Post: #26

(04-18-2015 02:20 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  Some of these numbers are insane, from a UK perspective...outside of the upper echelons of the professional fields there are essentially zero jobs here that pay that much.

Americans do not realise what a land of opportunity they live in, frankly.

Myself and lots of people I know have earned more than that to wildly different degrees for a long time...the thing is, every single one of us owns our own businesses or is at the very best banks or professional companies.

It's only as you get older that you realise just how much £££ there is out there in the world for the taking.

Wages are definitely less in the UK, but in London it's not hard to find law/finance professionals pulling those figures. Dentists and Doctors are very close to those numbers too.

If that's upper echelons, then I guess I agree. I dunno, I think something like being in equity sales or an investment banker pulling good bonuses (e.g. pulling >$500k) would be what I'd consider upper echelons (also found in London lol)

Tech generally pays less than in the US it's true - alot harder to be a $150k programmer (£100k) in the UK unless you're doing it for a bank / hedge fund / algo trading comapny, and those jobs go to the very best programmers or the Math/Physics PhDs who can also sling code. The UK is a big hub for finance and those jobs can pay £100k+.

They do have more opportunity that side of the pond, but they also work harder. More overtime, only 2 weeks vacation time, etc.

A programmer in the UK has a fairly comfy life, whereas one in the US is likely gonna be pushed harder and under more pressure, all else being equal.

Overall though you are right. There is much more cash flowing around in the states, and I think the opportunities to position yourself in a stream of cashflow as a business owner are alot bigger. It's also going to keep growing for much longer than the UK... UK economy is shaky despite the "recovery" and won't endure like the US one over the next 10-20 years.

Post: #27

Plenty of positions available making that kind of money, though I would differentiate between 150k net vs what is commonly referred to "making 150k" before taxes etc.

150k jobs in the corporate world are probably the most volatile - I have see so many guys losing their positions over night.

The medical professions so far are better set until the system breaks down at least and they cut all expenses like crazy (it will, because those billings are rising exponentially right now). But that can be decades off for now.

Some technical specialist jobs like programmers, engineers, technicians are quite set as well.

Also many government positions (police, various multiple government jobs from education to waste disposal etc.) offer much more stable employment opportunities to make that much money and more.

If you start working for NGOs then that is often a basic salary from a point onward.

I had my first years making that much via trading (derivatives) and then working in the corporate world. That income alone will not make you really wealthy unless you live like Gandhi and save most of it, which no one really does.

Post: #28

In Australia IT (software development, sysadmin, devops, etc) with 8-10+ years of experience as a contractor with your own Pty Ltd company you can clean $600 - $800 per day (with 10% GST on top) gross in 3, 6, even 12 month long contracts.

You get this cash gross if you register your own Pty Ltd company. Then you can hire a good accountant to optimise your taxes so you will pay waaaay less than a wage slave with $120K per year salary.

And SEA is only 8 hours away.

Post: #29

(04-18-2015 02:20 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  Some of these numbers are insane, from a UK perspective...outside of the upper echelons of the professional fields there are essentially zero jobs here that pay that much.

But its so expensive in the UK to pretty much do anything compared to the US. How to average people save money for retirement?

Post: #30

(04-18-2015 07:36 AM)Vaun Wrote:  

(04-18-2015 02:20 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  Some of these numbers are insane, from a UK perspective...outside of the upper echelons of the professional fields there are essentially zero jobs here that pay that much.

But its so expensive in the UK to pretty much do anything compared to the US. How to average people save money for retirement?

That is essentially true in most European countries - it takes a pretty high position to make 150k net in most European countries with the exception of Switzerland and Norway (here 50%+ being taxed). In most countries including such as Germany even well earning people barely make more than 6 figures net.

The retirement system is different - they pay into the state pension system - actually it's deducted anyway from your tax base. If you put in enough years, then the amount may not be so bad also considering that you don't have any expenditure on health care at all.

UK for example has higher costs than Germany, but lower wages. Swiss people have probably double the disposable income from a certain level on. The US has more extreme distribution of income levels.

Post: #31

Air traffic controller.

(excel PAY spreadsheet: https://www.faa.gov/jobs/working_here/be...table.xlsx)

No experience or degree required. Just balls of steel.

I worked at a level 12 facility. The certified controllers, I'm talking 25 y/o guys, were working 4-6 hours per day making $200,000/year on nothing but a high school diploma. Zero exaggeration.

Post: #32

(04-17-2015 08:38 PM)Gringuito Wrote:  The Bureau of Labor Statistics:

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm

The TL/DR version is:

Anesthesiologists $246,320
Surgeons $240,440
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons $219,600
Obstetricians and Gynecologists $214,750
Orthodontists $201,030
Physicians and Surgeons $194,990
Internists, Genera $190,530
Physicians and Surgeons $189,760
Family and General Practitioners $186,320
Psychiatrists $182,700
Chief Executives $180,700
Pediatricians, General $175,400
Dentists $170,940
Dentists, All Other Specialists $168,580
Dentists, General $166,810
Nurse Anesthetist $158,900

This averages are across the entire country so a NYC based person would be paid on average more. These are also averages, there are many engineers that make more than $150k, just not the average engineer. I still believe that owning your own company is the best may to build wealth in the US. Otherwise you're just making money for someone else.

Edit: I forget the most obvious way to make 150k+/year. Create a profile on Instagram and travel to Dubai.

Hey Gringuito,

thanks for the examples.

Yeah the medical field is pretty lucrative ..

Post: #33

(04-17-2015 10:00 PM)Nalka Wrote:  There is a limit on how much you can earn through your work alone. Most people outside health care that make real money are leveraging something, be it capital, knowledge, other people's labor or its repalacement: automation.

As a young broke guy recently dropped out of college I had neither capital nor knowledge to leverage. I had to find a way to start a labor based business with no capital investment.

The solution was hiring out crews of workers to aquaculture companies in my area. The most basic form of subcontracting. The business income was used to take out loans and buy the nesessary equipment to do full service jobs on a production basis instead of hourly wage per worker. It was quite lucrative and I expanded rapidly. Too rapidly in fact. By the third year I was pulling in over $300,000

At an age when my peers were still in college I was making what seemed to me at the time to be piles of money. I got overconfident and reckless. I took on too many jobs over too large an area and did not hire the nesessary administrative staff. Eventually there was a work accident which involved some of my workers that did not have the proper paperwork.

Government agencies swooped in and lawsuits flew like confetti. The whole thing came down like a house of cards. Two years latter I came out of the ordeal with just the clothes on my back, walking to work at my restocking job.

Now I have a different business in an unrelated field. Taking thinks slow this time around.

Starting and owning a business is probably the most effective way to reach a high income. In most other areas you have to be at the top of your field to make out.

Hey Nalka,

that's really cool how you started and built your company. Too bad it went bust, but nevertheless, being able to create a business that pulls in over $300,000+ is really amazing.

You said that you were hiring out crews of workers to aquaculture companies in your area. How did you get started with that? Did you just build a website, put out ads for workers, and then started pitching your company's services to aquaculture companies? You didn't have any track record at that point - was that an issue at all?

Post: #34

(04-18-2015 02:20 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  Some of these numbers are insane, from a UK perspective...outside of the upper echelons of the professional fields there are essentially zero jobs here that pay that much.

Americans do not realise what a land of opportunity they live in, frankly.

Myself and lots of people I know have earned more than that to wildly different degrees for a long time...the thing is, every single one of us owns our own businesses or is at the very best banks or professional companies.

It's only as you get older that you realise just how much £££ there is out there in the world for the taking.

Yeah man, I think so too. In Europe really very few people make that much $$. In the US the span is just a lot bigger.

I also think for making $$ the US us the best country by far.

Post: #35

$150 K is not a lot . The starting (yes, starting) salary for first year associates at the top 30 or so law firms in NYC is $150 K.

Post: #36

If you work in a front office client facing role in Finance you can easily make this by age 25.

Post: #37

When people throw around numbers like this they are in my opinion taling about living a real baller lifestyle, nice pad, nice car, eating out at nice restaurants, etc.

I think they say if you earn over 100k you earn more than 92.8% of american households so that's not even single people that also includes husband and wife pairs.

Lets say just for easy numbers we have 100 people on this forum. According to the stats only 8 of them make more than 100k. I think we have kind of the cream of the crop on here so I'll say we bump that up a few percentage points but we still have what maybe 10 or 12 earning that money.

I finally broke the 100k mark this year in terms of what I actually take out of my business and I definately don't feel rich after taxes got hammered this year owed almost 25k. I don't feel rich but I don't feel poor either.

I think its safe to say someone comming out of school with a liberal arts degree probably isn't going to break 100k working for someone else, probably lucky to make 60k, many jobs starting at 35k to 45k.

I would say realize that certain markets are going to be more expensive cost of living but at the same time don't say you can't live in a particular city because you dont break 6 figtures, tehre's obviously a larger percentage of new yorkers who dont make that money and still live there all be it probably in smaller apartments and not eating out much.

If its your dream to live in NY by all means do it but realize that say you make 60k in new york your going to be maybe not scraping by but not living the highlife where as maybe in arizona, vegas, texas you could have a 3000sq foot home with a hottub, a 4 wheeler or boat, hit the bars, eat out, etc.

Post: #38

Some mid-level to senior government officials or military officers make that, if you include the value of their work-related benefits.

Anyway, when you're working in a city, I think you need to be aggressively looking out for business opportunities in niche markets. You can really make a killing if you find one. Here are two examples that I've seen that got other people (not me) very rich with very little work:

* A friend of a friend in a major US city started a pool lifeguarding and cleaning contract business. His lifeguards doubled as pool cleaners. When he started it, there were hardly any other companies in the area offering the same product. So, he was able to lock-up contracts with a ton of the apartment complexes in the area which had pools. He offered a better and cheaper product than the other pool personnel companies because his lifeguards would also keep the pools clean. My friend told me that this guy made several million dollars in a about three years, sold the company, and retired in his 30s. The guy simply recognized a business opportunity and ran with it.

* A guy I heard of in Japan in the 90s advertised in the classified ads at the back of pet aficionado magazines that he could paint portraits of dog owners with their dogs. They just needed to send him a picture. I think he charged like $300-500 for it. So, these dog owners would send him pictures with their dogs and the money. He turned-around and sub-contracted the work to painters in mainland China for about $50 a portrait. For several years, he was the only guy in Japan offering this service. I don't know exactly how much money he made, but he became independently wealthy within a few years.

I never would have thought of those two ideas above. I wish I had thought of them first.

Post: #39

I am sorry but that is complete horse shit about there not being many high paying jobs in the UK.

Finance
Engineering
Big business
Medical
Law
Tech sales

All make bank.

Again; it must be your age and/or social group.

I know shit tons of people making £100k sterling.

In London there is no end of people on mega salaries. No city has more high paying positions, though Some may match it, e.g. NYC, Tokyo.

In the City that's nothing.

To answer OP: most people earning 150k plus are business owners.

One-third of Americans are self-employed but they make up three quarters of the millionaires.

Post: #40

(04-18-2015 02:20 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  Some of these numbers are insane, from a UK perspective...outside of the upper echelons of the professional fields there are essentially zero jobs here that pay that much.

Americans do not realise what a land of opportunity they live in, frankly.

Myself and lots of people I know have earned more than that to wildly different degrees for a long time...the thing is, every single one of us owns our own businesses or is at the very best banks or professional companies.

It's only as you get older that you realise just how much £££ there is out there in the world for the taking.

I'm 22 and only starting to realize this.

After working with some older people on projects.

It's relatively easy, but only after you figure out how the hell to do it. Otherwise it's like you're walking through a desert.

Post: #41

(04-18-2015 05:44 PM)jbkunt2 Wrote:  I am sorry but that is complete horse shit about there not being many high paying jobs in the UK.

Finance
Engineering
Big business
Medical
Law
Tech sales

All make bank.

Again; it must be your age and/or social group.

I know shit tons of people making £100k sterling.

In London there is no end of people on mega salaries. No city has more high paying positions, though Some may match it, e.g. NYC, Tokyo.

No way, squire.

Business is something that is hard to answer; for every person making six figure plus yearly, there are another 20 barely scratching a living. So for arguments sake let's just stick to employed, salaried work:

My sister, for example, is 30 and having worked for a magic circle law firm is now the head legal attache for a mega $$ PE firm. She only just makes a smidgen over £100,000.

Sure, I have school friends who work for JPM, Deutsche, BC and Zurich who earn way more...but they are seriously few and far between. Most people who work in banks earn not a great deal.

To earn six figures in medicine you need to be a privately practicing consultant or own your own surgery(s).

My brother in law owns multiple cosmetic dentistry practices in and around London and only pays his dentists £80K ish. Again, if you aren't essentially a businessman owning a practice, you aren't earning mega bucks.

Most solicitors and legal professionals in the UK as a whole earn about £30k. Corporate law, like my sister does, pays more but without becoming a partner at a law firm, it isn't going to happen.

Big business, whatever on earth that means, may pay well to its very top executives but as a % of those who come through the door as graduates, it's a very narrow topped pyramid with a hugely wide base.

Engineering...don't make me laugh. Another brother in law is a nuclear engineer, doing some serious high level shit...he had to move to China to earn anything close to a respectable salary for his expertise; this is a common gripe amongst UK engineers. An engineering brain-drain is a real and unwelcome problem for UK engineering.


The 98th percentile of wage earners in the UK, according to the government, is £100,000 (approx 150k$). There are 29.3million tax payers, meaning there are 500,000 people earning the figure you seem to think is so easily attainable.

Even if every single one of them lived in London (pop 8.3 million), that's still only 16%...

As there are actually 64.1 million people in the UK, that means that 1 in 130 taxpayers earn over £100,000.

Not exactly the land of milk and honey is it?

If we were to know the ages of these taxpayers, I am fairly confident they would mostly lie in the higher age brackets.


Just one final point; I don't know anyone that moves in elevated circles in this country who writes as colloquially as you do...I think you don't know what you're talking about.

Post: #42

Yea, dentist parity is odd. The difference between established and upstart is huge.

Your looking at people who work part-time or faculty who make 50-80k, a whole bunch full time employees who make 80-120k, then the private owners who make 150k+. The really successful ones make 250k+ net, but lifestyle costs are often paid from the biz.

It sounds sweet, but only the top 20-25% really save up because you are also not counting student loans. Stafford unsubsizied is 6.8%. <--- What a joke (300-400k for school = 3-4k/month student loans). You have to earn 100k/year to break-even on lifestyle and student loans.

The bottom 75% float buy, and maybe save up enough to buy an office 10 years in. So you really start becoming the top 25% when you are in your 40s-50s.

I am making low six-figs (3 years out), living at home, and scrimped up enough to max out solo 401k, non-deductible traditional IRA and make a small down-payment for a condo to rent out BUT I live like I make 30-40k.

Keep in mind I am doing better than 99% of recent grads. I work a steady job and have a dental surgical hustle (place implants for other doctors) with equity compensation (% of fees).

Post: #43

You make a strong argument with solid facts to back it up. I take your point.

Post: #44

I was right around $150 when I was doing business development for a biotech.

I'll clear around $200 this year but I've made the switch into a buy side job in finance. My boss makes at least $400-$500 and he's been doing this around 5-6 years. His boss makes over $1M yearly in compensation and he's been in this industry close to 10 years. Contrary to most finance jobs, this compensation is mostly in the form of salary.

Examples of other people I know in the $150+ range
Strategy Consultants
Investment Bankers
Marketing Directors at Fortune 500 firms
Business Development managers and directors at Pharma/Biotech firms
Big Law Associates
Google Engineer

Post: #45

(04-19-2015 03:40 AM)ElBorrachoInfamoso Wrote:  I was right around $150 when I was doing business development for a biotech.

I'll clear around $200 this year but I've made the switch into a buy side job in finance. My boss makes at least $400-$500 and he's been doing this around 5-6 years. His boss makes over $1M yearly in compensation and he's been in this industry close to 10 years. Contrary to most finance jobs, this compensation is mostly in the form of salary.

Examples of other people I know in the $150+ range
Strategy Consultants
Investment Bankers
Marketing Directors at Fortune 500 firms
Business Development managers and directors at Pharma/Biotech firms
Big Law Associates
Google Engineer

Hey ElBorrachoInfamoso,

that's really cool. Sounds like you've got a very cool thing going on.

I'm curious about the Strategy Consultant you mentioned - do you have some more information on what exactly he does?

Post: #46

A friend of mine makes the most money of anyone I know - he developed his own highly disciplined trading methodology and shut down his hedge fund at $50M assets a few years ago because his investors were calling him every day to see how they were doing - he sent out monthly e-statements and they were driving him nuts anyway so returned all money and just trades now with his own account. Semi retired he will take off a week whenever he feels like it to go fishing.

Was talking to us recently about a tech investment that someone wanted him to invest $11M into so he has at least that much in his three offshore IBCs (keeps money out of the IRS's capricious clutches). Of course pays his taxes every year but wants total control over his capital. I have been learning his advanced trading algorithms and intraday trading trend confirmations that he works out by hand in his head and tracks via spreadsheets. My goal is to set up an automated trading engine and sell it as a SaaS service. On a high volatility day he does a three trades strategy; silver, gold and platinum trades he calls them but not in precious metals. He sets his trades up before market opens based upon his personal conservative risk management model and executes early morning buys, then sells his "silver" trade to recapture intraday risk capital, his gold trade to take a daily profit and his platinum trade a bonus on high volume high volatility days. A typical day is $20K plus and a high volume three trade bonus day can be $150K+ in one day. After this current cyber security contract I am working on finishes I plan on spending a week with him on automating the trading methodology.

Post: #47

(04-19-2015 07:25 AM)Ice Wrote:  

(04-19-2015 03:40 AM)ElBorrachoInfamoso Wrote:  I was right around $150 when I was doing business development for a biotech.

I'll clear around $200 this year but I've made the switch into a buy side job in finance. My boss makes at least $400-$500 and he's been doing this around 5-6 years. His boss makes over $1M yearly in compensation and he's been in this industry close to 10 years. Contrary to most finance jobs, this compensation is mostly in the form of salary.

Examples of other people I know in the $150+ range
Strategy Consultants
Investment Bankers
Marketing Directors at Fortune 500 firms
Business Development managers and directors at Pharma/Biotech firms
Big Law Associates
Google Engineer

Hey ElBorrachoInfamoso,

that's really cool. Sounds like you've got a very cool thing going on.

I'm curious about the Strategy Consultant you mentioned - do you have some more information on what exactly he does?

I know dozens of consultants, possibly over 100. They are mostly at the big firms, McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Accenture, Deloitte, etc. I used to work in the industry.

Consultants are essentially outsourced labor for big companies. They end up working on important strategic projects. For example, whenever a big company like GE is thinking of acquiring a smaller company doing X, it is very common for them to hire consultants to either narrow down the list of potential acquisition targets in the X industry and/or to do a deeper analysis of a specific acquisition target.

Often, a VP will already have a specific project in mind that he wants to do and he'll just hire consultants to do the detailed analysis and put together the presentation he shows to the CEO.

Post: #48

(04-19-2015 07:25 AM)Ice Wrote:  

(04-19-2015 03:40 AM)ElBorrachoInfamoso Wrote:  I was right around $150 when I was doing business development for a biotech.

I'll clear around $200 this year but I've made the switch into a buy side job in finance. My boss makes at least $400-$500 and he's been doing this around 5-6 years. His boss makes over $1M yearly in compensation and he's been in this industry close to 10 years. Contrary to most finance jobs, this compensation is mostly in the form of salary.

Examples of other people I know in the $150+ range
Strategy Consultants
Investment Bankers
Marketing Directors at Fortune 500 firms
Business Development managers and directors at Pharma/Biotech firms
Big Law Associates
Google Engineer

Hey ElBorrachoInfamoso,

that's really cool. Sounds like you've got a very cool thing going on.

I'm curious about the Strategy Consultant you mentioned - do you have some more information on what exactly he does?

Consultants that make +$150k are post-MBA employees at the MBB (McKinsey, Bain and BCG). Google "management consulting" or see: http://managementconsulted.com/

Post: #49

(04-19-2015 08:17 AM)ElBorrachoInfamoso Wrote:  

(04-19-2015 07:25 AM)Ice Wrote:  

(04-19-2015 03:40 AM)ElBorrachoInfamoso Wrote:  I was right around $150 when I was doing business development for a biotech.

I'll clear around $200 this year but I've made the switch into a buy side job in finance. My boss makes at least $400-$500 and he's been doing this around 5-6 years. His boss makes over $1M yearly in compensation and he's been in this industry close to 10 years. Contrary to most finance jobs, this compensation is mostly in the form of salary.

Examples of other people I know in the $150+ range
Strategy Consultants
Investment Bankers
Marketing Directors at Fortune 500 firms
Business Development managers and directors at Pharma/Biotech firms
Big Law Associates
Google Engineer

Hey ElBorrachoInfamoso,

that's really cool. Sounds like you've got a very cool thing going on.

I'm curious about the Strategy Consultant you mentioned - do you have some more information on what exactly he does?

I know dozens of consultants, possibly over 100. They are mostly at the big firms, McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Accenture, Deloitte, etc. I used to work in the industry.

Consultants are essentially outsourced labor for big companies. They end up working on important strategic projects. For example, whenever a big company like GE is thinking of acquiring a smaller company doing X, it is very common for them to hire consultants to either narrow down the list of potential acquisition targets in the X industry and/or to do a deeper analysis of a specific acquisition target.

Often, a VP will already have a specific project in mind that he wants to do and he'll just hire consultants to do the detailed analysis and put together the presentation he shows to the CEO.

Thanks a lot for the info.

I myself work as some sort of strategy consultant too, but not on that level as the guys at the big firms. I focus on digital trends / digital strategy and UX. There are quite many smaller boutique strategy firms in that field. Obviously the pay is lower too. I'm working on starting my own business though. I have a first meeting with a fortune 500 client in about 6 weeks, so let's see how that's gonna pan out. I have built quite a good name for myself in the last years through my work, publications, and conference speaking. But so far I haven't really been making a lot of $$.

Post: #50

(04-19-2015 08:21 AM)Gunner Wrote:  

(04-19-2015 07:25 AM)Ice Wrote:  

(04-19-2015 03:40 AM)ElBorrachoInfamoso Wrote:  I was right around $150 when I was doing business development for a biotech.

I'll clear around $200 this year but I've made the switch into a buy side job in finance. My boss makes at least $400-$500 and he's been doing this around 5-6 years. His boss makes over $1M yearly in compensation and he's been in this industry close to 10 years. Contrary to most finance jobs, this compensation is mostly in the form of salary.

Examples of other people I know in the $150+ range
Strategy Consultants
Investment Bankers
Marketing Directors at Fortune 500 firms
Business Development managers and directors at Pharma/Biotech firms
Big Law Associates
Google Engineer

Hey ElBorrachoInfamoso,

that's really cool. Sounds like you've got a very cool thing going on.

I'm curious about the Strategy Consultant you mentioned - do you have some more information on what exactly he does?

Consultants that make +$150k are post-MBA employees at the MBB (McKinsey, Bain and BCG). Google "management consulting" or see: http://managementconsulted.com/

I work at one of MBB. Feel free to shoot me a note with specific questions.