Another thing to factor in is being from a lower income area will distort your perception of what a large number is. I come from a town where the per capita in

Another thing to factor in is being from a lower income area will distort your perception of what a large number is. I come from a town where the per capita income is 20k. My first "real" job was doing tech support at $16/hr. It felt like A LOT of money to me. I thought I was getting overpaid, that sentiment followed me for years. Today making 125k I still feel overpaid, though when I look at the value I produce for the company, and the numbers of my peers I know it's not. It took me many years to get to 125k because each step up the ladder felt pretty big to me even though it probably wasn't compared to my peers. Pay is very relative. I look at my old high school buddies, they range from 25k-40k. The first time I asked for 100k, I thought it was craziness. Like no human being deserves that amount of money. So it took me several years to build up to that number.