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Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?
- Tyrant505 16y agoFrom someone who's been failing startups since 2000, I can't imagine what I would do with that much money... It's really baffling..
- acangiano 16y agoSadly, 100K isn't that much these days if you have a family and you live in an expensive city like Toronto or New York.
- cheez 16y agoYou must also live in Toronto :)
- baddox 16y agoI think you need to elaborate on what you mean by "not that much these days." According to a bit of Googling, 100k in NYC is about 48k where I live. 48k family income around here for a family with 2 adults and 2 children is far from rich, but it's fairly reasonable middle class and it's certainly doable with a modicum of responsible finance-handling.
- acangiano 16y ago$100K in expensive cities is equivalent to a squarely middle class income elsewhere. Not a bad life by any means, but it's far from, "I can't imagine what I would do with that much money". Six figures are still six figures with responsible management of one's finances, but it's not the well-off lifestyle some may imagine.
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- redthrowaway 16y agoVancouver here. 100k is really only enough for a very middle class life.
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- jamesshamenski 16y agoTotally disagree. I've lived in Van for 15 years and it's hilariously more affordable than LA or NY (where I am now). The Mercer 2010 survey put Van at #75 in the world which was surprisingly one spot ahead of Toronto. Sidenote: the job market of Vancouver is much slower and lower paying than what's happening state side.
- cheez 16y ago"I lived in Vancouver for 15 years." Translates to: "I bought a place 10 years before the epic bubble of bubbles." Vancouver real estate is INSANITY.
- biot 16y agoYou mean spending $700K for a house a half notch above a fixer-upper isn't sane? :)
- redthrowaway 16y ago700k? What dream world are you living in? What I wouldn't give to be able to buy a house for 700k. Relevant: http://www.crackshackormansion.com/ http://www.crackshackormansion.com/ The worst part about that site: It's a year old. It's worse now.
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- Tyrant505 16y ago3k + food + "benefits"(included) + social Car? If you are in the city you cab or mass. $100,000.000 Classic what you own ends up owning you. Bartender classic, makin decent doe, anyone can get stuck. All of a sudden its a big risk to leave, with all your obligations you've acquired by making a bit, doesn't matter how much it's at every pay rate. REF: I live outside nyc in Bergen County NJ, 30min car ride, $500 a room in a 2 bedroom. I can't grab a nyc pay? Train or bus in even with no car.
- TillE 16y agoYeah, of course. On the other hand, you can live quite comfortably in Berlin for US$20k gross salary. Rent and price of groceries are huge factors in what your income actually means. Define specific quality of life factors, instead of talking about a number.
- JabavuAdams 16y agoToronto is nowhere near as expensive as New York. In Toronto, you can get a decent detached house in a downtown blue-collar neighbourhood or (a nicer one in the 'burbs) for under 500k. You can get a beautiful home in an elite neighbourhood for 750k.
- cheez 16y agoI live in Toronto and I would love to buy a place in downtown Toronto for sub-500K. The house I live in now is "valued" at $500K and is nowhere special, but it's awesome.
- JabavuAdams 16y agohttp://www.realtor.ca/map.aspx?&vs=VEResidential&beds=2-0&baths=0-0&minp=0&maxp=500000&area=Danforth%2b%2526%2bMain&trt=2#acr:false;ac:false;baths:0-0;beds:2-0;fp:false;gar:false;pmin:0;pmax:500000;rmin:0;rmax:0;openh:false;pool:false;stories:0-0;buildingstyle:;buildingtypeid:1;viewtypeid:;waterfront:false;forsale:true;forrent:false;orderBy:D;sortBy:1;LisStartDate:;mapZ:13;page:1;mapC:43.68128069011653,%20-79.32961463928223;curView:0;curStyle:r;chkSchl:false;chkTran:false;chkPol:false;chkMed:false;chkWrk:false;chkFire:false;chkAll:false http://www.realtor.ca/map.aspx?&vs=VEResidential&bed... Interestingly, it looks like prices in my old neighbourhood are roughly the same, to 50k higher. However, in the new neighbourhood things are up 150k+ http://www.realtor.ca/map.aspx?&vs=VEResidential&beds=0-0&baths=0-0&minp=0&maxp=0&area=Yonge%2b%2526%2bLawrence%252c%2bToronto&trt=2#acr:false;ac:false;baths:0-0;beds:2-0;fp:false;gar:false;pmin:0;pmax:850000;rmin:0;rmax:0;openh:false;pool:false;stories:0-0;buildingstyle:;buildingtypeid:1;viewtypeid:;waterfront:false;forsale:true;forrent:false;orderBy:D;sortBy:1;LisStartDate:;mapZ:14;page:1;mapC:43.72465342539647,%20-79.41651821136476;curView:0;curStyle:r;chkSchl:false;chkTran:false;chkPol:false;chkMed:false;chkWrk:false;chkFire:false;chkAll:false http://www.realtor.ca/map.aspx?&vs=VEResidential&bed...
- cheez 16y agosub-500K = $499K? I guess you are right, technically. Once you get past $490, they are duplexes.
- shazow 16y agoI lived very comfortably in downtown Toronto (Church/Adelaide, the Spire), in my own fancy highrise apartment ($1200/mo rent), for a measly $56k right out of school. On top of that, managed to save about $15k in my first year. Then I moved to Palo Alto. Now that's expensive. :P
- cheez 16y agoHow do you keep failing startups??? What does it mean to fail?
- Tyrant505 16y agoWell, I still don't know what 100k feels like.. :)
- cheez 16y agoHow did you fund yourself for so long? One of my friends who is a consultant doing nothing special makes $100K in 6 months. If you really want to see $100K, just be a consultant for a while.
- mdolon 16y agoWhat does this mean though? What is he consulting people/companies on and how is he finding clients? That is the hardest part of getting into any consultancy (in my opinion): finding clients.
- cheez 16y agoHe works through an agency and has some skills that are rare (though not rare like diamonds...)
- smanek 16y agoIt'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 apartment, car and all related expenses, etc) all add up very quickly. I think that's one of the biggest advantages college students have when starting a company. They get a significantly longer runway for relatively less effort. It's much harder to adjust from making $200K to $20K.
- Joakal 16y agoWarren Buffet is one of the top 10 richest people in the world and he's pretty frugal.
- kooshball 16y agoI think frugal here is relative. He doesn't care about status symbols and living a super extravagant life with huge mansions and yachts that other billionaires do. But I'm sure he has a lot of expenses that most middle class would not have. If his car breaks down, do you really think he'll take it to the shop himself and start taking a bus to work?
- AngryParsley 16y agoBuffet is the exception that proves the rule.
- smanek 16y agoTo 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.
- tastybites 16y agoI hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you're an entrepreneur and you "can't imagine" what you'd do with $100k, you might be in the wrong line of work. Allocating capital is a big part of being in business.
- philwelch 16y agoI can easily imagine how to invest anywhere up to tens of billions of dollars. Spending a $100k salary for personal enjoyment is another question.
- tastybites 16y agoA nice place to live, a nice car, and frequent restaurant meals. Easily done once you escape the gripping fear going broke and never making money ever again (irrational).
- _delirium 16y agoStrangely, I felt like I was doing all that when I was a grad student making a $30k stipend, and I actually didn't spend all the $30k. Nice condo in a nice location, recent car, ate out all the time, spent a surprising amount on microbrews. Granted, Atlanta wasn't the world's most expensive city. I could've easily imagined being much more frugal in almost every aspect of my life, if I actually needed to save money. But certainly by other standards I was already living very cheaply. I can think of some other things I could've spent money on, but even now that I make more, they don't seem that appealing. Maybe it's just my tastes, but I prefer brewpubs to $50/plate restaurants; you would have to actually pay me to convince me to start eating regularly at high-end places (I currently go if I'm entertaining someone, or occasionally as a novelty, but it's not really my thing). And I could upgrade from "recent, fairly nice Honda" to "new BMW", but I don't really care very much about that. Maybe I'll take more trips or something, but of course I actually have less time to take trips now than I did as a grad student. =] I honestly am not that sure what I can do with the extra money that would really improve my life, so so far it's mostly being saved, maybe for possible future self-financing, if an idea arises that I want to work full-time on. I guess I could upgrade my microbrew hobby to a Scotch or fine-wine hobby, but again, that doesn't actually appeal that much; it feels like something I would do just to spend money "because I can".
- jdbeast00 16y agowork for the government? i wouldn't call it success though
- mberning 16y agoPeople are down voting you, but I don't know why. There has been much written about the explosion of 6 figure government jobs in the last decade or two.
- OstiaAntica 16y agoOne-fifth of the federal govt earns six figures or more. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-12-10-federal-pay-salaries_N.htm http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-12-10-federal-p...
- rdl 16y agoThe 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.
- nl 16y agoSo roughly the same as the US population as a whole, where ~16% make > 100K. (Note that this percentage is of all workers, including part time workers. Part time workers are under represented in the federal government workforce compared to the broader workforce) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...
- feverishaaron 16y agoBe careful about chasing a dollar amount. $100K is pretty baseline for someone who has technical/design etc. skills. Moving into the $200K+ salary range often means working a lot of overtime, which leaves little time for enjoyable pursuits, or side projects which may eventually earn far more than that extra $100K a year.
- baddox 16y ago$100K baseline? That sounds like you're talking about entry-level, which can't be right regardless of where you live. I believe that the mean annual income for a software developer in the USA is about USD 75k. I found one estimate as high as 90k. In non-coastal areas (even big cities in the Midwest, Texas, etc.), entry level positions requiring a 4-year CS degree are commonly 45k-60k.
- bane 16y agoCareer baseline, not entry-level. Making 100k these days with 5-7 years of experience is not all that unusual.
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- oniTony 16y agoEntry level at top tier companies such as Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft will break $100K if you include signing bonuses and stocks. I suppose those are the exception though.
- bnr 16y agoMinecraft's Notch replied: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/frw5l/redditors_earning_100k_a_year_or_other_high/c1i6wmo http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/frw5l/redditors_e...
- SkyMarshal 16y agoAnd here's another really thorough response further down that thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/frw5l/redditors_earning_100k_a_year_or_other_high/c1i6sy9 http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/frw5l/redditors_e... ------------- entrepreneur_taway: I run a start up media company. I am 26. This year I've made over $100k. Here's how. ... TL;DR: 1) Work for yourself 2) Borrow [build a credit rating buffer] 3) Become an expert, but fake it in the mean time 4) Sell constantly 5) Hire labour 6) Fire bad apples 7) Look after key accounts 8) Charge properly, make profit 9) Be targetted in your sales/marketing 10) Expand 11) Keep control 12) It is a hard game 13) Give them no ammo Additions: 14) Have principles 15) Decide fast 16) Read 17) Learn from mistakes 18) Flexibility 19) Embrace risk
- loboman 16y agoHow much is 100k a year in the US? I thought it wasn't so much for good programmers, at least in SV. Is a 100k programmer something unheard of in the US?
- flyosity 16y agoIt really depends on where you live. $100k in the Bay Area or New York City is a good salary but doesn't go that far after you pay for the exorbitant rent and other high cost of living expenses. Compared to Raleigh, NC (southeast U.S.) where I live, $100k goes pretty far and is a very good salary for a software engineer since living costs are so much lower.
- baddox 16y agoI believe that 100k a year, even in the most expensive and well-paying cities (e.g. New York City, San Francisco) is rare for entry-level, 4-year CS degree programming jobs. When you get to 5 years experience, then I'm guessing 100k is much more common. That said, the mean yearly income for a software engineer in the USA appears to be somewhere between 75k and 90k (according to a couple of online sources I quickly found).
- dev_jim 16y ago100k is pretty standard for good programmers in coastal cities right out of or within a few years of college. Salary increases pretty quickly at the entry level because your opportunities multiply with just a little bit of experience.
- xenophanes 16y agoTip 1: Be born American. If that doesn't work, emigrate.
- dennisgorelik 16y agoBe born in wealthy family.
- nl 16y agoTip 2: Be born white or Asian in America. [1] Tip 3: Be born in a rich country with a growing middle class [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income#Median_household_income_and_the_economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income#Median_...
- marknutter 16y agoFrom what I've seen, it shouldn't matter what color you are. Correlation is not causation.
- forinti 16y agoTo be more specific, to be born Jewish American (or to be born in India and move to the US): http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1002/almighty-dollar/transparency.jpg http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1002/almighty-dollar...
- vcadambe 16y ago> (or to be born in India and move to the US) This chart is be religion, and not everyone born in India is Hindu.
- forinti 16y agoAnd not all Hindus are Indian. Still, 80% of Indians are Hindus and the second-largest population of Hindus (Nepal) is 41 times smaller. So, if you are Hindu, you most likely are Indian.
- rdouble 16y agoMove to Australia and become a tiler.
- ShardPhoenix 16y agoOnly while the housing bubble lasts...
- nl 16y agoIt's not a bubble when Sydney rents are the second most expensive in the world because of a lack of supply. It's not a bubble when interest rates are 8% and loan conditions are amongst the strictest in the world. It's true that prices could stagnate or even drop somewhat if unemployment started to rise. But that's a very different situation to a true housing bubble like in the US or Ireland that was driven by cheap credit and easy loans.
- prawn 16y ago1. Move to Australia 2. Take up one of many trades (tiling, concreting, wiring, plumbing) 3. Answer your phone. Respond to emails quickly 4. Show up when you say you will, quote when you say you will From my experience dealing with trades working on my house, I am confident that any tradie who is able to do these basic things would have work on tap and expand with lackeys quickly.
- nl 16y agoThat'll make you a millionare! For 100K you can ignore steps 3 & 4, and you'll still have more work than you can deal with.
- nl 16y agoOr a chef at a mine. Seriously. Here's a FIFO[1] position paying 80K + 9% retirement, plus it provides accommodation while you are onsite: http://www.seek.com.au/Job/mine-chef/in/perth/19143356 http://www.seek.com.au/Job/mine-chef/in/perth/19143356 [1]FIFO in this context means Fly In, Fly Out. They fly you to the site for a couple of weeks, then fly you back out for a week off.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- bane 16y agoGet a valuable skill, some experience and carefully build your resume. It doesn't even have to be a skill in high demand, even a hard to find skill can be extremely valuable to an organization.
- jrockway 16y agoHave some clue about programming. Work for a company with money. I hear college grads are making $80k out of school at tech companies these days. A few years of keeping your chair warm and you should have no problem getting to $100k.
- flyosity 16y agoOne thing I've noticed (throughout my career, and by talking to friends in the software industry) is that there seems to be a ceiling on how much you can make as a software engineer at "a company". The exact amount really isn't important, but if you're relying on one company to pay you a higher and higher salary every year, at some point they'll probably stop jumping you up the salary ladder. Or you'll be forced into management to get the bump you want. On the other hand, if you're a consultant/contractor, you're spreading the money across a number of companies. A company might not want to pay a full-time employee $200k/year, but they won't fret over paying a contractor $150/hr for a few weeks/months of work. The company is happy because, on paper, the one-time payment to a contractor is a lower number, and the contractor is happy because they can jump to the next company after this contract is up. My friends in the software industry who make the most money tend to follow this route. Or, they wrote a Top 10 Paid App in the App Store and got rich that way, but that's a little tougher :)
- acangiano 16y ago> there seems to be a ceiling on how much you can make as a software engineer at "a company". There is. I like to think of this in terms of income scalability. At a company, you are limited to scaling your income vertically, unless you have equity. Owning a company, or part of it, your income can scale horizontally as well.
- tastybites 16y ago$150/hr for a few weeks/months of work Good consultants can get this rate year round and book a quarter million net. The trick is adapting your offering to what the company you're working for actually needs and then telling management about those needs.
- Terry_B 16y agoI'm surprised by the lack of answers talking about market forces. I know many people who think that doing a job that is complex and hard automatically entitles you to money and complain about people with much easier jobs, who aren't as smart, making more than them.
- tastybites 16y ago$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-biz/consultant working over wifi at the beach in Thailand this doesn't apply at all. In fact, congratulations, if you're this guy, you probably win the game. If you asked a lawyer, a CPA or a banker if they'd take $100k to work their ass off for a corporate master, they'd laugh in your face. Edit: It's quite typical of HN when this topic comes up for someone to be downvoted by people who make very little money when they come out with the cold, hard facts. This place is full of millionaires and super-successful entrepreneurs who mostly stay quiet in threads like these. Wake up and smell the coffee.
- neilc 16y agoIn the Bay Area and a few other places, you're absolutely right -- but there are other places where $100k for a software engineer is pretty generous pay. Of course, the cost of living in those places is typically a lot less than in the Bay Area.
- tastybites 16y agoI've worked with professionals located in SF, LA, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Omaha, Atlanta, St. Louis, Ann Arbor, Boston, New York, DC, Miami, and Charleston. $100k is still the minimum professional salary for someone who has a highly skilled, technical job like sr. engineer, architect, investment banker, CPA, attorney, etc.
- Locke 16y agoEarnings 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.
- aaronblohowiak 16y agoI think spend-thrift means tight with your money, or parsimonious if you prefer.
- amvp 16y agoTo be thrifty, is to be careful with your money. Oddly though, a spendthrift is the opposite. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/spendthrift http://www.thefreedictionary.com/spendthrift
- gjm11 16y agoHere's how the etymology works: thrive: prosper thrift (~= having-thrived): prosperity, hence money thrifty: acting so as to get or maintain thrift, hence not spending much thrift (derived meaning): the quality that thrifty people have; again, not spending much spendthrift: a person who spends his or her thrift; hence, someone who spends a lot spendthrift (derived meaning): the quality that spendthrifts have; that is, spending a lot.
- sp_ 16y agoYeah, this distinction is important. Recently in Germany this report made the news how nearly a quarter of professional football players are broke at the end of their careers. Considering that these are all people who make a lot of money I was pretty shocked about this.
- SageRaven 16y agoThis 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, and auto insurance). Telecommuting from a rural area helps, as does raising some of our own food. Sure, we don't live like kings, but my kids always have both parents around and we live a good, simple life. I'm not rich, but I feel quite wealthy in terms of quality of life.
- harshaw 16y agoMarry someone making $$ in a different field. I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned more :) I'm married to a dentist but I know plenty of hacker types married to professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc). side note: it is very easy to get to a point where you have no time to spend your money - and you won't know it until all of a sudden you have no time anymore for the fun stuff.
- pdaviesa 16y agoIMHO the largest salary jumps happen when you switch companies. Once you start with a company, you're pretty much locked into their payscale and salary increases happen in much smaller increments. Ideally, you would stay at a company long enough to get the requisite experience for the next career level and then switch to a new company and negotiate a healthy salary bump. With that said, my highest paid friends are typically the most dissatisfied with their jobs - something to consider.
- kujawa 16y ago1) 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.
- bretpiatt 16y agoAgreed, 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
- spoiledtechie 16y agoYour 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.
- joshhart 16y agoI'm doing this now, but the higher tax bracket (not to mention the California taxes in general) make it not nearly as nice an option as it could be.
- jsavimbi 16y agoTime and experience. A kid out of school isn't going to crack that figure because a) they have no real-world experience and b) if any of the more experienced people find out they'll have a brain drain on their hands. Yes, you'll hear stories about this and that, but always ask for a pay stub as proof when someone opens their mouth. I've been making over $100K for several years now and even though I recently joined a startup, I held the rate up over other offers. The key is to work somewhere that requires specialized skills and understands the value of hiring someone experienced who can self-manage their work on various aspects of a project and produce results that will win more business. Make your contributions a positive part of the bottom line and you will receive no hassles. I tend to work with technology-first firms, avoiding business-first firms as they tend to view developers as resources, not assets. Also, in this day and age, if you don't write code or have an intimate IP unique to the product, you don't get a seat at the table and you should steel yourself for a sales job or worse. Also, keep your skills fresh (edge, not bleeding edge) and avoid dreamers, MBA types and serial wantrepreneurs.
- teuobk 16y agoThe secret -- the difficulty -- isn't one of having a $100k+ income so much as it is not spending it all. Live like you have a $60k salary, and not only will you still be able to afford a comfortable lifestyle, but you'll also be able to put away tons of cash. As for actually finding those jobs? If you're willing to do consulting/contracting, ask your friends who are doing consulting/contracting for large companies. They're the ones who are most likely to be in the know about opportunities.
- AJ007 16y agoIn the US not if your paying taxes :) Make $100k, pay at least $20k to the fed, then whatever else to state, make your bare minimum contribution to your retirement, and you don't have tons of cash left over. Makes $200k and live on $60k, and your going to do alright. People who live paycheck to paycheck and/or borrow money for personal consumption drive up the cost of living. If your trying to be modest but not live someone in welfare it become instantly evident of how much you need to make. Personally I think you should target to spend about 30% of your income. So, make $100k, live on 30, make $1m live on $300k.
- jswinghammer 16y agoI think being the sole provider for my family for the last ten years I've just assumed I needed to make more money year after year. I can't really ask my wife to go out and get a job to make up the slack so I get out there and try to be the best programmer I can be. If a company sounded cool but wasn't willing to pay me what I need to provide for my family I just move on. Given the lack of tech talent there isn't much excuse for not making that much if you're a programmer. I always laugh when I read people say that great developers (not saying I'm a great developer) don't care about money. Often times that's written by people who don't have children to provide for. I have no choice but to care what I make and therefore it's an important factor for me when choosing a job.
- dwc 16y agoThere's a point of diminishing returns to increased income, and it's personal. I have a family, yet I took a job paying less than the previous job because it was enough money and I really wanted to work there. Later, when my wife was unhappy at her lucrative job I encouraged her to switch to a lower paying position at a different company where she wouldn't be so stressed. We still make enough money, and our children are happier since we are happier. The "don't care about money" thing isn't really true; you must care about money to some degree. But there are people who would rather do things that make them happy than always go for the biggest paycheck.
- robryan 16y agoIt's really I don't care about money after taking care of expenses and having a little left over to splash out every now and then. I think it's more commonly used in terms of the engineer deciding between $100k and $200k under vastly different conditions than the engineer deciding to work for free or very low pay.
- waterside81 16y agoKind of tangential, but here's a list of people on the so-called "Sunshine List" - public employees making over 100K in Ontario (Canada). By law, they must disclose their salaries to the public. There's lots of them. And they're not all super-qualified engineers or hackers. We're talking transit employees, teachers, principals etc. Not to demean those professions, but not typically the professions that come to mind in the US when people talk about 100K salaried positions. http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publications/salarydisclosure/2010/ http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publications/salarydisclosure/20...
- ww 16y agoAlternate between billing really high to fix really really screwed up projects and billing a bit lower but taking interesting projects that you can use to update your skillset. I've made 125kish a year contracting this way in the non-major, low cost-of-living cities. Plus these contracts typically last up to 5 years so you have better stability than contracts of 6 months. This is just one way, but its an easy way. I've been doing this since 1996 throughout the midwest and southern states.
- quickpost 16y agoHow do you find these contracts? Especially, before you broke into the industry and created a large network of contacts?
- ww 16y agoI really never had a large network of contacts. I just used DICE and the like. My technique is just do as many interviews as possible when it's time. If I wasn't so lazy I would market myself better. I have a bunch of other rules but they are for when you are already on site. I can post those too if you want to know.
- andr 16y agoPerhaps this is off-topic, but going from $0 income and $0 savings two years ago to mid-6 figures has not affected my happiness. The things that have made me happier have all been free or fairly cheap.
- dansingerman 16y agoMoney doesn't make you happy, but not having money _can_ make you unhappy. Not that it always does; it depends on your dependencies, in both senses. With a wife, child and mortgage I would be pretty unhappy if my income dropped to 0.
- natch 16y agoDo you mean to ask what are the secrets to earning more money? Keep learning valuable skills, do good work, ask for more money (or ask for ways to potentially earn it, e.g. stocks), all while changing jobs from time to time.
- rmundo 16y agoalwaysagoodtime had one piece of advice that really resonates: Find the right woman/(man) or don't have one at all. And I recently reread a PG article where he says he only had a gf two months in the three years he was working on Viaweb. Good to keep in mind, but I read it, and then promptly forgot. Lesson learned!
- jsna 16y agoHa. For the record, I'm an artist and make less than 6000 a year, for nearly a decade now. As you can imagine, I have very few expenses.
- eliben 16y agoHow should such sum ($100k) be counted? Do you take a company car into account? Bonuses? Yearly stock grants? Employer deductions into pension? Or is it just the base salary? Because all of this can make a big difference
- mlgrinshpun 16y agoThere are a couple of comments in this vein already, but I still feel compelled to clamor against such an unreflective regurgitation of the word "success." That so many commenters are diving headlong into this cesspool by applying back-of-the-envelope statistical analysis and makeshift sociology to establish some mythic threshhold for entry into this elite is dismaying and speaks to a serious cultural void in the community. We might as well start whipping out the rulers and unzipping our pants right now.
- megamark16 16y agoHere's an interesting comparison of Software Developer salaries, according to Indeed.com. I kept trying to find a city with a lower average than Kansas City, where I live, but of the ones I tried we still get paid the least (on average). http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=software+developer&l1=Kansas+City,+MO&q2=software+developer&l2=San+Francisco,+CA&q3=software+developer&l3=New+York+City,+NY&q4=software+developer&l4=Miami,+FL&q5=software+developer&l5=Austin,+TX&q6=software+developer&l6=Minneapolis,+MN&q7=software+developer&l7=Seattle,+WA&q8=software+developer&l8=Chicago,+IL&q9=software+developer&l9=Salt+Lake+City,+UT http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=software+developer&l1=Ka...