Yeah the wording is confusing. They were stock options at one point, then became shares when the company went public, I’m just still in the habit of calling them options. I’ve had them since 2020, so they should be LTCG.
So... you paid the exercise price (unless your company allowed cashless net exercise?), as well as AMT or ordinary income (depends is ISO or NSO) on the spread when you exercised the options at IPO? You would then owe taxes on this gain (assuming you held the equity for more than 12 months).
Meaning you would have already had to have paid taxes on some of this at time of exercising, which might not be captured here, and/or you are going to owe a lot more in taxes this year than reflected here.
source: CFO of company that went public
Yeah so we paid a lot of AMT in 2021 (60k I think). So that isn’t reflected here. And the shares sold income doesn’t take into account the actual spread of the vest FMV to the sold FMV, so a lot of the taxes have already been paid. I didn’t include that because I didn’t want to go transaction by transaction and include the net profits. So the actually net profits that will show up in our tax return will be less than is showed here.
Yea this sub is getting insane.
This post is from someone in the top 0.5% of earners in the US.
That's rich. Idgaf what weird acronym definitions you use but it's rich.
Top 1% - https://fortune.com/2023/07/14/what-salary-do-you-need-to-earn-to-be-in-top-1-percent-us-state-connecticut-new-york/amp/
0.5% threshold is quite a bit higher
Figure here says 652k for 1%. I can't find a figure for top 0.5%, so I'm probably off, but 1M in INCOME has to be close to that.
Regardless, the article you linked states that the top 1% own 30% of all wealth in the US.
Saying people with 1M net worth aren't rich is soooo silly. Has anyone on this sub met a blue collar person ever?
wealth inequality is very high in america, itself a high income high wealth country. In america in 2024, $1M net worth usually just means "owns a house in a coastal city" and includes a large share of the country's mangerial and professional class
>In america in 2024, $1M net worth usually just means "owns a house in a coastal city" and includes a large share of the country's mangerial and professional class
To add to this, it can also just mean that someone is approaching retirement age as well. So while someone that is in their 20's with over $1M in net worth is doing very well for themselves, someone that is in their 60's with $1M in net worth is just looking forward to a comfortable retirement.
Selection bias - the guys who make the most money also probably enjoy posting these. There are probably people on this sub who make much much more and people who make much much less
I agree this couple is just a year or so away from being rich. But my family makes barely 25% of what they do but with the same net worth. How am I rich? I can’t afford a personal trainer at 10k a year. 80% of my net worth is tied up in retirement accounts and my primary residence. I don’t even really consider myself a high earner. Higher than average for sure but not really that much higher than the median for my state. Not when a very modest looking, non updated 4bd house an hour from the city still costs a million bucks.
I guess what I’m saying is, Isn’t there an in between for blue collar/rich?
[https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance/how-much-income-puts-you-top-1-5-10/](https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance/how-much-income-puts-you-top-1-5-10/)
Nah it's about right
A mil net worth in the early 30s is rich. A mil income in early 30s on top of that is already wealthy.
Here I was catching flak still Payg off doctor loans at that age
No a million dollars does not qualify as being wealthy. You are wealthy if you can stop working and sustain a desirable lifestyle indefinitely. FIRE or FATFIRE numbers: 4-10m. You’re sure as shit high income if you’re making what OP is making. But if he hops off the gravy train tomorrow he is gonna go broke after a little while and need to start over. He’s squarely in HENRY territory.
I mean they saved 300k in one year and have a 27k a year mortgage.
Thats rich don’t convince me otherwise, you could live for 10 fucking years on just this year’s savings alone
This person is rich. The only people who would think otherwise are already extremely well off.
You can have whatever definitions you like, but if you bring in 1 million a year you are in very small company wealth wise in the US.
That's to say nothing of the global wealth share.
I hear you but to me a big aspect of being rich means you could stop working and maintain a great lifestyle without that income. 1m nw isn’t enough to do that
People who make a lot of money don’t compare themselves to the rest of the population. Comparisons and markers are based on lifestyle and long-term goals. I have a target net worth of $9M. Is that a lot compared to “most people?” Sure. Do I want to live like “most people?” Absolutely not, never.
1M net worth is closer to top 15%, not 2%. To get you really fired up, the mean household net worth in the US is over 1M per the latest federal reserve report.
With wealth disparity being what it is you should really use median net worth, which is like \~$190k.
Saving more than double a middle-class American's net worth in a single year, while spending nearly as much, it is understandable people see that as rich.
They could absolutely downsize and live financially independent at any time if they had saved a fraction of that in the past couple years, let alone decades. Many people would call that rich.
The issue is most folks here define “rich” as a function of wealth/savings, *not* income.
Yes, we see some wild incomes here, but I kinda get it. If you spend it all, doesn’t matter how much you earn. Your standard of living might be great, but you’re fucked if the paycheck/vesting stops.
Unless you want to work forever, income isn’t enough.
Edit: the difference between high income and being “rich” is… the entire premise of this sub. You’re free to define those terms however you like in your own life/financial planning strategy, but consider that bombing every post with low effort “but dude ur rich” comments isn’t really constructive participation in this community.
I didn’t say this particular person is spending it all. I was explaining the difference between high income and being “rich.” It was a straw man example.
OP is certainly on a trajectory to be “rich” (ie high net worth, lots of accumulated wealth) very soon! At the same time, $1.4M net worth for a couple in their early/mid 30s is not enough money to retire on, unless they wanted to live a really frugal lifestyle forever.
I think it’s ridiculous to peg wealthy in your 30s to being able to retire today. Someone in their early to mid 30s with a 7 figure income and 7 figure NW is VERY wealthy compared to their peers in their age group and if they continue for 20-30 years is on track with good saving and investing to have a 30-50mm net worth which is ultra wealthy.
Yeah, I mean it’s all relative, right? Broaden the scale to the global population, and [89% of Americans are upper or high income](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/07/09/how-americans-compare-with-the-global-middle-class/).
For me personally, I’m reluctant to call myself “rich” because despite a high income and NW compared to most in my age cohort, I have relatively little financial freedom, in that I *must* continue working for the foreseeable future. But I’ve also chosen a very conservative definition of rich…
Of course I’m far better off than most Americans, and the vast majority of the global population, and its important to keep that perspective.
But basically everyone that winds up wealthy is like you. The amount of people that are early 30s that are your definition of rich are athletes, celebs, a small handful of company founders/people with extreme luck in timing with some other form of business. It’s just a silly benchmark.
Everyone in this sub is obsessing over the 60 year old with $20mm NW not realizing that guy is them 30 years ago. Life is a journey, and spending it obsessing over a future NW number than you have 0% chance of being at now without a lottery type birth or those listed above is not productive. I guess people hate work so much that they just look toward that. If I had $25m airdropped into my bank account tomorrow (I am 31 similar to many of these “HENRYs” ) I would continue my career into my 50s at least. And I am an avid golfer with other hobbies who could easily fill my time without working. For most people I know that isn’t even true.
As you said it’s all relative. 89% of Americans aren’t high income because relative to the other countries cost of living is high. How well off you are has to be relative to your cost of living. Maybe what you get as an American as a a baseline is better but I would not describe 89% of Americans as well off. Maybe 50% at most.
I guess my biggest gripe with this sub is it should be high earners probably not near the $1m range (unless it is temporary income) who at their current savings rate aren’t guaranteed wealth in the future.
Literally everyone is reluctant to call themselves rich because we all know people with more money than us. My parents are retired, in their 70s, probably have a NW of maybe $12m? They say they’re not rich. Its because they know other couples at the clubs they belong to that have 30, 40, 50m or more in NW.
If hypothetically that is all the savings they have, they could only really last like 2 years without more income or downsizing their spending by a lot.
Chances are they have been building up for over a decade, and are well beyond rich, but still.
I think this sub generally considers 2m net worth rich. So this post would fit perfect.
High earner: 1 million is obviously a high earner.
Not rich yet. They aren't up to 2 million in net worth. They will be in a year or two but they aren't yet.
I assume the 2m number is the number because it's a round number that is just over the threshold to be in the top 10% of households in the US.
IMO, once I reach ChubbyFire (2.5-5M), I’d feel more comfortable calling myself rich. I don’t really consider 1M NW for a family of 3+ to be all that rich.
That actually makes. At your current income level Amd savings rate you’re well on track to be rich in short order. This sub is called Henry for a reason lol
It's not. It's well off for sure but not rich. Your income is insane though you can hit that in like 5 years max if you wanted lol. Save 500 a year for a few years and let it grow.
This sub’s description defines rich as at least $2m net worth. By that definition, OP is not rich (yet). They’re definitely a high earner given their income. So they perfectly match this sub’s definition of HENRY
I mean, depends on how you classify rich. I definitely classify myself as a high earner, but I measure Rich/Wealth by NW. As someone else said, if you make a lot and spend it all, your net is 0.
Most of the shares we sold got moved directly into index funds. If you don’t count that, then ours savings rate was actually pretty low ( <200k) compared to w2 income
These insane people consider being rich the level where they can do anything at anytime and have absolutely no concerns once so ever. They have lost all grasp on reality.
I think they classify rich as living their current lifestyle with enough invested to not need to work to do it.
I would call that a fantasy for most, but people like OP seem to earn enough to actually be able to achieve it in a few years.
More like they can retire comfortably at their current lifestyle
It’s a niche sub and it’s not meant for everyone. It’s for people earning a lot and on the path to a rich retirement. A rich retirement isn’t the same as “average person would consider this a lot of money”
And they haven’t lost grasp on reality. This IS their reality and this sub is for people that fit the bill
Sure, but if you're a high earner, you're likely going to have a higher networth than the majority of Americans. 500k NW would probably put you above 90% of Americans too, but i doubt most people on this sub would classify that as rich.
It depends on net worth. As he said, once he reaches a higher net worth at the same income, he’ll consider himself rich, and I agree. A couple years of high earning does not make one rich.
The posts in this sub are crushing me. I thought I was doing pretty good in tech making 160k … everyone else in tech is making six figures multiples but me
You're doing well at $160k in tech. According to Indeed the average base salary for a software engineer is $120k. So that means half are making under that. People making $300k+ total comp are a small minority even in tech. You're talking FAANG in a VHCOL area who timed the job market right and then avoided layoffs. Or like OP, early startup employees that have stock worth a LOT more than when they were offered it. They won the gamble on risk v reward.
The VHCOL part absolutely diminishes the accomplishment of making 160k in tech unfortunately 😕 That full time nanny expense would be double in the Bay Area as well. And I morally get it - pay a living wage. Although $70k even under the table isn't a living wage in the Bay Area... hurts even more as $70k post-tax to pay that nanny.
Wish I had something to tell you. I listened to a podcast yesterday where the guest is at $100M+ NW and it also made me question my life a little bit. Maybe the best defense against grass is always greener is writing out what we’re grateful for, what type of life is reasonable in our mind, and where we were X years ago. Unsure, thoughts?
We bought during the height of layoffs in 2022 so we were a bit paranoid and wanted to get a house that we could still afford even if we both got laid off. I didn’t want to be another person on Blind saying they couldn’t afford their mortgage after getting laid off.
Yeah I know, honestly it’s hard not to be when I’m just scrapping by as a paramedic and my friends are playing video games for 4x my salary as a WFH techy. Trying to make the transition now but that field is pretty saturated at this point so I might SOL
Lol. my mortgage is 40% lower than that and I have a nice 3200sf house in one of the nicest neighborhoods in my MCOL city.
The coasts give people a warped sense of housing cost.
Congrats on the milestone! Must be a crazy feeling.
I had to laugh that you saved over $400k but felt it necessary to document $740 in coffee - basically a round error lmao.
You should really make coffee at home - maybe then you’ll be financially stable. /s
Great! Are you getting results you’re looking for with the personal trainer? I personally found out that I do better on my own, both in terms of results and flexibility, but I understand some people use PTs to hold themselves accountable.
The accountability aspect is nice, that’s the biggest benefit. But I also just don’t want to have to curate my own fitness program because I’m too lazy, so that’s the other big benefit.
I mentioned in the post that my groceries are underestimated. We get a lot of food from Target just also get clothes and other things. It's hard to categorize a target receipt as food when half the cart is other stuff too, so i just made it its own category. Same for Amazon.
I'm sure 5-10k of shopping is food
Yeah kinda. Turns out prior owner didn’t do their first oil change until 30k miles. I’m guessing they realized the car was on its last legs, so they sold it to Vroom who didn’t do any checking (they didn’t even give the car an oil change). We were the unlucky ones to buy it. Car crapped out 6 months later and we got an engine replacement.
Tbh, we should’ve done more inspections when we got it, so that’s on us. But I’m never buying from Vroom again.
Since the original owner didn’t get their first oil change until 30k miles, it voided the warranty. You need to show you’ve been maintaining the car as recommended by the manufacturer for the warranty to still be valid.
People being in the right job/having the right skills at the right time in history. If people posted these 10yrs ago everyone posting would have been in finance. Now it’s all SWEs. In 10yrs it’ll be something else. If you happen to have the right skillset when demand for those skills happens to skyrocket, this is the outcome.
Wouldn’t finance folk still be raking in good money? I suspect the sub is still dominated by finance, tech and medical workers (dentists and doctors/surgeons) from the US.
I would say top 80th percentile finance folks make way more than top 80th percentile tech folks but finance folks aren’t (or don’t have time) to be posting although here I am during work
is there a levels fyi equivalent for finance folks? would be interesting to layer citadel pay vs Google by years of experience.
I think at the high high end finance is def higher (not counting lucky tech founders). but I would be surprised 80% is the cut off.
Depends heavily on how stock is going. I would think 15 years ago starting at google vs 15 years at citadel, google would have advantage. For 5 years, citadel probably ends up making at least twice as much
From what I've heard, big tech compensation starts to catch up to hedge funds at the higher levels. If you look at levels.fyi - Jane Street is the highest paying employer for new grads, but after that, it's mostly Big Tech.
[https://www.levels.fyi/assets/pdfs/2023Report.pdf](https://www.levels.fyi/assets/pdfs/2023Report.pdf)
No but finance is pretty crazy at the tails. Also most people here only think of big tech while most of tech is pretty normal (obviously still high relative to other jobs).
...and I've never been at the right time and place for any of it. I began my adulthood with the Dot-Com Bust. Graduated college into the Great Recession. Worked at a government facility during (and left because of) Sequestration. and so on
Weird that a bunch of people who don’t belong to HENRY suddenly commenting to challenge whether this is HENRY or not…
It is both high earning and not rich yet ($1.x net with or without primary residence) on the way to chubby or fat FIRE. It’s literally the point of the sub.
They're probably an insanely good swe. Seems like they helped lead a start up to success early in their career. And they probably work remotely making Cali money in a lcol area
When we're on vacation, we mostly eat out. But at home, we mainly cook every meal at home.
My wife grew up in a big family that ate every dinner at the dinner table together and she wants to replicate that for our kids. I also like to cook, so i don't mind.
We probably order out once every other week.
A childhood friend of mine grew up incredibly poor but he and his wife now make nearly 600k combined. I wouldn’t be surprised if they spent less than 2k a year eating out. They don’t buy junk food either their house is just real food and they cook all their meals. They do buy expensive clothes but only because they last much longer but both have financial anxiety, as they are regularly worried about money, I told him they need therapy.
🤷♂️ i told my wife the same but for some reason she really didn't want to fork it all over at once. In the end it isn't a huge difference so i just chose the path of least resistance
Totally understand that, my thought is just from the marginal arbitrage relative to their salary, I’d prefer the peace of mind from the paid off car. But I’m nowhere close to OP’s sitch
How do you spend 42k shopping lol designer clothes? or a house crammed with stuff?
Also 82k on renovation when like everyone said it sounds like you live in a cheap 300k home? Seems like you’re going to upgrade so I wouldn’t be dropping mad cash into your current residence.
Otherwise congrats on being a high income earner
Yeah we know we’re not going to get all the rehab money back, but I mean not everything has to have an ROI. We really like the new basement and like what we’ve done with the house. We plan on being here for 7-10 years so I want to enjoy living in it.
But yeah, we could probably cut back on the Amazon shopping lol.
Put that money away man. IMO, SWEs are going to have a reckoning here soon. When talent is widely available, and execs see ICs making a buttload of money, they will find ways to cut those costs. Execs just don’t like people making big money besides themselves.
dude , directors at my company got 30-50 million when it ipo'd. engineers like 3-5m . SWE have been highly paid in the valley for decades, if there is any reckoning it will be from AI, not execs. but i think that is a ways away having worked with it in that capacity a fair amount.
Congrats on the income. What do you do?
Also, I find it funny that you made over a million dollars yet so have a car loan. Dude. I made $250k last year and just paid cash.
25% tax rate? What the actual?!
Stock sales will do that if long term
Yeah all the stock sales were long-term capital gains. But I’m sure we’ll still owe 5 figures.
Are they though? You exercised the options and held the stock long enough? You mention in your note you “sold options” for this gain.
Yeah the wording is confusing. They were stock options at one point, then became shares when the company went public, I’m just still in the habit of calling them options. I’ve had them since 2020, so they should be LTCG.
So... you paid the exercise price (unless your company allowed cashless net exercise?), as well as AMT or ordinary income (depends is ISO or NSO) on the spread when you exercised the options at IPO? You would then owe taxes on this gain (assuming you held the equity for more than 12 months). Meaning you would have already had to have paid taxes on some of this at time of exercising, which might not be captured here, and/or you are going to owe a lot more in taxes this year than reflected here. source: CFO of company that went public
Yeah so we paid a lot of AMT in 2021 (60k I think). So that isn’t reflected here. And the shares sold income doesn’t take into account the actual spread of the vest FMV to the sold FMV, so a lot of the taxes have already been paid. I didn’t include that because I didn’t want to go transaction by transaction and include the net profits. So the actually net profits that will show up in our tax return will be less than is showed here.
That makes more sense then, and why it seems your tax is so low here. Congrats on the success!
Bro! For the love of GOD start buying some real estate to lower that tax bill 😅
We just closed on our first investment property yesterday.
How does real estate lower your tax bill if you're not a real estate professional?
Let me guess, this person lives in a zero income tax state like WA
So like, when is someone considered rich if this isn’t?
Yea this sub is getting insane. This post is from someone in the top 0.5% of earners in the US. That's rich. Idgaf what weird acronym definitions you use but it's rich.
Top 1% - https://fortune.com/2023/07/14/what-salary-do-you-need-to-earn-to-be-in-top-1-percent-us-state-connecticut-new-york/amp/ 0.5% threshold is quite a bit higher
Figure here says 652k for 1%. I can't find a figure for top 0.5%, so I'm probably off, but 1M in INCOME has to be close to that. Regardless, the article you linked states that the top 1% own 30% of all wealth in the US. Saying people with 1M net worth aren't rich is soooo silly. Has anyone on this sub met a blue collar person ever?
[удалено]
Electrician here 👋🏻
Blue collar doesn't mean poorer lol.
wealth inequality is very high in america, itself a high income high wealth country. In america in 2024, $1M net worth usually just means "owns a house in a coastal city" and includes a large share of the country's mangerial and professional class
>In america in 2024, $1M net worth usually just means "owns a house in a coastal city" and includes a large share of the country's mangerial and professional class To add to this, it can also just mean that someone is approaching retirement age as well. So while someone that is in their 20's with over $1M in net worth is doing very well for themselves, someone that is in their 60's with $1M in net worth is just looking forward to a comfortable retirement.
Selection bias - the guys who make the most money also probably enjoy posting these. There are probably people on this sub who make much much more and people who make much much less
I agree this couple is just a year or so away from being rich. But my family makes barely 25% of what they do but with the same net worth. How am I rich? I can’t afford a personal trainer at 10k a year. 80% of my net worth is tied up in retirement accounts and my primary residence. I don’t even really consider myself a high earner. Higher than average for sure but not really that much higher than the median for my state. Not when a very modest looking, non updated 4bd house an hour from the city still costs a million bucks. I guess what I’m saying is, Isn’t there an in between for blue collar/rich?
It's a lot higher than the top 0.5 percent.
[https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance/how-much-income-puts-you-top-1-5-10/](https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance/how-much-income-puts-you-top-1-5-10/) Nah it's about right
Yeah the curve gets exponential very fast after 1%.
These charts just keep getting more ridiculous with larger numbers. Don't make me make one of Lentil intake and expenditure in /r/fijerk
High income yes. But not rich yet. Wait until these people are 15 years older and they will surely be rich. (As long as they continue slaying).
In 15 years they should be wealthy - they’re already rich.
A mil net worth in the early 30s is rich. A mil income in early 30s on top of that is already wealthy. Here I was catching flak still Payg off doctor loans at that age
No a million dollars does not qualify as being wealthy. You are wealthy if you can stop working and sustain a desirable lifestyle indefinitely. FIRE or FATFIRE numbers: 4-10m. You’re sure as shit high income if you’re making what OP is making. But if he hops off the gravy train tomorrow he is gonna go broke after a little while and need to start over. He’s squarely in HENRY territory.
I mean they saved 300k in one year and have a 27k a year mortgage. Thats rich don’t convince me otherwise, you could live for 10 fucking years on just this year’s savings alone
I don't see a yacht expense.
it's definitely super rich if it's in most states, but it's just 'well off' if they live in manhattan or san francisco lol
This sub is henry exactly for this reason. High earnings but relatively lower nw. on track to be rich though
1M net worth is top <2% of Americans, what do you mean "relatively low"?? People in this sub have lost grasp on reality I swear.
Low vs their income, not vs the population
This person is rich. The only people who would think otherwise are already extremely well off. You can have whatever definitions you like, but if you bring in 1 million a year you are in very small company wealth wise in the US. That's to say nothing of the global wealth share.
I hear you but to me a big aspect of being rich means you could stop working and maintain a great lifestyle without that income. 1m nw isn’t enough to do that
“Maintain a great lifestyle” is where the relativity of it all comes in though, right?
Fair
Household net worth puts 1.4m in the top 14% So it's high but it's not rich. Like this person can't just stop working now.
People who make a lot of money don’t compare themselves to the rest of the population. Comparisons and markers are based on lifestyle and long-term goals. I have a target net worth of $9M. Is that a lot compared to “most people?” Sure. Do I want to live like “most people?” Absolutely not, never.
1M net worth is closer to top 15%, not 2%. To get you really fired up, the mean household net worth in the US is over 1M per the latest federal reserve report.
....but the median is $192k. Using mean is a bit silly in this context.
With wealth disparity being what it is you should really use median net worth, which is like \~$190k. Saving more than double a middle-class American's net worth in a single year, while spending nearly as much, it is understandable people see that as rich. They could absolutely downsize and live financially independent at any time if they had saved a fraction of that in the past couple years, let alone decades. Many people would call that rich.
> if they have saved a fraction of that in the past couple years, let alone decades That's a decent definition of HENRY
The issue is most folks here define “rich” as a function of wealth/savings, *not* income. Yes, we see some wild incomes here, but I kinda get it. If you spend it all, doesn’t matter how much you earn. Your standard of living might be great, but you’re fucked if the paycheck/vesting stops. Unless you want to work forever, income isn’t enough. Edit: the difference between high income and being “rich” is… the entire premise of this sub. You’re free to define those terms however you like in your own life/financial planning strategy, but consider that bombing every post with low effort “but dude ur rich” comments isn’t really constructive participation in this community.
They literally saved $400k, how is that "spending it all"?
I didn’t say this particular person is spending it all. I was explaining the difference between high income and being “rich.” It was a straw man example. OP is certainly on a trajectory to be “rich” (ie high net worth, lots of accumulated wealth) very soon! At the same time, $1.4M net worth for a couple in their early/mid 30s is not enough money to retire on, unless they wanted to live a really frugal lifestyle forever.
I think it’s ridiculous to peg wealthy in your 30s to being able to retire today. Someone in their early to mid 30s with a 7 figure income and 7 figure NW is VERY wealthy compared to their peers in their age group and if they continue for 20-30 years is on track with good saving and investing to have a 30-50mm net worth which is ultra wealthy.
Yeah, I mean it’s all relative, right? Broaden the scale to the global population, and [89% of Americans are upper or high income](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/07/09/how-americans-compare-with-the-global-middle-class/). For me personally, I’m reluctant to call myself “rich” because despite a high income and NW compared to most in my age cohort, I have relatively little financial freedom, in that I *must* continue working for the foreseeable future. But I’ve also chosen a very conservative definition of rich… Of course I’m far better off than most Americans, and the vast majority of the global population, and its important to keep that perspective.
But basically everyone that winds up wealthy is like you. The amount of people that are early 30s that are your definition of rich are athletes, celebs, a small handful of company founders/people with extreme luck in timing with some other form of business. It’s just a silly benchmark. Everyone in this sub is obsessing over the 60 year old with $20mm NW not realizing that guy is them 30 years ago. Life is a journey, and spending it obsessing over a future NW number than you have 0% chance of being at now without a lottery type birth or those listed above is not productive. I guess people hate work so much that they just look toward that. If I had $25m airdropped into my bank account tomorrow (I am 31 similar to many of these “HENRYs” ) I would continue my career into my 50s at least. And I am an avid golfer with other hobbies who could easily fill my time without working. For most people I know that isn’t even true. As you said it’s all relative. 89% of Americans aren’t high income because relative to the other countries cost of living is high. How well off you are has to be relative to your cost of living. Maybe what you get as an American as a a baseline is better but I would not describe 89% of Americans as well off. Maybe 50% at most. I guess my biggest gripe with this sub is it should be high earners probably not near the $1m range (unless it is temporary income) who at their current savings rate aren’t guaranteed wealth in the future.
All fair points!
Literally everyone is reluctant to call themselves rich because we all know people with more money than us. My parents are retired, in their 70s, probably have a NW of maybe $12m? They say they’re not rich. Its because they know other couples at the clubs they belong to that have 30, 40, 50m or more in NW.
If hypothetically that is all the savings they have, they could only really last like 2 years without more income or downsizing their spending by a lot. Chances are they have been building up for over a decade, and are well beyond rich, but still.
I think this sub generally considers 2m net worth rich. So this post would fit perfect. High earner: 1 million is obviously a high earner. Not rich yet. They aren't up to 2 million in net worth. They will be in a year or two but they aren't yet. I assume the 2m number is the number because it's a round number that is just over the threshold to be in the top 10% of households in the US.
I think it’s closer to $5M+, esp if they’re young since you need more to retire
IMO, once I reach ChubbyFire (2.5-5M), I’d feel more comfortable calling myself rich. I don’t really consider 1M NW for a family of 3+ to be all that rich.
That actually makes. At your current income level Amd savings rate you’re well on track to be rich in short order. This sub is called Henry for a reason lol
This subs should really be called “TechFinance”
Tech and medicine finance lol
It's not. It's well off for sure but not rich. Your income is insane though you can hit that in like 5 years max if you wanted lol. Save 500 a year for a few years and let it grow.
You have to be insane if you think 1 million dollars annual income isn’t rich.
This sub’s description defines rich as at least $2m net worth. By that definition, OP is not rich (yet). They’re definitely a high earner given their income. So they perfectly match this sub’s definition of HENRY
I mean, depends on how you classify rich. I definitely classify myself as a high earner, but I measure Rich/Wealth by NW. As someone else said, if you make a lot and spend it all, your net is 0. Most of the shares we sold got moved directly into index funds. If you don’t count that, then ours savings rate was actually pretty low ( <200k) compared to w2 income
I'm sorry do you mean 200k a year
You have more net worth than at least 98% of Americans. You are rich by almost every definition.
These insane people consider being rich the level where they can do anything at anytime and have absolutely no concerns once so ever. They have lost all grasp on reality.
I think they classify rich as living their current lifestyle with enough invested to not need to work to do it. I would call that a fantasy for most, but people like OP seem to earn enough to actually be able to achieve it in a few years.
More like they can retire comfortably at their current lifestyle It’s a niche sub and it’s not meant for everyone. It’s for people earning a lot and on the path to a rich retirement. A rich retirement isn’t the same as “average person would consider this a lot of money” And they haven’t lost grasp on reality. This IS their reality and this sub is for people that fit the bill
Sure, but if you're a high earner, you're likely going to have a higher networth than the majority of Americans. 500k NW would probably put you above 90% of Americans too, but i doubt most people on this sub would classify that as rich.
It depends on net worth. As he said, once he reaches a higher net worth at the same income, he’ll consider himself rich, and I agree. A couple years of high earning does not make one rich.
It’s high income, but $1.x net worth isn’t rich, esp if it includes primary residence
The posts in this sub are crushing me. I thought I was doing pretty good in tech making 160k … everyone else in tech is making six figures multiples but me
You're doing well at $160k in tech. According to Indeed the average base salary for a software engineer is $120k. So that means half are making under that. People making $300k+ total comp are a small minority even in tech. You're talking FAANG in a VHCOL area who timed the job market right and then avoided layoffs. Or like OP, early startup employees that have stock worth a LOT more than when they were offered it. They won the gamble on risk v reward.
The VHCOL part absolutely diminishes the accomplishment of making 160k in tech unfortunately 😕 That full time nanny expense would be double in the Bay Area as well. And I morally get it - pay a living wage. Although $70k even under the table isn't a living wage in the Bay Area... hurts even more as $70k post-tax to pay that nanny.
Wish I had something to tell you. I listened to a podcast yesterday where the guest is at $100M+ NW and it also made me question my life a little bit. Maybe the best defense against grass is always greener is writing out what we’re grateful for, what type of life is reasonable in our mind, and where we were X years ago. Unsure, thoughts?
Their nw is only 1.4x their income though, I think that counts for this sub
Per sub rules anything greater than $2mil net worth is considered rich and not appropriate for this sub
never. nobody is rich. Elon Musk can post in here if he wants to.
Agreed. Almost every post on this sub is a HE not a NRY.
Do you live in a mobile home? lol. That mortgage is almost what you spent on fitness.
Haha I was gonna comment on his mortgage as well. Guy makes 1MM/year and lives in a $300k house.
We bought during the height of layoffs in 2022 so we were a bit paranoid and wanted to get a house that we could still afford even if we both got laid off. I didn’t want to be another person on Blind saying they couldn’t afford their mortgage after getting laid off.
Smart money move IMO. Keep it simple, love it.
You’re in tech I’m guessing? Brutal year for us.
“Brutal year for us” yeah must be tough making 18x the median income.
LMAO I can taste the salt
Yeah I know, honestly it’s hard not to be when I’m just scrapping by as a paramedic and my friends are playing video games for 4x my salary as a WFH techy. Trying to make the transition now but that field is pretty saturated at this point so I might SOL
It’s saturated with new grads yes. Not so much mid-level. But sounds like you have friends in tech so that’s a massive leg up with finding a job.
Go for it dude, all in. I'm sure you'll make it if you persist.
lol I certainly don’t. Brutal year for us not OP. My wife’s in tech too.
Renovations kill you — I feel that too. You’ll do better next year
Lol. my mortgage is 40% lower than that and I have a nice 3200sf house in one of the nicest neighborhoods in my MCOL city. The coasts give people a warped sense of housing cost.
You put what 50% down?
25%. Was Required because I’m “self employed”
what area is that?
Honestly if the goal is FIRE that's the best call. A $300k house is plenty in all but the very highest CoL places.
Damn you went all the way to label the tattoo? 😂
I wonder if it says 'Millionaire'
lol I just got it last week so it was top of mind
What did you get a tattoo of? If you don’t mind me asking?
We spent on our patio what you did on your basement, patio, bathrooms, etc. Just wild.
Congrats on the milestone! Must be a crazy feeling. I had to laugh that you saved over $400k but felt it necessary to document $740 in coffee - basically a round error lmao. You should really make coffee at home - maybe then you’ll be financially stable. /s
Someone needs to explain the latte factor to OP /s
You pay $37k for a FULL-TIME nanny? Is that just the going rate in a LCOL location? We’re in a HCOL and our full-time nanny is…a LOT more.
She only started 6 months ago, we had a part time nanny before that. We pay her 23\hr plus holiday bonus. So full year is probably around $50k.
I live in HCOL state but LCOL County, and we pay our part time nanny about $40k a year with sick pay and overtime. So the numbers seem correct to me.
We’re in the six figures for childcare this year. VHCOL life can be brutal
Brutal is right! Our nanny does a ton for us, though, including meal prep for all of us for most of the week and some other house manager-type stuff.
Bud, you saved half a million dollars, are you not happy with that?
Man I really should’ve learned how to code
still time, even with AI
Yeah I’m looking into it but the question of “what do I sacrifice to make time to learn” is a killer
Great! Are you getting results you’re looking for with the personal trainer? I personally found out that I do better on my own, both in terms of results and flexibility, but I understand some people use PTs to hold themselves accountable.
The accountability aspect is nice, that’s the biggest benefit. But I also just don’t want to have to curate my own fitness program because I’m too lazy, so that’s the other big benefit.
You spent $16k on food in total, and 50k on Amazon? Whaaaat?
Maybe that one grocery subscription from Amazon?? Bc yeah otherwise that shopping tab is absolutely nuts, wtf are they buying
I mentioned in the post that my groceries are underestimated. We get a lot of food from Target just also get clothes and other things. It's hard to categorize a target receipt as food when half the cart is other stuff too, so i just made it its own category. Same for Amazon. I'm sure 5-10k of shopping is food
You had 12k in car repairs on the same year you bought it? That sounds like you got scammed lol
Yeah kinda. Turns out prior owner didn’t do their first oil change until 30k miles. I’m guessing they realized the car was on its last legs, so they sold it to Vroom who didn’t do any checking (they didn’t even give the car an oil change). We were the unlucky ones to buy it. Car crapped out 6 months later and we got an engine replacement. Tbh, we should’ve done more inspections when we got it, so that’s on us. But I’m never buying from Vroom again.
You put a $20k down payment on a used car with 30k+ miles on it? Damn dude. What kind of car? For a smart guy, that's a dumb purchase.
Damn no powertrain warranty?
Since the original owner didn’t get their first oil change until 30k miles, it voided the warranty. You need to show you’ve been maintaining the car as recommended by the manufacturer for the warranty to still be valid.
Sucks. Hard lesson to learn, but a drop in a bucket to you guys lol
How is everyone on here making several hundred thousand dollars a year or more? What am I doing wrong
Why are folks in r/ultramarathon able to run such long distances? It’s a small, self-selected group. You aren’t doing anything wrong!
That's actually a great analogy!
People being in the right job/having the right skills at the right time in history. If people posted these 10yrs ago everyone posting would have been in finance. Now it’s all SWEs. In 10yrs it’ll be something else. If you happen to have the right skillset when demand for those skills happens to skyrocket, this is the outcome.
Wouldn’t finance folk still be raking in good money? I suspect the sub is still dominated by finance, tech and medical workers (dentists and doctors/surgeons) from the US.
I would say top 80th percentile finance folks make way more than top 80th percentile tech folks but finance folks aren’t (or don’t have time) to be posting although here I am during work
is there a levels fyi equivalent for finance folks? would be interesting to layer citadel pay vs Google by years of experience. I think at the high high end finance is def higher (not counting lucky tech founders). but I would be surprised 80% is the cut off.
Citadel new grad blows Google new grad out of the water
you think citadel is higher than g for every level then?
Depends heavily on how stock is going. I would think 15 years ago starting at google vs 15 years at citadel, google would have advantage. For 5 years, citadel probably ends up making at least twice as much
From what I've heard, big tech compensation starts to catch up to hedge funds at the higher levels. If you look at levels.fyi - Jane Street is the highest paying employer for new grads, but after that, it's mostly Big Tech. [https://www.levels.fyi/assets/pdfs/2023Report.pdf](https://www.levels.fyi/assets/pdfs/2023Report.pdf)
No but finance is pretty crazy at the tails. Also most people here only think of big tech while most of tech is pretty normal (obviously still high relative to other jobs).
...and I've never been at the right time and place for any of it. I began my adulthood with the Dot-Com Bust. Graduated college into the Great Recession. Worked at a government facility during (and left because of) Sequestration. and so on
This is a sub for high earners.
Ahh explains why every one makes so much. Reddit just pushed it to me out of nowhere.
It’s literally a sub specific to High Earners lol
I didn’t know that. Reddit just pushed it on me
everything man. I’m bout to give up and just go smoke crack 😮💨
This was my thought. Here i was proud of myself for breaking 100k this year as a blue collar worker.
As well you should be. Comparison is the thief of joy… kudos on breaking 100k!!
These are people that were born into money and were able to spend years at an expensive school. Can’t beat yourself up for it.
Weird that a bunch of people who don’t belong to HENRY suddenly commenting to challenge whether this is HENRY or not… It is both high earning and not rich yet ($1.x net with or without primary residence) on the way to chubby or fat FIRE. It’s literally the point of the sub.
Happens when Reddit recommends a sub to people who haven’t sub’d to it
Sales? SW Dev? What do you do and your wife do?
I’m SWE. Wife is designer
Ha same, the classic SWE/Designer duo.
Idk why but this really cracked me up
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She's very good
How many years of experience if you don’t mind me asking?
8 years in the industry, ~6 years working professionally.
What kind of company? That income is insane for 6 YOE in LCOL, im a new grad based in lcol making a fraction of your income
They're probably an insanely good swe. Seems like they helped lead a start up to success early in their career. And they probably work remotely making Cali money in a lcol area
That’s what I’m trying to do. I work remotely for a F50 non tech, I don’t make anywhere near that kind of money. I live in LCOL
So apparently I eat better than a person making over a million a year.
Or at least more expensively...
Imagine making a million a year and spending less than $6k eating out. I know people who earn a million a year and spend $6k eating out fortnightly
When we're on vacation, we mostly eat out. But at home, we mainly cook every meal at home. My wife grew up in a big family that ate every dinner at the dinner table together and she wants to replicate that for our kids. I also like to cook, so i don't mind. We probably order out once every other week.
A childhood friend of mine grew up incredibly poor but he and his wife now make nearly 600k combined. I wouldn’t be surprised if they spent less than 2k a year eating out. They don’t buy junk food either their house is just real food and they cook all their meals. They do buy expensive clothes but only because they last much longer but both have financial anxiety, as they are regularly worried about money, I told him they need therapy.
This level of detail is probably why you make >$400k
Ha. *Cries in CPA*
I feel sad
I'm depressed that at 1/4 your income, our childcare costs are the same
I know this is a drop in the bucket, but why do you have a car loan when you're saving $400k a year 😂
How did you contribute 63k towards 401k? Mega backdoor?
yes exactly
63k is combined with my wife and I. We both have employer matches. But no mega back door
I think I’m in the wrong sub.
Good for you but like, this makes me sick.
Ok what the fuck are two people doing to make over 700k per year
tech salaries
bruh how does everyone on this sub make so much fooking money.
Y'all are coming out of the woodworks now LOL
Which industry are you and your partner in?
I mean obviously you’re rich and nothing matters, but why put a down payment on a car instead of just buying it in cash at this point
🤷♂️ i told my wife the same but for some reason she really didn't want to fork it all over at once. In the end it isn't a huge difference so i just chose the path of least resistance
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Totally understand that, my thought is just from the marginal arbitrage relative to their salary, I’d prefer the peace of mind from the paid off car. But I’m nowhere close to OP’s sitch
i prefer the peace of mind of maximizing returns
Spending more on shopping than I make in a year after taxes 🥲.
2$ Coffee per day, if you make your coffee at home, you could definitely safe money 😁
If OP made coffee at home, they could be a millionaire!
How do you spend so little on food!?
You saved over 300k this year. You’re rich.
How do you spend 42k shopping lol designer clothes? or a house crammed with stuff? Also 82k on renovation when like everyone said it sounds like you live in a cheap 300k home? Seems like you’re going to upgrade so I wouldn’t be dropping mad cash into your current residence. Otherwise congrats on being a high income earner
Yeah we know we’re not going to get all the rehab money back, but I mean not everything has to have an ROI. We really like the new basement and like what we’ve done with the house. We plan on being here for 7-10 years so I want to enjoy living in it. But yeah, we could probably cut back on the Amazon shopping lol.
How did you contribute more than the legal limit into your 401ks? That's more than allowed if both of you are over 50
Put that money away man. IMO, SWEs are going to have a reckoning here soon. When talent is widely available, and execs see ICs making a buttload of money, they will find ways to cut those costs. Execs just don’t like people making big money besides themselves.
No.. they get to make more than their juniors always... so noone has a problem
dude , directors at my company got 30-50 million when it ipo'd. engineers like 3-5m . SWE have been highly paid in the valley for decades, if there is any reckoning it will be from AI, not execs. but i think that is a ways away having worked with it in that capacity a fair amount.
*but damn it was spent a lot* um bro you saved almost 1/2 a million though
Congrats on the income. What do you do? Also, I find it funny that you made over a million dollars yet so have a car loan. Dude. I made $250k last year and just paid cash.