You don’t like to talk about public employees who earn $100,000 a year?? Then you DEFINITELY won’t want to read “Fortunes, Fortunes, Everywhere” where I highlight a bunch of public service employees making $100,000+/yr, and that’s not even from work, it’s their pensions! Got to love it!

Best, FS

I am also not too sure why there is so much fuss about making $100,000. While a nice milestone, it doesn’t mean as much as it used to thanks to inflation.

People should be more concerned with attaining financial freedom – not their household income. The fact is people who know how to manage their personal finances can be financially free and live comfortably on far far less than $100,000 per year.

Don’t you agree?

And don’t get me started on public employees who earn $100k per year for their pensions (guaranteed by law, unlike the private sector, and courtesy of the taxpayer) – many are actually able to retire at age 50! Outrageous.

My $0.02 (after taxes)

Len
Len Penzo dot Com

I think you’ll be amazed by how much potential we all have to make a good chunk of change. There are plenty of jobs out there that pay well, we just have to find the right one that fits!

Thanks for your kind words. Those type of comments really inspire me to post more! It’s so fun interacting with folks who share similar goals. Best, FS

FS – Great blog…I check through here on a daily basis just about.

There was definitely a negative undercurrent from many posters on FMF’s post, basically thinking making 100K is bad, and why FMF was posting this stuff. People felt he was being presumptuous, whereas I was thinking, hmmm… great tips, people should really benefit!

It’s almost as if it’s “cool” to NOT want to try and make more money. Donno if you remember in high school, some kids thought it was “cool” to not study and be morons. Look where they are now.

Random comments may not be so random, given selection bias. But, maybe I’m too trusting, because it certainly seems like there is much more wealth out there than I can imagine (see “Fortunes, Fortunes, Everywhere”). It gives me comfort a lot of people have made a lot of money this year, so we can pull through this recession.

Best, FS

To be honest, as I scanned through the comments, I noticed more positive comments than negative, but maybe I skimmed too fast or were paying to the actual constructive criticisms.

I’ll be honest in that I also thought the $100k+ annual income was more than 5-6%. But its probably because I’m used to keeping on top of household income figures.

I think you know full well that random comments on the interweb can’t really be a good sample set for people making more than $100k+ — though it did seem like many of them were defending making 100k+ from the few negative comments.

Seems like not many people are listing what they make though- which is probably for the best.

-Mike

Both are great sites…

More power to you on questioning the status quo! Personally, I work with a lot of numbers in fortune 500 companies and smaller. I rarely see a statistic that proves to be accurate when you start digging in the data. Why would government data be different?

On unemployment… traveling the country, I believe that as a whole it is much worse than reported. More concerning IMHO is that it will remain a lagging indicator much longer in this recession:
A) Most of the run up in the market is spurred by estimate beating profits. These have been driving by aggressive cost cutting measures. Never before have companies gotten ahead of the curve as they did during this recession. They acted swiftly and are enjoying the rewards.
B) The money that has driven the market is not from Joe next door, it’s from those of us that have accumulated assets and are taking advantage of the opportunity.
C) 50% of jobs are created by small business… nothing is promoting the growth of small business and credit remains restricted for the small business person.
D) CEO after CEO continues to state that they will begin hiring again, but not yet and cautiously when the day comes.

I try and write stuff that goes beyond the basics and challenge people’s assumptions. I should hope all readers of Financial Samurai know that they should spend less than they make.

Anonymous braggarts are very annoying indeed. However, it’s not bad bragging of the webmaster asks for the info! Best, FS

I agree with Larry’s point here and have some additional thoughts regarding the 20% -
First, people concerned with their finances as much as readers of GRS, FMF, and maybe even FS ;), may trend to slightly higher intelligence in math/logic, leading to more lucrative professions.
Second, people with more money are more likely to have computers.
Third, people with more money are more likely to have leisure time.
Fourth, ego combined with the guaranteed anonymity of the internet brings out the braggarts…and a few liars, but probably not a significant number since there are surely a few silent 6-figure-earners.

That said, I have no professional idea about unemployment or the economy as a whole – I’m in a rather sheltered company in a well-off city, and I’m not an economist.

Like your post on your site suggests, major in one of those 10 majors and you’ll be making $48-50,000 on average at 22. In 5 years, lets say two engineers get married. That’s $100,000 in household income right there.

Let’s say you didn’t major in those majors, but now decided you wanted to make more money. There’s nothing wrong with following FMF’s suggestion and going to grad school. To your point, it’s important to realize the playing field is rising, hence getting your graduate degree may very well be the new minimum.

Like I said, it’s not a sin to want to make more money. It’s as if it’s “uncool” to try and make more money. That’s just not the case. Sometimes, I think it’s absolutely stupid to just focus on trying to save $5 bucks a month here and there. Instead, just focus on propelling one’s career forward.

FS