[Outdated, please look at pinned post] Casual Conversation @lemmy.world

1y ago

I got a sizeable raise and am now officially making low six figures and have no one to share my good news with

Hi all. Apologies if this is not allowed here. I know people out there are struggling, but I just want to share my good news with someone.

It's a big milestone of accomplishment in my life, but I feel weird just telling family members or my online friends about it. The only other people who know are my coworkers because we all got the same raise. Money doesn't go as far nowadays due to crazy inflation post COVID and my area has higher cost of living than where I grew up, but I'm still very happy about this. I remember back when I used to only make minimum wage. All those years of schooling eventually made their way back to me. I'll never make as much money as someone like a doctor, but it's definitely enough for me to live comfortably as a single person.

Anyway, I'll delete this in a bit (or sooner if it gets removed by a mod), but I hope you guys out there have a good weekend.

Edit: Thank you guys very much :)

Edit 2: Jeez there are so many more comments than I expected. You guys are so nice!!

113 comments

Congrats! The trick is to not increase your spending, and take the excess and either save it or invest it. Remember: just because you can afford it, does not mean you need it. :)
- The trick is to increase everything proportionally. Not increasing your living standards is just poor people logic.
  Absolutely make your life better in the moment. There's no telling whether you'll keel over in two days from an aneurysm and all that saving did absolutely nothing.
  But yes, 401k > Mortgage as long as you'll be saving for 30 years or more. You'll need about a million or more to retire comfortably these days.
  
  Ok, I’ll give that if a person is living in less than ideal standards, getting a raise is a great way to enhance their quality of life and could be argued is necessary.
  I didn’t outright say this, and I should have, but I was referring to spending for the sake of spending; I.e., I got a raise so I’m going to go out and buy a PS5, new super computer, a BMW, etc. there’s nothing inherently wrong with buying those things. It’s simply a matter of doing so responsibly.
  As for poor people logic, so what? It’s sound logic. Of course it works for me personally. YMMV. But I have gone through a chapter 7 bankruptcy in my 20s, and now my FICO is around 800. For me, it was the mentality that I had money so I should spend it that got me in financial trouble. Treating my money as an asset that should be cared for got me out of trouble.
  
  This only matters if you're making more than your peers. Most of my friends had engineering degrees coming out of college so we weren't massively different in compensation. I'm pretty open amongst them, but I wouldn't tell anyone how much I make it i thought it was more than 10-20% different than them.

In all seriousness though, congratulations on your life changing accomplishment. Keep up the great work!

Congrats and well done! Take some time to celebrate! (And then max out your 401k if you’re in the US and you haven’t already)
- Yeah I'm bad at figuring out how stuff like that works tbh lol. I think the last time I looked at my 401k stuff it said that I should be contributing more than I am for some reason. Gotta figure out how to adjust that.
  I'm going to have some new financial goals now, but I'm not sure what they'll be. If it should be something like working towards paying down loans first, which loans to pay down first (I have a very large amount of student loans after all this and I also have a mortgage), or if I should work toward improving my living space and making it nicer. We'll see I suppose!
  
  Might be worth working with a financial advisor, we just got one and I feel much more comfortable with my money stuff
  
  I’m sure there’s a personal finance thing around here somewhere!
  Personally, I’d work on making sure I have a cash safety net. Something like 6 months expenses in my favorite high yield savings account.
  After that I would pay off any loans with a high rate. If the rate is <5 percent, it may be worth putting that money into a 401k or investment account. If it’s above 5 percent, I’d consider paying it off early. The idea being that if it’s a low rate then you can invest that money and earn a higher return than it would cost you.
  Aside from that, I’d do my best to max my 401k contribution to take advantage of those sweet tax benefits. If nothing else, make sure you’re taking advantage of any employer matches.
  Again, awesome work on the job!
  
  Doing your best for both your present and future self is usually a balance.
  Some functions that were helpful to me were
  half your raise into savings or retirement. You’re less likely to overspend if it never gets into your checking account. At the same time, you still get a nice raise
  some 401k plans offer an automatic increase. It would be a hardship to my current self to suddenly max out my 401k, but if my co tribution automatically bumps up 1-2% every year, present self wont really notice the loss and future self will thank me for growing toward maxing my 401k
  Remember the most important part of your retirement savings is just doing it. The power of compounding returns over many years can be more important than which investment might do best. Remember that your contribution is something you control whereas most investment choices are speculative and you have no say over whether they do well or not
  
  Hi, congratulations! I’m so happy for you. Please consider a reputable financial advisor. Not some slick, well-advertised person, but someone who comes with a decent reputation. When meeting with them, use some intuition, don’t fall for flattery or wild promises. You can always say you want to consider their advice. Some lawyers also offer this type of service. I woods encourage you to be kind to others and our environment, with your investments.
  Congrats again, well done!
  
  Check out The Money Guys on youtube, they give good financial advice

Instead of investment advice, I'll just say never forget how hard you had it, what it was like to get minimum wage, and remember there are always hard workers being paid less then you that also deserve a shot. You did the work, be proud of what you've achieved. But probably don't get into specifics with family, people get weird about money.
- I'm gonna double down on your advice and say don't tell anyone how much you make, except your SO. If someone asks just say "I'm doing well for myself." And if they press you say "I prefer to keep the specifics private". When I started bringing in money I made the mistake of calling my friends to celebrate and within months they were all hitting me up for cash and pulling on my heartstrings.
  
  Damn that's a real thing?
- My uncle has money. Every problem from his siblings to his 5th cousins gets him a phone call haha.

I don't have any advice. I just wanted to contribute a humble HELL YEAH BROTHER.

I'm what you might call a well wisher in that I don't wish you any specific harm

Hey nice! My father has always told me that his biggest regret was not maxing out what he was allowed to put into retirement. You don’t care when you’re young, but it makes a HUGE difference for the second half of your life!
- To add on, if your company matches for 401k contributions, NEVER put in less than the matching amount. Like, if they'll match contributions up to 5%, never go below 5%. There are very few times you get legitimately free money in life, and this is one of them. Always put in more if you can, ofc, but the minimum should be the matching amount.

Nice, but save your money. The best time to do that is now.

Congratulations you made it
You leave this post up then when you're feeling down look at the messages.

As one of those people who is struggling a bit: Never let the state of the rest of the world stop you from celebrating your own wins!
Congrats on the raise, that is really awesome. Remember to put a decent chunk into savings :D

Cheers bro, to each one of these six figures 🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃

Fuck yeah man, gg. I'll never forget the day I hit 6 figures and how proud I felt. Soak it in - you earned it!

Congratulations! As someone who moved countries and started at the bottom ($6 per hour and 15 hours days) I know the feeling of looking back with disbelief. Sounds like you really earned it!

Congrats! Some unsolicited money advice I wish I had known earlier in my career:
If you have a mortgage and the interest rate is less than 7ish percent and you're wanting to pay it early, something to consider:
You might put whatever extra you were planning into a Roth IRA until it's maxed and also max out your 401k if your employment has that. Historical yield is 7ish% and compound interest will help you immensely 20-30 years down the line.
Paying off the house early is nice feeling but you can possibly refinance for lower rates later if it's currently similar to or higher than historical investment yields. You could also do a little bit of both but prioritizing retirement accounts is the smarter move imo. So if your mortgage rate is 5% and you want to pay that down, you're leaving 2% on the table by not putting it into either an IRA or an index fund instead.
This is assuming you're not carrying other debts at higher rates like credit cards, those should be your priority. Next would be 3 months of all bills saved up, you can find some decent interest rates on savings accounts. I have Acorns and it's at 5% so the 3 months reserves will stack interest for you too.
- I forget what my mortgage rate is but I think it's somewhere between 5.8-6.8%. I'll have to look it up.
  My wanting to eventually pay the mortgage off earlier is to dramatically decrease my monthly bills and make it easier to save and easier to put money in my pocket each month. I'm not really keen on dumping all of my money into something like an IRA. I discovered recently that high yield savings accounts are a thing and I'm much more comfortable with that. Granted, mine is only like 4.3%.
  While I do need to put more into retirement and do plan to contribute more to my 401k, I don't really want to go ham over putting every penny I have into retirement. Life is uncertain and you really don't know how long you'll live, even if you try your best to do a healthy life. It's all about balance between enjoying the now and planning for the future, and not putting too much emphasis on one or the other. You don't want to live like you're homeless only to die in a car accident and never get to enjoy what you've worked for.
  
  Absolutely! I grapple with that all the time. I love having fun and traveling and having cool stuff. It's fun having some money you're not afraid to spend.
  You deserve it, you're the one who got yourself to where you're at. At the end of the day do what's right for you, just maybe spend a little bit less over the years and instead put it toward the end game.
  As time goes on, sitting on ass collecting interest and being able to live off that interest comfortably will be awesome, and if you were able to live it up the whole time is priceless. Treat your now self and future self, but future self likely won't regret now self traveling etc. (so long as you're not doing illegal tax evasion and damaging your body long term lol)
- This is great advice. Hearing about people paying off their super low rate mortgages early is kind of shocking. With rates higher now that's literally just throwing money away.
  
  Oh yeah and if you math it out over 30 years, 2% can be a difference in the hundreds of thousands
- You can max out a 401k?
  
  Yeah it's like 21.5k for 2024. They have yearly maximums on retirement accounts in the US, and that number is higher if you're past a certain age ("catch up"). IRAs are a lot less, like 7k this year

Get that cheddar.

Congratulations!
I went from earning $12 under the table to 6 figures in 5 years. It's a really major change. Once you have a year or two of that, and enough saved to survive basically any adversity, you realize how stressful your life was before.
Some unsolicited advice:
Budget. I've never been good at it, so this is my strategy:
I Keep two months' basic expenses in checking account. Food, gas, rent, phone, internet, insurance, loans.
At the end of the month I transfer the remaining money to 3 accounts: 1/4 to long-term savings (this was initially my 3-month emergency fund, but turned into something more blended with a 3-month reserve). 1/4 to short-term savings (travel, gifts, clothes, fun). 1/2 to investments (stocks, ETFs, etc).To start out, all the money went into the long-term account. Having 3-month's savings is the true key to both feeling safe and avoiding credit card debt.
That's it. Literally. If I transfer less money at the end of the month, I either overspent or had some annual "surprise," like auto registration, Prime bill, etc. If I transfer more, it was a successful month.

Congrats my friend! Happy for your success!
If I can pass along some advice, be careful with your newfound money. Try to live at or below your current means, and get more into saving and investing your extra income. Your future self will be extremely grateful.
Good luck bud!

Congrats! Seeing your grind start to pay off is awesome
Now is a great time to re-visit your money management to adjust that retirement grind.

Congratulations! Since I already have a drink in hand I'll toast to your achievement!

Congrats.
Was just in a thread about lifestyle inflation. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lifestyle-inflation.asp is an explainer. Keep it in mind so you don't end up living 100k paycheck to 100k paycheck

Yo! Congrats! Make sure to stay on top of your budget and don't let the extra income turn into extra expenses.

You can share it with me! I have to pay $1100 before the end of the month or end up in court over fines I gotta pay for a crime I didn't do. I could eat more than rice and tuna with some of that good news.
- As a fellow poor who happens to be floating comfortably right now, I’ll cross my fingers for you haha.
  I have 15 bucks in the bank, but all of my bills are paid and I have a fridge stocked full of food (deep freezer took a shit recently and ruined a lot of it, but I’m still good) so I don’t need anything, but I know what it’s like to have my heart beating out of my chest with worry about how I’m gonna pull it all off. I haven’t experienced any crazy emergencies in a long time (knock on wood) and I’ve put some stuff up to sell in case that happens. I hope you get where I am. I hope you do better than I’m doing.
  
  I have $690 in my bank account to add to next week's paycheck and pay what I gotta. I was about to pay online, but found out this bullshit scaling fee business.
  I just can't spend any of it. I also can't pay in person during business hours because I work during business hours. All I can do is wait for the probation appointment and pray that no random unexpected charge happens until then.

I’ll line up to give you a high five on that! It’s a damn good feeling to hit that milestone. Great job!

Good job dude! I'm happy to hear a success story from anyone these days. I wish you the best in reaching your next milestone as well.

Congrats 🎉👏!
It's a big hurdle to get over, especially if you come from a background of poverty.

Congratulations!

Yes you do have someone to share the news, the IRS :). (Assuming you are in the USA)
Seriously though congrats!

It's weird to feel like you're earning too much. It sounds like you are earning what Homer Simpson, Red Foreman, and Hank Hill all make. That is, enough to feed a family of four. They only had high school diplomas. Sure, they're fictional, but that story was real.

Welcome to the 100k club! Congratulations!

Sit and bask in that feeling for a while, you literally earned it. Job fulfilment is a big one. We spend a very significant chunk of our time working so this is a major bucket list item to check off.

Congrats! I had that happen a few years ago, and it is a great feeling. Cherish it! You have worked hard and earned this!

Congratulations!! That's awesome!!

Gj ! You should invest some of it imo, treat yourself well and be kind to people. Peace.

Six figure incomes may not be as impressive as they once were, sure, but many of us may never make that much. Don't downplay it. This is still a great accomplishment, and you are rightfully proud. I hope you are able to enjoy it. Remember, you work to live, not live to work. Vacation days and other benefits are part of your total compensation, and none of it matters a whit unless you use all of your salary and benefits on things that make you and the people you care about happy and healthy.
Keep up the good work!

Congratulations on crossing that milestone! I hope you have a good budget planned and are able to save for both retirement and for a bit of fun.

Congratulations!

Congratz!

Congrats! 🎉

Dude, I feel a lot of what you're saying. I spent years making awful wages at terrible jobs, then fell ass-backwards into a six-figure career. The whiplash is really hard going from thinking you'll die young and poor into having more than you know what to do with.
With that being said, I have advice to share if you're interested in such things:
Six figures isn't rich, but it certainly is more than enough. After this point, finding even more money isn't really going to make you much happier, so start prioritizing other important gains you can make in your career (hours, day-to-day job satisfaction)
Focus on improving emotional intelligence. You can afford stuff now, so you can no longer hide behind notions like "this stuff isn't for poor people like me" -- you need to find actual reasons to say no to things and that requires the skill of knowing why you want something.
Lots of problems can be solved with money, but you have to be super careful about it or you'll just end up wrecking yourself! Feeling mixed up? Don't buy self-help books -- get therapy. Feeling lonely? Don't buy friends -- take some classes at the local community center. Feeling self-conscious? Don't get a face-lift -- hire a personal trainer and maybe a stylist.
Money guilt is real and it's OK. Use that feeling to keep yourself down on Earth. Obviously look out for #1 first -- pay off bad debt, max out your 401k, set aside enough cash to max out your insurance deductibles and still live a few months without income -- once you've done that, dial back on the money hoarding. Be better than the assholes who kept you down: tip well, give back to the people who make the things you love, be charitable. Sharing is caring.

Nice that you make money, makes life a lot easier. :)

Congratulations! That's wonderful!

Congrats King, live your best life and bring a smile everywhere you go

Looks like the hard work paid off. Congratulations!

Congrats! Well deserved I'm sure.

Congratulations!

Nice! What did / will you buy to celebrate?
- Tbh I was thinking about looking into getting a VR capable PC but idk! I've had an Oculus Quest 2 for quite a few years now, but the library and storage is pretty limited compared to PCVR. And I haven't played with it for a few years lol.
  
  I love it. This was very much the sort of reward I chose for myself when I finally crossed that financial threshold. I had already started to lose my enthusiasm for VR at that point but wanted a really high end gaming PC that could do VR, RTX, anything I threw at it. I went all out and tried to get the best rig I could at the time along with a giant curved gaming monitor. I didn’t build it myself and spent WAY too much on the setup.
  I regret nothing.
  
  Look into a bigscreen beyond. I've heard good reviews.