Post: #1

Hi,

I was just wondering if anyone has ever earned 150k per year or more, and if yes, what kind of job that was.

I'm just curious because I keep reading threads where people are saying that they wouldn't move to New York if they made less than 150k, but I personally don't know anyone who makes that much $$ - neither in NY nor somewhere else.

Sure yeah, I'm sure a surgeon makes way more than that, but are there any surgons on RVF? I doubt it. I think people in these "high-end" professions don't have time for hanging out on online forums.

So, any 150k + people here?

Post: #2

law, finance, programming. all easily clear $150k. many represented here.

Post: #3

oil sands

Post: #4

Off the top, the crop of $150k jobs in NYC come from the following industries, in approximate order of most -> least at or above that salary:

- Finance
- Tech
- Advertising (Especially pharma)
- Real Estate
- PR
- Media Production
- (other sectors too of course)

Titles aside, roles involve one or more or none of the following:

- spreadsheet jockeying
- programming / IT
- selling
- managing teams of spreadsheeters, programmers, ITers, or sellers
- raising capital (via grants, philanthropists, VCs, etc.)
- being the point-man for a big Profit Center within an org
- being the point-man for a big Cost Center within an org

There are varying degrees of "fluff", "trenches work", "communication", and "sales" within.

Obviously one can peddle these skills independently and consult, start a company, etc.

The important thing is to be close to contributing to (or protecting) the bottom line, and/or be part of highly-visible initiatives, and/or useful to those actually in power.

(Addendum: it's key to get situated in an industry, learn all you can about it, and be useful. I've seen startup admin assistants rise to role of VP of Product after learning the innards of the company, its customers, doing support, and generally grokking the product. More important than job title, starting out, is how a role exposes you to the innards of an industry, its decision makers, and its inefficiencies.)

Post: #5

My mother, the bitch that she was, made close to that and had nobody report to her. Ever. I regret to this day I did not follow in her footsteps. A specialized nurse can make bank and then be a certifiable asshole to the rest of the world. Heh.[/align]

Post: #6

Business owner/ Entrepreneur

Post: #7

Real estate

Post: #8

removed

Post: #9

My best year in the oil sands was around $150,000 and I still took three months off, since then I haven't worked much, last year I worked for five months and made six figures, I know lots of guys who work all year and make $250-350,000 but they work like dogs and I don't envy their lifestyle. I found a good work life balance that suits me and have no desire to make tons of money in the oil biz any longer, to me its just easy money that I make for a few months each year and will likely do so until I can figure out another way to make more money.

Post: #10

Think about this..

Autoshop. 3 guys billing out @ 80 an hour 8 (if fast) per day. That's 240 per hour or $1920 per day that's 9.6k per week on 5 days then add in parts mark up at 30% or more. I sell about 4k in parts a week now but probably half during recession. Now if I was in a high traffic zone I could double this easy.

A/C. A 2.5 ton heat pump costs 1300 or so. Knock 1k mark up and 1k to install it and it takes about 5 hours. You have three AC vans driving around selling about 2 of them a week each + service calls.

Industrial heating (Furnaces) super high heat giant furnaces that need to be rebuilt or moved periodically. I moved one that the mark up on the rotted/burned stainless steel doors was 35k alone. 10k to drop them and 10k to put them back up in another location a total of 4 days work.

Quote:don't have time for hanging out on online forums

Yes we do.

Post: #11

Also if you can get your hands on a garbage company or container service? That's straight up gangster shit but will cost you unless you get in where the town or whatever wants to privatize it. Then you buy the other guys who got a piece of it or "absorb" them as they say..

Water.. Private utility clicks 24/7 and badass. Don't pay? We shut you off mfers then late fees-reconnect-tampering etc. Pimp shit right there also. You can buy them or try to edge a city that's broke.

Post: #12

Sales.

Nurses. I know an RN who makes 250k

Post: #13

(04-17-2015 04:47 PM)456 Wrote:  Off the top, the crop of $150k jobs in NYC come from the following industries, in approximate order of most -> least at or above that salary:

- Finance
- Tech
- Advertising (Especially pharma)
- Real Estate
- PR
- Media Production
- (other sectors too of course)

Titles aside, roles involve one or more or none of the following:

- spreadsheet jockeying
- programming / IT
- selling
- managing teams of spreadsheeters, programmers, ITers, or sellers
- raising capital (via grants, philanthropists, VCs, etc.)
- being the point-man for a big Profit Center within an org
- being the point-man for a big Cost Center within an org

There are varying degrees of "fluff", "trenches work", "communication", and "sales" within.

Obviously one can peddle these skills independently and consult, start a company, etc.

The important thing is to be close to contributing to (or protecting) the bottom line, and/or be part of highly-visible initiatives, and/or useful to those actually in power.

(Addendum: it's key to get situated in an industry, learn all you can about it, and be useful. I've seen startup admin assistants rise to role of VP of Product after learning the innards of the company, its customers, doing support, and generally grokking the product. More important than job title, starting out, is how a role exposes you to the innards of an industry, its decision makers, and its inefficiencies.)

Thanks 456 - that's some very good info.

Post: #14

(04-17-2015 05:25 PM)scotian Wrote:  My best year in the oil sands was around $150,000 and I still took three months off, since then I haven't worked much, last year I worked for five months and made six figures, I know lots of guys who work all year and make $250-350,000 but they work like dogs and I don't envy their lifestyle. I found a good work life balance that suits me and have no desire to make tons of money in the oil biz any longer, to me its just easy money that I make for a few months each year and will likely do so until I can figure out another way to make more money.

Yeah I thought that oil sands would come up, but that's not a "city job" tho.

Post: #15

(04-17-2015 05:14 PM)456 Wrote:  

(04-17-2015 05:08 PM)Gringuito Wrote:  Business owner/ Entrepreneur

Yeah, those are for granted! Some might say in NYC, one practically needs to be making that to even get started with one's own business. I interpret questions like the OP to be more like "how can a regular job make that much?"

Yeah exactly, I was thinking about regular jobs. I knwo that business owner/ entrepreneur can definitely make a lot of $$.

Post: #16

(04-17-2015 07:01 PM)Ice Wrote:  

(04-17-2015 05:25 PM)scotian Wrote:  My best year in the oil sands was around $150,000 and I still took three months off, since then I haven't worked much, last year I worked for five months and made six figures, I know lots of guys who work all year and make $250-350,000 but they work like dogs and I don't envy their lifestyle. I found a good work life balance that suits me and have no desire to make tons of money in the oil biz any longer, to me its just easy money that I make for a few months each year and will likely do so until I can figure out another way to make more money.

Yeah I thought that oil sands would come up, but that's not a "city job" tho.

I'm going to kill you.

Post: #17

(04-17-2015 05:39 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  Think about this..

Autoshop. 3 guys billing out @ 80 an hour 8 (if fast) per day. That's 240 per hour or $1920 per day that's 9.6k per week on 5 days then add in parts mark up at 30% or more. I sell about 4k in parts a week now but probably half during recession. Now if I was in a high traffic zone I could double this easy.

A/C. A 2.5 ton heat pump costs 1300 or so. Knock 1k mark up and 1k to install it and it takes about 5 hours. You have three AC vans driving around selling about 2 of them a week each + service calls.

Industrial heating (Furnaces) super high heat giant furnaces that need to be rebuilt or moved periodically. I moved one that the mark up on the rotted/burned stainless steel doors was 35k alone. 10k to drop them and 10k to put them back up in another location a total of 4 days work.

Quote:don't have time for hanging out on online forums

Yes we do.

Yeah that sounds definitely cool. But I'm guessing you are the owner of the auto shop right? So that would fall under entrepreneur / business owner.

Also, I wouldn't necessarily call auto shop work a "high end" job like surgery .. I was referring to prefessions like that when I said those guys wouldn't have time to hang out here. But it's cool, it sounds like you're def making some good $$. Especially if you own the place it's a great situation to be in.

Post: #18

(04-17-2015 07:07 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  

(04-17-2015 07:01 PM)Ice Wrote:  

(04-17-2015 05:25 PM)scotian Wrote:  

Yeah I thought that oil sands would come up, but that's not a "city job" tho.

I'm going to kill you.

lol

Post: #19

Ice

I guess it because of your age and social circle...

Off the top of my head some people i know who make more than 150k

>Verizon Union Rep
>Commercial Electrician
>NY State Trooper (Head of Department)
>Commercial Elevator Installations/repair
>Commercial Locksmith
>Nurse ( he works two jobs though 15 hours a day six days a week)
>Anesthesiologist
>Commercial Heat/ AC installation and repair
>Buyer for a major fashion store.
>Fashion Magazine Editor
>Broadway theater producer
>Ultra Highend A/V Installations in homes
>A/V installation for concerts and corporate events ( I did this in college )
>Live Concerts Producer.
>Commercial Fire Safety repair/Installations
>Air Quality testing
>High end Jewelry designer

Post: #20

I heard speech therapists can make $200k+.

I'm in finance. A lot of people in my office make well over $150k/year.

I met an EVP today and she probably makes over $2million a year. I only meet her once a year, she forgot who I was since it was the first time we had met in a year.

[EDIT] Engineers can easily clear $150k once they make manager level.

- Veterinarians, Dentists (but they are sometimes also business owners).
- Phlebotomists (people who draw blood at hospitals)
- Radiologist - my cousin does this. She worked at an HMO and they paid for her radiology degree, I think her overtime rate is $80/hr
- Pharmacists
- Pharmaceutical Sales rep - one of my distant cousins had a starting salary for this 10 years ago of $75k! No idea what she makes now, we're not close
- Coding - I know a guy programs apps for iphone who makes $250k+

Post: #21

(04-17-2015 07:57 PM)WalterBlack Wrote:  I heard speech therapists can make $200k+.

Yup.... that's what my aunt does...She was in school for ever though PHD and all.

Post: #22

I'm an IT consultant and I get anywhere from $70-80/hour, I've been making over 150k for the past few years. I regularly clock 40-50hours a week.

Post: #23

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.

Post: #24

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.

Post: #25

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.