Didn’t finish college. I started a degree like 15 years ago but a stipulation of my scholarship was that I didn’t get a job (to better focus on school work) but the scholarship wasn’t enough for me to live on. I pretty much hated college, felt like everyone else was having fun and making friends but no one wanted to be friends with someone who had literally no money.

There was a college bar I went to sometimes when I could scrounge up enough for a beer, and they had a tip jar with a note on it that said “who cares? It’s your parent’s money!”

I was pretty bitter about it for a long time.

My current job will pay for me to take classes, I just haven’t had time yet.

12 hours a day, 3 to 5 days a week. I used to work 70 hours a week when I was just getting started in California, this was like 2016.

I only invest in broad market-based index funds. Boring, but very profitable. I was involved in the very first GME hype and managed to sell at the top, made about $90k doing that. But that’s the only time I’ve ever tried that type of meme-based investing. Gold/physical assets are crap. Crypto is a crapshoot. VTSAX makes you good money. It’s not get-rich-quick, it’s get-rich-slow, and it works.

2009 was amazing for anyone who happened to have the cash. We haven’t seen a dip like that since (except a few months in 2020)

There are dozens of us.

I live in San Francisco, so A LOT

We’re HERE, we’re QUEER, and we’re FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE

(disclaimer: I’m actually not gay, just an Ally™ )

Fiending every day. It’s so tough.

Sometimes I’ll drive by Starbucks just to stare at the logo

Seems like there’s very few people in my situation on lemmy, and moreover based on the comments it seems like most people don’t even know any people in my situation, so maybe people are curious.

My current planned retirement age is 63, but I don’t plan on taking social security until 70 if I can

USA

Edit: but originally from one of the 3rd world hellhole poverty stricken deep-red areas prior to moving to California

They’ve been proud of me for my whole career growth

No. I just realized there’s not a lot of people in my situation on lemmy. Maybe people are curious.

Edit: besides, I know a huge portion of that success was luck, and who brags about being lucky?

These sorts of comments is the reason why nobody talks about things that matter.

Where did you get the brag vibe from?

Not the OP, but gain a little experience and then be willing to change areas (markets). I’ve found counterintuitively that working in high cost of living (col) markets with larger salaries is better than working in low col markets where nobody is willing to pay anything.

But my advice there might be stale as i bought a condo right before the 2020 price hikes. Being a new entry to a high priced market may no longer net the same amount of benefit. But you can run the numbers. For instance, if you move to a place where your rent doubles from 12k to 24k a year but your salary also doubles 55k to 110k, that’s losing 12k post tax to make 55k pre tax so it’s likely worth it.

But some markets have gotten very unaffordable, so the math may not always work. High col areas often find people unwilling or unable to move into them as well which lowers the competition a little.

I have other recommendations i could throw toward people looking to scrimp and save, but honestly none of them had as much effect on my financial life. Making more money by changing markets and job hopping made it so that i now am pretty financially stable in what’s considered a very unaffordable city.

It’s super industry dependent. But I also have had very little success applying to jobs myself. I put my resume on sites and let recruiters come to me.

In my experience, and in order of usefulness:

1. Live where there are jobs. Less relevant for work-from-home style industries, but if you have to physically be somewhere to do your job, you have a huge leg up if you live somewhere that industry is booming.

2. Have very good social skills. I do prep for the technical portion of interviews, but I happen to be very good at conversing and small talk and I can make people like me. That’s huge, in any industry.

3. Be happy with your current job. That’s not always in your control, but it makes the whole process way easier and less stress free and more lucrative. You can easily walk away from a job that tries to lowball you.

4. Keep an eye on market trends. I left an industry because I knew a slate of new laws would cause an industry downturn. You can’t always get this right, but be willing to pivot to similar industries with transferable skills.

I have heard and seen that networking is massive, but honestly I’m shit at networking. If you have the skills to keep a web of contacts that you can draw on to get a better job, definitely do that.

And the other commenter is right. HCOL areas are financially worth it if you can stand living with roommates (because that mitigates the housing portion). If you can save 5% of your paycheck, 5% of $200k is a lot more than 5% of 50k.