Financial Samurai

Slicing Through Money's Mysteries

How To Make Six Figures A Year At Almost Any Age

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How to make six figures at any ageIf you want to make six figures, know that you can if you want to. Nothing in this world is stopping you with the right money mindset to get rich. I believe $200,000 is the income level that brings maximum happiness, so even if you are already making $150,000 a year, you still have more happiness to go.

Let’s start off with some basic necessities:

1) Desire. Your desire needs to be focused. Mr. Miyagi said it best to Daniel-san, “You Karate do “yes” or Karate do “no,” you Karate do “guess so” get squished like grape.”

2) Effort. Unfortunately for the lazy, you’re actually going to have to try hard at first. Maybe you’ll wake up earlier than everyone else. Maybe you’ll network like a mad person. Maybe you’ll stop making excuses? No effort, no results.

3) Knowledge. The more you educate yourself, the easier things will be. Lucky for you, you’re reading this post and likely other great financial publications as well. I spent the past 13 years working in finance, received my MBA from Berkeley, and love personal finance so you’re in good hands!

4) Optimism. Optimism is what will drive you to keep going when things turn sour. Optimism will make you do great things because you believe things will improve. If you have optimism, you will always find the right direction.

5) Personality. At the very minimum, it’s important to be nice. At the maximum, your charisma will make believers out of others. People will be drawn to you and naturally want to start helping you and doing business with you. Be nice, but also be respectful.  There will be haters everywhere. Embrace them.

Now that we have the basics out of the way, let’s explore the many possibilities of making over $100,000 at any age. I truly believe anybody who wants to make more can make more. This post isn’t meant to be controversial at all. But, as always, feel free to share your thoughts below.

High School & College Years

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Nature Will Dictate The Best Time For Parents To Go Back To Work

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Over the past two years, I’ve gotten to know another stay-at-home dad in the neighborhood. Bob has a boy who is also two years old. We try to meet up once a month to catch up and trade notes on how to be better fathers.

Our latest topic du jour is trying to figure out when the right time is for us to go back to work full-time. We’re tired and need a vacation from parenthood.

Go back to work too soon and you’ll miss many of your child’s precious milestones. Go back to work too late and you might never be able to get a similar paying job or a decent job again.

What is a conflicted parent supposed to do? It turns out, we may not have to make a decision at all if we can hang on.



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Warning! Beware Of Revealing Your Financial Independence Plans Too Soon

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When I started Financial Samurai in July 2009, I only told my Japanese colleague who sat next to me, nobody else. I didn’t want any colleagues who had influence over my career to know about my personal website. Financial Samurai was my sanctuary to write about what was on my mind during turbulent times.

When I negotiated a severance in February 2012, I almost blew myself up because I couldn’t contain my excitement. I told a couple colleagues what I had done and they immediately spread the word across the entire floor. What was meant to be a smooth and amiable three-month transition after 11 years at the firm turned out to be an awkward one.

Our HR head called me into her office and told me not to talk about my severance with anyone. I didn’t share details, only that I had negotiated one and that I was leaving. She said that a couple other employees had come up to her asking if they could negotiate a severance as well. If I continued to talk, my severance would be withdrawn.

Our office Managing Director, a guy who could never look me in the eye for longer than one second, also began to give me the cold shoulder. He was understandably annoyed that he might lose a couple of his troops due to what I had done. I’m sure he also didn’t appreciate me looking so happy-go-lucky at work each day given the office atmosphere was usually quite intense.

In the end, I got 100% of my severance money. But I left unceremoniously with no retirement party. It was bittersweet.



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The Best City In The World To Make Money: San Francisco

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If you want to get rich you need to go where the highest paying jobs are. The highest paying jobs come from the fastest growing, economically strongest companies.

Getting rich, like dating, is a numbers game. If you’re in a room with 80 millionaires and 20 non-millionaires, you’ve got a better chance at meeting a millionaire than if you were in a room where the ratio was reversed.

According to a Deutsche Bank study of over 50 cities in the world, San Francisco is the #1 city to make money. Since 2018, average salaries in San Francisco have risen by 31% and by 88% since 2014.

Damn, since I live in San Francisco, I really should have kept working instead of retiring in 2012. I could have been so rich! Alas, there’s always the next life to fix my current mistakes.

With company giants, such as Facebook, Google, Apple, Uber, and Salesforce, all paying healthy six-figure salaries on average, it should come to no surprise that San Francisco is #1.

In 2019, people in San Francisco can expect to be paid an average of $6,526 per month or $78,312 a year. Put two of these people together and you’ve got a healthy $156,624 a year in combined income. If you want to make over $20,000 a month, consider being a public transit janitor or a city government employee.

New York residents, on the other hand, make 29% less than San Francisco residents at only $4,612 a month. However, comparing New York to San Francisco is a little misleading given NYC has a 10X larger population. Comparing San Francisco to Manhattan is more apples-to-apples.

Let’s take a look at the rest of the cities on the top 10 highest paying cities list. See if you can guess which other cities are on the list before proceeding.



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A Severance Negotiation Success Story For Parents Looking To Leave Work

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The #1 thing I recommend for anybody who aspires to retire early is to negotiate a severance. If you are planning on quitting anyway, there is no downside.

Every time I hear of someone quitting their job, I’m happy for them. But at the same time, I also liken it to a baby panda dying in the woods. Leaving so much potential money on the table is a travesty because of ignorance, fear of confrontation, or not knowing your worth. I want to change this.

I’m pleased to announce the 3rd edition of How To Engineer Your Layoff is now live! The book first went into production in 2012 after I engineered my own layoff from the finance world at age 34. Negotiating a severance package was my #1 enabler for retiring early.

Over the past six months, my wife and I have been diligently editing, updating, and adding to the book after our little one goes to bed. We’ve taken in all the feedback readers have provided since the 2nd edition was released in 2017 and made the book even better.

How To Engineer Your Layoff 3rd Edition New Features

1) The third edition expands the ebook from 150 to over 180 pages. We’ve added three new chapters bringing the ebook’s total to 20 chapters. In addition, we’ve added a useful worksheet and checklist to go through to help guide you step-by-step through the severance negotiation process.

2) Thanks to continuous feedback from readers, we’ve been able to add new real-life case studies in the third edition to demonstrate just how beneficial it can be to negotiate a severance.

3) The third edition also brings in recent data, revised facts and figures, new charts and graphics, and an expanded featured posts section to help you learn more. We’ve also added helpful information on employment news, unemployment resources, market trends, and more.

To help celebrate the launch of the third edition, one of our readers, Mark, wanted to share his story of how negotiating a severance changed his family’s life for the better. His is a case study for working parents who want to be stay at home parents.

I’ve also created a $10 discount code “saveten” for anybody interested.



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How To Become A Rockstar Independent Contractor

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rockstar contractorThe government estimates that roughly 31% of the American workforce are independent contractors. Meanwhile, Intuit did a study saying that 40% of the American workforce, or ~60 million people will be freelancers, contractors and temp works by 2020. Finally, six million Americans are choosing to work part time, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics this year.

It’s clear the trend towards freelancing is on the rise thanks to technology, the Internet, declining company benefits like pensions and 401k matches, Universal Healthcare and the general desire for all mankind to be more free. 79% of independent workers say they are happier working on their own, according to the 2019 edition of the State of Independence report from MBO Partners, a business services company focussing on the self-employed.

As someone who unexpectedly consulted for the financial technology industry over the past seven years thanks to my site, I strongly believe independent contractors will overtake full-time employment in the near future. Furthermore, you can actually make a lot more money as a freelancer than a full-time employee if you pack your schedule.

Disclosure: Financial Samurai has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Samurai and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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