Out of interest I plotted my salary history from when I immigrated to the US from the UK in 1980 to 2018 when I retired. Data is from the SSA website (click the

Out of interest I plotted my salary history from when I immigrated to the US from the UK in 1980 to 2018 when I retired. Data is from the SSA website (click the link for the chart). While I knew the numbers all along seeing it in graph form I am shocked how much of a roller coaster ride it was. The chart has several interesting features. Initially there is slow steady salary growth as a contract employee at a large tech in the midwest. In 1990 I moved to Silicon Valley and salary growth sped up, partly as I switched jobs more and partly this was the gogo 1990s with a banner spike year in 1998 when I got a large performance bonus that essentially doubled my salary. This was also the time in the valley when your house made more than you did so times were good, money was plentiful and I could afford to lose a little attempting to day trade the dot com stocks. Then the dot com bust hit in 2000-2001 and the startup I worked for failed to IPO and I started a lean patch where I was self-employed trying to run my own business and create my own startup. I tried to do it purely with credit cards and did not try for any venture capital. It didn't work out although I do have some small passive income to show for some websites I created. I went back to full time employment in 2007 and stayed with that albeit plateaued in my career until retirement in 2018 when I was laid off. The final salary spike is a termination bonus. https://ibb.co/TDXBgS8 https://ibb.co/TDXBgS8