So I’m 20 and I’ve started looking at the salaries of jobs/careers, and this is the impression I’ve gotten. Like that you could spend years cramming a ton of knowledge about a very niche field, and still only get 2-3x what a run-of-the-mill job makes. Is this true? If yes then I guess this route to wealth would only make sense (due to the diminishing returns) if the topic truly spoke to you, right? Are there alternative career paths to good pay than being really good at something really specific?
The amount of money you save (and invest) isn’t accurately depicted with this though. Living expenses don’t necessarily grow with take home, if you keep lifestyle creep to a minimum.
So what this means is that if you make $100k and save $10k/year, if you start making $200k you can save the same $10k/year, plus the entire additional $100k after taxes (let’s just say that’s $50k+). So you doubled your salary but your savings went up 6x+.
Play around with this for a bit: https://networthify.com/calculator/earlyretirement?income=50000&initialBalance=0&expenses=20000&annualPct=5&withdrawalRate=4
Consider spending 30k yearly when you’re earning 50k. You can retire in about 20 years if you keep to that. You really gotta keep to it though, spending 40k means you’d have to work almost 40 years instead.
Now compare that to spending 30k when making 100k. Now you can retire in 9 years. Even if you have to spend literally twice as much time+effort doing so, you end up with more of your life leftover.
This is not to say that you should take a job you hate, but rather to say that making more money does make your life better, but only up to a point. If you find a job that you genuinely enjoy, great do that. If you’re picking between different things you dislike, translate it back into years instead of trying to understand it in made up funny money numbers. And when you get there, stop.
The green curve would be higher that the red one everywhere.
There is a brief inversion at high salary values where CEOs exist
not really true depends on the field
I would certainly recommend picking a field of study and work for more reasons than just the money. As a counter point to your plot, I have seen small career moves result in huge pay increases.
[off topic]
There’s at least one store I know of in New York City that’s been making money off of doing VCR repairs for decades. A lot of companies invested in big video displays back in the day and it would cost far more to replace everything than it does to keep the antique tech going.
Some people are still learning Cobol.
https://www.cio.com/article/240709/why-its-time-to-learn-cobol.html
If you can find a niche tech like that it would make sense.
Amateur. You need to get a PhD to be some tenured fogie’s personal whipping boy. /s
If you’re looking at actual good paying jobs and not weird passion-fueled ones, or at the other end bullshit nepobaby ones, maybe this is accurate, IDK.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks about this when he explains his own career. He realized the amount of effort he had in him was never going to change, so he wanted a field where earnings weren’t limited by his own effort - the dream of passive income. He became an expert on risk and a well known writer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb
Good recommendation.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb also has a bunch of useful writing on taking risks that applies very well to financial choices like investments and career choice.
Agreed, good tip. Yeah his persective is certainly valuable
Generally speaking, wealth is not built by working. It’s built by investing. It’s possible to have a relatively small salary and get relatively wealthy if you consistently live below your means and invest the surplus. Power of compounding.
LABEL YOUR FUCKING AXIS AAAAAAAAAA
I can clear that up for you. The X axis is vibes and the Y axis is vibe dependent vibes.
I’m actually not sure how you’d label the axis here. The info being conveyed is the relationship between two separate things.
X would be hardness of job and y would be salary
Its funny, I’m.the one that makes the least amout of money in my team. They hired 2 new people and both make 30% more than me. Besides the fact that I’m a woman I’m the one that puts the least effort into things and I don’t want to be promoted or to have “more responsibility” so I’m fine with it and so is the company. I do the bare minimun and go home happy. no extra learning, certifications, politics…nothing.
That must be nice, it’s my plan too tbh if it still manages to pay the bills. I agree it’s important to have a sense of Enough.
What are your x and y axes here?
Y is wage, X is experience. Green is just Y=x
So then what does the green line represent?
Y=x
my understanding is the that green line represents the linear relation of salary to knowledge which OP would consider fair and just. therefore the part where red line is above the green one means people who earn below average are overpaid for their knowledge and professional contribution. and similarly, the part where the red line is below the green one means people who earn above average are underpaid
X is years of experience , y is a combined axis, technical knowledge for the green line and salary for the red line
I think there are many good replies already, but I feel one consideration is missing: time.
If you have the time for only one job, why wouldn’t you take one paying more, even if it requires a bit more skills to achieve? You are going to do that for a long while, so living more comfortably has a value.
Salary really depends on value provided or enabled. That’s why more knowledge stops mattering at a certain point, someone with a month of experience driving a forklift is less valuable than someone with 3 years, but 6 years of experience isn’t significantly different.
There’s also benefits to being closer to money to show value. This is why sales jobs tend to pay better, as showing direct responsibility for 1 million in sales vs keeping the machines running that made the product.
I actually just got told something similar. In a resume was listed, “over 10 years of leadership/management experience” and the recruiter reviewed it and said, “i don’t care. I can find 20 other people within two minutes who have 10+ years of experience. Tell me what the skills are.”
Tenure in a position means very little. Every year is a diminished return of value.
Get into politics.
Replace “expert knowledge” with “knowledge about how to manipulate people to vote for you”
Take bribes. Listens to whats your puppet-masters tell you to vote.
Ez money.
/s
