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If the 401k limit is no less than 28% of your income, that’s a fairly low salary, although not totally unreasonable for a new grad. My suggestion would be to f
by gshdg 7y ago
If the 401k limit is no less than 28% of your income, that’s a fairly low salary, although not totally unreasonable for a new grad.
My suggestion would be to focus on getting to be an excellent engineer. Ask for raises at every cycle. Put in 18-24 months at your current job. Then you should be able to get significantly higher comp at the next one.
When you get a higher salary, don’t increase your expenses.
As a new grad you’re not going to become a millionaire overnight. Building wealth is a game of patience.
But you’re already saving a lot, and that puts you ahead of the curve. Especially since you’re doing it early in your career when it will have the most time for interest to compound.
Put in 10 years of career growth without spending growth and you’ll find yourself socking away a whole lot of money. Put in 20, 30 years and you’ll find that wealth has grown.
- lowiqengineer 7y agoThe limit ($19k contribution) is around 17% of my pretax, I'm just frontloading it right now. A lot of my friends put in 90-100% into their 401k because they are already wealthy. Our compensation cycle is 1 per year, and it's unlikely to get more than a COL raise at my company unless you have top 5% performance. I've tried getting other offers but the best I've gotten is still less than Google new grad (I now have ~1 yoe)
- jklein11 7y agoWhat do you mean by frontloading? Also, that is a pretty solid salary for someone with 1 year of experience. Congrats!
- lowiqengineer 7y agoI’m putting in more at the start of the year to reach the cap faster.
- jklein11 7y agoWhat is your reasoning for doing so? That sounds like a lot of extra work for not a lot of benefit. TBH it sounds like you are treating building wealth like a sprint. It is more like a marathon