Making 100k Per Year: Easy or Difficult?

[Kevin90]

Growing up in the 90s, it seemed if you broke the 100k per year income barrier, then money was never an issue. However, it also seemed only doctors, lawyers, engineers, upper management/executives, and top sales professionals were making that kind of income. They drove nice cars, had nice large homes, went on multiple vacations per year, sent their kids to private schools, etc.

Fast forward to present day. 100k per year today is not what it was 20 - 25 years ago. Yet it is still a well above average income. Since graduating college 2 years ago, I have become more aware of networking and talking with more successful people. They all seem to be making at least 100k + per year. The majority that I have talked to are in sales or upper management of companies.

It seems people selling cars at Chevy/Ford dealerships and people selling average homes in real estate are even surpassing the 100k annual income mark.

It really makes me think...how difficult is it really to be making that kind of money in present day?

Feel free to share your thoughts. This topic is a real interest to me.

 

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[jec1521]

Easier than it was 30 years ago, that is for sure. But it also get's you a lot less. So it evens out.

It also depends greatly on the area. Some areas $100k/year is bare minimum to live comfortably with a family. Other areas you're rolling in it with $100k/year.

 

[randomnumber314]

If your mindset is, can I find a job and make $100k a year, you're competing against every other John out there with the same attitude--and there are a lot of people with that attitude.

If your mindset is, can I start a company and net $100k a year, you're going to find it a lot faster. Is it hard, well that's subjective. I'd say no, some people would say yes. I'd imagine some of the bigger players on this forum would say no. as @IceCreamKid has said time and time again, "when your business makes its first $100k, you'll realize how insignificant that number is."

 

[WorldImperator]

With your thinking you will never get this money. Chasing money and the will be always out of reach for you.

Money are the value added of the properly done process. Nothing more.
It comes in and out. Really, stop thinking about money. Erase that word "how can I earn 100k" from your mind, because, with this thought, you will never get there.
Instead, start of thinking about business and hard-working and learning a lot. Stop thinking about earnings.
Think about good business, it's growth, good margins.

And, then, you will get your 100k/year much faster than you expected.

 

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[DeletedUser12]

Easy. Move to North Dakota and work in the oil industry.

 

[BUFFALOBT]

I make 175K in the slow lane, and feel worthless until I can build something on my own in the fast lane. It's all relative.

 

[throttleforward]

I make 175K in the slow lane, and feel worthless until I can build something on my own in the fast lane. It's all relative.

I'm not far from this, and my wife and I combined make well over this. However, we live in DC and have massive student loans to repay, so it doesn't feel like very much.

In fact, it was the size of my and my wife's student loan payments that pushed me into business, as I realized there was no way I was going to be able to pay them off and have an enjoyable life.

 

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[BUFFALOBT]

I'm not far from this, and my wife and I combined make well over this. However, we live in DC and have massive student loans to repay, so it doesn't feel like very much.

In fact, it was the size of my and my wife's student loan payments that pushed me into business, as I realized there was no way I was going to be able to pay them off and have an enjoyable life.

It's funny that you mention your wife. Mine is always asking why I can't/won't just work harder at my current gig- and make more money.

She is slowly beginning to understand my desire to do something on my own. It's not the amount I make, but how I make it...that's why I'm on this forum. Sort of like Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

 

[throttleforward]

Show her an average income chart and where you are on it. Show her that you are very close to the top 1% in the US in terms of annual income.

Then show her the posts here where people are making your annual salary in a month.

That should clear things up

edit: I looked it up - you're around the top 6% in the US

 

[BUFFALOBT]

Show her an average income chart and where you are on it. Show her that you are very close to the top 1% in the US in terms of annual income.

Then show her the posts here where people are making your annual salary in a month.

That should clear things up

edit: I looked it up - you're around the top 6% in the US

See that I AM a slacker!

Actually...I have a pretty good lifestyle- I work out of my home, I get to the gym and play basketball every afternoon, I'm able to avoid wearing a suit most of the year, I'm always around for my kids, etc.

And she knows how good we have it as well...we're very lucky to be where we're at, given my lack of motivation to work more.

Just gotta change lanes and we'll be set.

 

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[ProblemSolver]

See that I AM a slacker!

Actually...I have a pretty good lifestyle- I work out of my home, I get to the gym and play basketball every afternoon, I'm able to avoid wearing a suit most of the year, I'm always around for my kids, etc.

And she knows how good we have it as well...we're very lucky to be where we're at, given my lack of motivation to work more.

Just gotta change lanes and we'll be set.

You make $175k working from home? Have you ever considered making a business out of telling people how to make $175k from home? I bet you could hire people to plaster your product all over the internet and sell your information to millions! With great ideas like this, I am surprised I have not made my first million yet.

 

[The Duc]

You make $175k working from home? Have you ever considered making a business out of telling people how to make $175k from home? I bet you could hire people to plaster your product all over the internet and sell your information to millions! With great ideas like this, I am surprised I have not made my first million yet.

I'm hoping this is sarcasm.

 

[ProblemSolver]

I'm hoping this is sarcasm.

Obviously!

 

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[BUFFALOBT]

You make $175k working from home? Have you ever considered making a business out of telling people how to make $175k from home? I bet you could hire people to plaster your product all over the internet and sell your information to millions! With great ideas like this, I am surprised I have not made my first million yet.

Correct...I'm an employee of a company, and I cover my part of the US- professional sales.

So no product to sell online...I am in the slow lane.

 

[lightning]

I make over 100k a year at my "slowlane" job. While that "used" to sound like a lot to me when I was in college, I can assure you that living in the Tri-State area, $100k per year is "modest" at best. In addition, and as it has been drilled thousands of times over on this forum, a decent paycheck every month means NOTHING when you dont have the freedom to enjoy it. HAVING to wake up to an alarm clock at 6AM, HAVING to sit in an hour of rush hour traffic twice a day, HAVING to be chained to a cubicle/office for 8-9 hours a day, HAVING to deal and work towards other peoples deadlines (even when you know they have NO effect on your paycheck), all because you HAVE to earn that paycheck if you want to pay your bills every month. If I knew or ever accepted that I would "HAVE" to deal with this for another 30 years, I'd be deep-throating a shotgun when I get home tonight. Thanks but not thanks!

For 10 years now, I have lived that life planning my escape. And while I'm not on the fastlane yet, I know that I will NOT give up until I get there. It keeps me awake at night and reading at 2AM when I should be asleep with my Fiance. It makes my eyes glaze over with boredom at work somedays to the point where I'm restless and counting down the minutes until 5PM..when the race to the parking lot begins. Because (like MJ said in his book), I KNOW there is a better life out there...I'm just having a hard time getting there. And frankly, anything less than the fastlane, SUCKS.

Good luck to all of other aspiring fastlaners trying to forge your path. And never, ever quit.

 

[Bouncing Soul]

Easier to get your paycheck to 6 figures/yr in the slowlane than fastlane I think.

DW and I started at min wage in high school, and now make 1% slowlane money at home. You should read MJ's book and pay attention to his comments. MJ may never have made good money (~$20,000/mo) as a slowlaner, but take it from someone who does, he's right the problems are all the same ones. (Actually in many ways worse, and certainly much harder to walk away from)

If you want to make 6 figures at your company, do what this forum says which will make you an intrapreneur- find and solve unique problems that either serve large scale or have high value, you'll get it fast. Within corp America it's not hard to outwork your colleagues, and it's also not hard to take bigger risks with bigger rewards. You'll have more fun than them too because less of the rules will apply to you. Make sure to read slowlane career books and make DAMN sure you follow slowlane finance guru/Ramsey advice, or you'll eventually find your big salary is an even bigger headache.

If you want a free-ish schedule, as mentioned above, sales is the place to be.

I could spend a whole lot of time telling you why you are asking the wrong question, but the fact people like me spend money to join/upgrade this forum should tell you what we think of your question...

 

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[The Duc]

Easier to get your paycheck to 6 figures/yr in the slowlane than fastlane I think.

For the vast majority of people I don't think this is true. Your experience is colored by the fact that you are in sales which sits somewhere in between the fastlane and slowlane. While not truly fastlane, it shares a lot more in common with the fastlane than most slowlane jobs.

Try getting to 6 figures in most jobs/careers and you'll find either

1. Its just not possible. The pay scale tops out first.

or

2. It takes years (+ $$$) spent getting a college degree + years of work experience, "paying your dues" and ladder climbing.

Now, for someone in the middle of the slowlane process already, it may be easier to reach the 6 figure goal by continuing on that path than starting over. Starting from nothing, though, the fastlane wins hands down.

If you have a job making 50k/year, how do you get to 100k? In the vast majority of cases it's not possible on any sort of reasonable time frame, say less than a year.

If you have a business bringing in 50k in profit, how do you get to 100k? Simple. Find more customers. Sell more product. Scale. Grow. Keep doing what you've been doing. Not necessarily easy, but simple for sure. Unless your niche is just absurdly small, this growth can absolutely occur in significantly less than a year.

 

[Bouncing Soul]

Very few people are going to earn a taxable income of $100k/yr without years of preparation of some kind. The most likely is probably sales, but that's not really what I had in mind.

There are a whole lot more people earning $100k/yr in the slowlane (either as employees or biz owners) than there are fastlaners.
Follow societal norms and thinking patterns, expectations etc, keep working at it, and almost anyone can hit 6 figures. You might have to change industries, get a degree, study programming at night, start your own self employed biz, whatever. I know lots of people that make 6 figs doing lots of different things, several of them are even failed fastlaners.

 

[WorldImperator]

If you have a job making 50k/year, how do you get to 100k? In the vast majority of cases it's not possible on any sort of reasonable time frame, say less than a year.

If you have a business bringing in 50k in profit, how do you get to 100k? Simple. Find more customers. Sell more product. Scale. Grow. Keep doing what you've been doing. Not necessarily easy, but simple for sure. Unless your niche is just absurdly small, this growth can absolutely occur in significantly less than a year.

Well, I do not agree. It's almost impossible to have this kind of growth on net profit level. You can double your sales, but you know, doubling profit from 50k to 100k means doubling sales from 500k to 1 milion, having in mind reasonable (and, well, maybe a tiny lowered) margins. To sell anything for 1 miliion dollar, you need to have something really mind blowing, or delevoping your company for few years.
And, if it would be so easy, there would only milionaires here, but seems there are few only. Sales increase at the beggining is easy, but, the more you sell, the harder is to have the steady percentage growth y/y.

 

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[PeeVee]

I believe that society has been sold on the idea that $100,000 per year is a lot of money. It's not, especially after the tax man gets their cut. I am in the $150K or so range and I still remember the day my boss said to me "you are making six figures now, how does it feel? You have made it!" I gotta say, I fell for it, I believed I had made it but in reality this is limited thinking. My mindset has completely shifted since then and $100,000 is chump change. I now know that I can scale my business to $100,000 per month and so on with the right focus, etc.

I just googled the topic and read a claim that only 20% of American households earn more than $100,000 a year. Now that's a F*ckin crazy...It's really, really crowded at the bottom. Get out now!

 

[oldscool]

since the advent of the internet popularity, everybody and their grandma claims they making over 100k a year. I have yet to see it in terms of hard data.

 

[PeeVee]

since the advent of the internet popularity, everybody and their grandma claims they making over 100k a year. I have yet to see it in terms of hard data.

Now that's an Old Scool thought process. Sorry I could resist

 

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[randomnumber314]

I'm hoping this is sarcasm.

Why? If you have a winning formula to make $100k+ a year, you can sell that to slow laners for serious $$. In fact that is the exactly what Jack Edwards suggested I do with my business's next phase.

 

[Silverhawk851]

Sell $100 product 1,000 times.. Done.
Now your job is just to find a $100 product that is easy to sell 1,000 times in a year.

And to find a product that is easy to sell...it must have value..

Bang!

Good luck.

 

[The Duc]

Why? If you have a winning formula to make $100k+ a year, you can sell that to slow laners for serious $$. In fact that is the exactly what Jack Edwards suggested I do with my business's next phase.

Because . . .

I make 175K in the slow lane, and feel worthless until I can build something on my own in the fast lane. It's all relative.

He says straight up that he makes his money in the slow lane. That means the "formula" he's going to sell to slowlaners is most likely to go to college and get a good job. Not exactly million dollar advice right there. If it was every high school guidance counselor would be selling millions in ebooks every year.

 

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[Jake]

It wasn't difficult for Americans who were willing to go to Iraq / Afghanistan.

I believe it's more difficult to land a job out there now.

 

[WorldImperator]

Well, in Poland when you are earning 1900$ per month you belongs to the best earning group which is 8 or 10% of total workers (do. It remember now which number was correct). This is net salary, so,after all taxes and all government obligations.

Sales is not profit. I think for many people here it is and we are mixing the number sometimes here.

 

[Kak]

Getting from $0 per year to $30k per year in your own business is harder than $30k to $100k. At least it was for me. I was in the wrong businesses in the beginning. I have never seen that quote from @IceCreamKid, but I totally agree with him.

 

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[The Duc]

Getting from $0 per year to $30k per year in your own business is harder than $30k to $100k. At least it was for me.

Yep. At that point you are leveraging the systems you've built and just scaling the process.

The first 30k is easier in a job than in a business, but somewhere between 30k and 100k a business picks up momentum and things switch.

 

[1step]

Well, I do not agree. It's almost impossible to have this kind of growth on net profit level. You can double your sales, but you know, doubling profit from 50k to 100k means doubling sales from 500k to 1 milion, having in mind reasonable (and, well, maybe a tiny lowered) margins. To sell anything for 1 miliion dollar, you need to have something really mind blowing, or delevoping your company for few years.
And, if it would be so easy, there would only milionaires here, but seems there are few only. Sales increase at the beggining is easy, but, the more you sell, the harder is to have the steady percentage growth y/y.

errr.. "Almost Impossible"... What a ridiculous post! Sure it may be "almost impossible" for you but don't project your limiting beliefs onto the rest of us.