily support a comfortable middle class family.
SF Bay Area or some other expensive ass place, you'll still be doing fine but not exactly rolling in it if you're single (I make 75k in the Bay Area, am single, live comfortably but certainly not lavishly). You could probably support a family on 100k here, I'm sure many do, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to.
I'm not sure how you guys live, but you sure as hell aren't being thrifty about it. How is it that I can live what I consider a comfortable life (i.e. I have a nice studio apartment in mountain view, health insurance, a car, cable, and an iphone) on a stipend of under 30k a year. Plus, I have money left to go out on the weekends and save a couple thousand a year. If I were making 3x what I'm making now, I would consider myself rich.
Always depends where you get it from. I lived in Gaithersburg and got on at Shady Grove. Had to drive there and pay to park there and then pay for the metro fare also, so my wife and I each had a car (we worked slightly different hours, so it wasn't convenient to drive in together), and both paid for parking and the metro ticket -- makes it expensive.
bo diddley wrote:
Metro is expensive? Unless you're commuting from very far away it's going to be around 5 dollars a day (4 dollars if you take the bus). If you make, say, a GS-12 salary of 75k, this is not going to set you back that bad. It's not my favorite way of spending money, but it's cheaper and faster than a car. Megabus and Boltbus trips average about 25 dollars roundtrip or so (you can also get $1.50 bus tickets) making owning a car not really necessary.
DC's bad, but someone making 60k here is not destitute. Unless nonwhite people scare you and you can't live outside Georgetown or Kalorama, it's not THAT bad.
Flagpole wrote:My wife and I lived in the DC area from 1995-1998, and during that time our combined income was about $80,000. We were making it but just barely, and buying anything other than a townhouse was not in the cards. We moved back to Ohio in part so that we could have a lower cost of living so that she could be a stay at home mom.
If you're single and living in a DC apartment and walk to work (not taking the expensive metro) then you could make it on $100,000. Got kids though and want to live in at least a town home, and you take the metro in every day and pay to park your car there, etc...then $100,000 is right on about a living wage for that area.
Never be satisfied with your income until you've made every penny that your ability allows in your chosen line of work. If you have the potential to make $200,000, you have a lot of work to do yet!
bay area student wrote:
I'm not sure how you guys live, but you sure as hell aren't being thrifty about it. How is it that I can live what I consider a comfortable life (i.e. I have a nice studio apartment in mountain view, health insurance, a car, cable, and an iphone) on a stipend of under 30k a year. Plus, I have money left to go out on the weekends and save a couple thousand a year. If I were making 3x what I'm making now, I would consider myself rich.
Bullshit. (1) Were you making 30k when you bought that car, the furniture in your apartment, the clothes you wear, etc? No you werent. (2) Health insurance for a student is not an expense on par with health insurance for someone that is not. (3) If you are student your loans are in deferment. (4) If you are satisfied with your life that is great. Many people would like to do more than sit at home watching cable TV eating rice and beans while driving the used Honda Civic their parents bought them to go out to drink $1 you call its on the weekends. Many people would like to buy a house, have a functional car, save more than a thousand a year, have children, get laid, etc.