Universal basic income and universal healthcare so I (and everybody else) don't have to worry about a job, being able to work, retirement, disability, and employers will have to offer meaning, increased quality of life, and actual respect to attract employees.
These social safety nets would be a huge win for worker's rights too. If you can tell a job to go fuck itself on the spot, they can't operate without treating people right.
UBI paid for by liquidating billionaires
UBI paid for by liquidatingliquifying billionaires
the logistics of this are a little iffy. People don't really melt, they burn
They don't need to be melted, they can be forced through a fine mesh instead.
We need to utilize the expertise of the hydraulic press channel for this task. Spaghettifying billionaires sounds very therapeutic.
You really can justify just about anything when you’re one of the good guys
They will be the luckiest of all.
Heat is not the only means of liquidation. If you apply sufficient pressure, they will indeed melt.
Take 1 trillion dollars from the billionaires in total, now distribute 1K to each person each month? Sounds great but you run out of money in only 3 months. Then what?
Sounds great but you run out of money in only 3 months. Then what?
We won't because billonairs don't hold the knowledge to run factories, they just monopolize infrastructure and collect a toll. We won't run out of money because the production is still there.
Then maybe our source of money should be that production, and not the personal wealth of billionaires?
Like, if you make a car that runs on diesel, and there’s a gallon of diesel in the world, you’ve made a car with 1 gallon of fuel.
If you make UBI that runs on the contents of billionaires’ bank accounts, and there’s three months’ worth of money in those bank accounts, you’ve made UBI that works for three months.
Enjoy the fruits of liberated market. /s
Honestly though you assume that the only value of liquidating assets from billionaires is getting their dollar amounts moved from on bank to another. There is a reasonable assumption that freeing up that capital to be enthusiastically invested or utilized to meet demands would provide more economic growth than it sitting in large hoards being spent in most risk adverse ways or in near total whimsy.
There is also a reasonable assumption that taking away people’s money would result in a decreased expected value from future money, leading to a decrease in the motivation to produce that we currently enjoy.
Let’s say a person goes from having nothing to having $1M in the bank. How does a person do that? Well, in a free market they do that by providing $1M worth of value to other people.
Should that person, who we know is capable of providing serious value, go on to try to have two million? It would be good for our society if they did, so we’d better hope they do.
But if our history includes a day when all the billionaires had everything taken from them, this means that they now have to ask themselves if there’s any danger of going over the threshold, become “evil” in the eye of society, and stripped of their rights.
Suddenly being rich is quite dangerous. It alters the incentives. Assuming a very straightforward connection between potential reward and motivation, it could be very bad for the economy to liquidate the richest people’s accounts.
It's a fairly ahistorical assumption that wealth accumulattion is done mostly through wealth creation. Anticompetitive practices, rent seeking, and maximize value extraction are all common practices for incumbent market leaders.
You basically create precedent to give away excessive wealth in order to influence it's effects on the world instead of reinvesting it purely in mechasms of control of wealth.
I earn enough, I'd rather just halve my hours.
And, did that work out for you?
The more money I make the sooner I can stop working.
So bigger salary = bigger happy. Always. There's no number that is "enough".
I enjoy my job, so working 20 more years isn't that onerous.
But I'd rather retire tomorrow than work for anyone else.
There’s no number that is “enough”.
A quadrillion dollars per minute ought to be enough for anybody.
See that means I would instantly retire, so I wouldn't be working.
You would work until you got your first paycheck. If it were a job that paid you under the table you could theoretically work a single shift. Best job ever.
Putting that much money into circulation would cause hyperinflation and then a gallon of milk would cost 10 quintillion dollars and you're back to square one.
Honestly? If I won the lottery today I would still work. I really really enjoy my work. It keeps me focused and motivated. My problem is having my livelyhood tied to the wims of a chaotic prideful coke filled VC
I remember a time when someone making "six figures" was extremely wealthy. Now six figures just seems to be the baseline for even having a chance at tackling home ownership in suburban areas. 120k is probably ideal. I don't likely need more than that and it should be enough to pay for a comfortable lifestyle.
Getting there is the tricky part.
120k what? Bananas per hour?
You are not as funny as you think you are.
I'm not trying to be funny. As a non-American am I supposed to assume that everyone is talking about US dollars? Why don't people just specify units?
Yes you are. Whether you like it or not, that's the default.
Says who?
OPEC
Says reality. Says the fact that you think you're trying to take a stand and having to tell people not to assume US default
It's the world reserve currency, it's a safe bet to assume it's USD when people are talking money unless specified otherwise
No, you're confused. K is the currency, they only need 120 of them.
the amount you need to make in order to afford the ever-fleeting american dream is about $140k right now. so I want 280k
I'm sorry but this can't be correct. I live within 30 minutes of two minor cities with plenty to do and me and my wife combined make around 100k. We live comfortably and have 50k in the bank in addition to retirement. We also have one kid. This is highly dependent on where you live. I am not saying the cost of housing,etc is not a problem but some of these numbers need to be put in context.
When did you purchase your housing (rough year range) if you don't mind?
That sounds awesome, but I live in low CoL area make more and feel like I'm just eaking by sometimes.
Genuinely curious, where does that number come from?
There was a questionable article written with that number not long ago. It's completely bullshit though.
I'll use my own experience as an example: I got approved for a mortgage of 125k (which is fairly low for my area, but there are still options) with the understanding that I'd be getting a house with a few issues that I can work on. My 30 year mortgage rate if I had managed to buy a house at that time would have been around 700 a month. If you double those numbers to 250k, 1400 a month and you earn 4x that amount your annual salary needs to be just under 70k.
Just for reference, there are a significant number of homes for sale for 250k or less, and I live in one of the top 10 most populated cities in the country.
$140k won't buy you a house in almost any even remotely popular city or its suburbs.
$140k per year is enough to afford a mortgage on a $500k house. You'd have to make crazy money to buy a house outright on a year's salary, so nobody evaluates it that way.
Is 500k a house to raise a family in or just a place to stay in?
In Boston, where I live? $500k is an unheated garage.
San Diego checking in. $500k is a shack in someone’s backyard. Fuck I love it here but damn sometimes I really don’t.
ok ok I exaggerate a little. But everything is crazy expensive here. Nice weather and beaches though. Get to surf every week. Can’t complain.
$500k houses don't exist in popular cities.
That's why I live way the hell out in the suburbs
Salary? No. Stipend, yes. Give me enough to comfortably live on and pursue interests and hobbies with no requirement for work. That's the closest money would get to making me happy.
UBI
DING DING DING DING
I am fine with my current salary. None of the problems I have are due to having too little money. It is more that I have hardly any time to spend that money and live a fairly lonely life. None of that would be fixed by a higher salary, which is why I have little motivation to try to get promoted.
I would suggest volunteering at animal shelters on your days off might help with the fairly lonely life. The one by me let's you check out dogs to go to the beach with and return.
Might be worth a job change to get better hours and similar or slightly lower income.
Money buys time friend
Not if it’s a salary
What?
Enough to cover my living expenses, working expenses, retirement fund, savings, etc. at about 8-12 hours of work/week.
For varying levels of retirement and savings, this is what non-agricultural humans have done for most of the history of our species.
Time travel has truly revolutionized our understanding of pre-civilized human culture.
If only there was some way to leave traces and/or study left traces. Would definitely cut down on all the time travel pollution
Bills plus car fuel and maintenance plus the cost of good quality food plus full coverage of medical insurance plus deductible (yay America) plus mortgage payments plus 10-20% on top of that.
Basically, cover the cost of very comfortable living and take the financial worry out of being alive.
Edit: echoing other comments, this would not make me happy directly. It would open up more possibilities to pursue the things in life that bring/grow happiness.
I'm happy with my salary.
I actually like my job, and the salary is enough for me and the rest of my household to live off of while making down-payments on the house and the car. Now, if only I was a happy person...
Enough that I didn't have to worry about not being able to pay rent and bills.
I want to live in a Star Trek Federation post-scarcity world. No need to work unless one wants to, no need for a salary. And that applies to everyone around me too.
ah no stress, no costs... perfect to increase the population and put more strain on the system.
I'll wait for you to solve the overpopulation crisis while giving us all a first-class work free experience.
Contraceptives and abortions available without shaming/criminalizing women and doctors. Boom. Next?
That won't stop population growth. Remember... the stress of work is gone. Now we all can have big happy families if we want without ANY pressure to ever juggle all those stressful conflicting priorities that take up familial resources. Voluntary contraception would not keep population stable or provide a sustainable ecosystem. I personally would have at least six kids. My wife would want more than that. You are free to be childless if you so choose of course, but statistically proven biological imperative drives us to procreate as-is, it's literally human nature.
The biggest problem will quite literally be real estate. Unless you can picture a fully urbanized earth where everyone lives in tiny little cubby holes and not much else as being some kind of utopia. Even then the land on earth is finite.
statistically proven biological imperative drives us to procreate
Eh? Why does birth rate drop in countries with top economies versus those that don't?
You wanting 6+ kids means nothing.
Eh? Why does birth rate drop in countries with top economies versus those that don’t?
Developed countries tend to have a lower fertility rate due to lifestyle choices associated with economic affluence where mortality rates are low, birth control is easily accessible and children often can become an economic drain caused by housing, education cost and other cost involved in bringing up children. Higher education and professional careers often mean that women have children late in life. This can result in a demographic economic paradox.sauce
In order to maintain that high quality of life you have to work a shitload and to get those high paying jobs you have to spend years of your life upskilling and competing for better jobs.
Remove the economic factor and give everyone that astounding QOL and boom... we can breed without worries of providing and we don't even have to stress about maintaining our QOL. We can all be stay at home parents who just raise our kids if we choose to.
I can't afford a 4-6+++ bedroom house in the Greater Boston area where my friends and family are without having soul-crushing long commute times. I need a commute because I need to work to put food on the table and pay for rent. Remove the barriers and keep at least even QOL and I will not work, i'll instead devote my time to doing literally anything else.
Missing a lot of other pieces from that same source:
In developing countries children are needed as a labour force and to provide care for their parents in old age. In these countries, fertility rates are higher due to the lack of access to contraceptives and generally lower levels of female education. The social structure, religious beliefs, economic prosperity and urbanisation within each country are likely to affect birth rates as well as abortion rates,
Also:
fertility rates of immigrants to the US have been found to decrease sharply in the second generation as a result of improving education and income.
Quite a bit there that contradicts your thesis of people moving to improved economic situations suddenly wanting 6+ kids and the population growing out of control. If people don't need kids for labor, don't need kids to support them in their old age, and women are educated and in control of their own bodies, there is reason to think the world might not even reach replacement rates.
We're talking about a potential utopia where education is available to everyone, not restricted to first world countries. If you bring everyone UP to western world QOL and they are educated, you have to consider it in that aspect.
The immigrant fertility rate thing is because they come from a place with low expected QOL so they don't think they need the american dream with air conditioning, going out to eat or having nice things and instead go with more kids because they were raised that way. The second generation gets used to say american QOL and wants to have those same nice things the neighbors have- after all they grow up in the american school system meeting other kids right?... so you need to work to get those high QOL things and suddenly you're in the situation I have described: needing more professional attainment to keep up the expected QOL and delaying children.
Does that make sense?
Do you have any kind of evidence showing that free of all financial constraints people will not have children in a mid-high COL area?
Do you have any evidence that free-from-labor and wholly financially stable people would want 6+ kids?
Billionaires basically live in a utopia now and they don't (generally) have 6+ kids. Musk is considered a weirdo and probably racist for wanting so many "genetically superior" offspring.
If we're gonna go to sci Fi then you could solve overpopulation with FTL travel, terraforming, and farming, and we'd just spread out across the galaxy and then galaxies until the universe experiences heat death, I assume that solves it.
“This transporter will help us solve overpopulation”
“How’s that work?”
“Stand right here”
Also like. Overpopulation isn't really an issue. Every country that has modernized and increased education, distribution of goods, and gained some sense of reasonable health care has seen a reduction in births
We'll all be long dead by the time interstellar travel is here for a handful of individuals, and we may even be dead before we find another planet that could be habitable in a million years time.
You're realistically targeting ultra-long-term solutions, all of which ignore the fact that we're trashing this one pristine planet right now by filling it with billions and billions of souls more than it can sustainably support.
Indeed, I'm just having fun, that'll never happen
The real solution is right under our noses. We need to shrink humanity.
Any hard science fiction clings to the fact that taking people off the earth is a luxury only afforded to the most influential and powerful, unless you have critical skills to do a job that they can't find with space residents.
Imagine what would be needed to ferry a million people off the earth in one year. Then imagine that there are 20-50 billion souls eager to have that luxury off-planet destination life. The math never adds up.
Imagine what it would have taken in 1800 to build an iphone. Now imagine there are hundreds of millions of people wanting that same luxury. The math doesn’t work out.
Not the same scale. If we had the same technology back then it would probably be possible, but the population has exploded since. If we still had 1/8th the people we might get that, but there's no way we can produce a billion iphones every time an upgrade comes along, let alone 8 billion.
Standards have to drop for real even equity compared to what we are used to in the west. This would be true even if we took everything from the top 10% (which globally seems to include nearly all of the US, even us middle class working peons.)
I mean not really no. Even without any artificial limits, as people gain education and move out of poverty, birth rates naturally go down.
In fact birth rates in some places are decreasing as we speak.
Allowing everyone access to education and a UBI would cut birth rates. Going below 1.5 or so would actually be undesirable.
People with the lowest income have the highest birth rate.
Seems to me like lots of wealth is the solution to the population crisis.
Also with Star Trek technology we can let people live in the holodeck.
Hey you guys, how for away do you think that mirage is?
Yep. One's lifestyle (almost) always expands to fit their means.
As soon as you make what feels "comfortable," you'll want another 10-20k.
Yep. It's much better to focus on your quality of life right now, while keeping an eye on the back of your head for the future but I saw so many people just sacrificing everything to get that extra 20% salary, without realising inflation catches up to it faster than you get raises.
I want the salary that allows me to be independent, take care of my family and have time to spend with them, and that doesn't involve crushing my soul. Living life as happy as possible right now is more important than whatever magical number you think will solve all your problems. Personally I'm trying to achieve that by being a freelance in a passion field.
It depends where you live but it was figured out to be about 110k a decade ago on average in the US. Where I live that sounds pretty close maybe 140. However, I am biased since I truly don't want to own a house. Would rather rent.
I really hated renting, I would rather pay someone to manage my own house than put up with landlords again
No amount will make me happy.
Once your basic needs are met, the equation becomes: Salary = Expenses + Savings. So, the questions becomes, how much savings makes you happy?
If you are happy to work in your job until "retirement age", a small savings rate will do, in theory; that is if the salary is adjusted for cost-of-living and tax.
Are you happy working this job for the rest of your life? Full time (whatever that means in your work culture)?
One that would leave me not thinking about it anymore
Laid back, with my mind on my honey and my honey on my mind
For me, other factors are much more important than the salary.
A tedious job with unpleasant colleagues would never make me happy, no matter how high the salary. On the other hand, if I had a job that was fun and had nice colleagues, I would be happy with a salary that only covered the essentials.
Also, I would rather have a salary that only covers the essentials for 30 hours a week than a salary twice as high for 60 hours a week. What good is money if I can never spend it?
There are more factors that are more important to me than the salary. How much physical labor is involved in the job? Do I have to work at night? Do I work shifts or do I have flexible working hours? Does the employer offer a pension plan? Are there any other benefits? Where would I have to work, close to friends and family or far away? ...
Yeah, there really isn't just one threshold value that would make me happy. More is better of course, but there are too many other factors.
Though it's probably worth mentioning that I don't have any children and don't plan on having any.
$1,000/week UBI.
a 1500monthly UBI would be life changing to a lot of people.
and probably allow people to meet basic needs if they cracked down on corporate greed and its fake inflation.
The inflation isn’t “fake” and it’s not a result of greed. The greed has always been there, during periods of hyperinflation and during periods of stability.
The thing that changed is the competition, which naturally counterbalances the greed, has been reduced during the pandemic.
I mean
It's not exactly a lot of money, but I would definitely stop working the stupid delivery job and just focus on education if I had that.
What would you like to be educated in?
I meant I'd keep working in education, but I would also keep seeking education of all sorts. IT and science mainly.
I live in a third world country, if I can get 3K USD per month I believe I'll pretty good.
we all know what they meant and we all know that they are
Words can convey negative connotations. Why perpetuate negative colloquialisms that serve to preserve hierarchies of world order? “Third World “ is a constructed designation meant to oppress. Stuff matters, even if it doesn’t to you.
I never said it didn't, this just isn't the right place and in this context it does not matter. It's a term we all know the meaning of and that's what's important.
I wouldn’t say I’m sorry for making you think about the context behind the meaning of words, but because you have had to spend so much energy on this, I apologize.
I don't have a solid answer.
Money alone isn't going to make me happy. Yeah, it removes a lot of one type of stress. But it can also be a trap. Like, I'm doing solidly okay in my job, but it's enough that I can't easily quit and start over in a different career, even though I stopped caring about this one a decade ago. And a high-paying job can come with a lot of other stressors, things that keep you working harder and longer hours than you otherwise would.
$100k would probably seem pretty good for a long time, given where I currently live. If I had to live in NYC, I'd probably say more like $500k.
Something like 100k€ would enable me to do all the traveling I want to do and simultaneously save up enough money for a comfortable early retirement. Currently I'm focussing more on having a job that isn't soul-crushingly stressful and full of overtime though.
A question like this could be an intro to a shady MLM pitch. Break the ice, get the conversation going and gain a sense of the range of numbers to make up for earnings examples.
Money has long ceased to provide happiness. >80% of my salary ends up in a savings account, no idea if I'll ever touch it.
Take a vacation
Oh I travel a lot, we get 30 days of paid leave. I've also changed countries for work 9 times over the last 22 years already, so you could say traveling is part of my work, in a sense. Travel doesn't really make a noticeable dent in my savings though.
Get into warhammer? 😂
Yeah that would be one way to get rid of excess money for sure... I could also develop a severe coke addiction, come to think of.
Out of curiosity, you able to share what you do for work? What little you’ve described sounds really interesting.
In the end it boils down to project management.
I've always tried to be more of a generalist than a specialist and wanted an international career. So I started with a vocational training as a banker, thinking that finance works pretty much the same all over the world. In Germany where I'm from originally you learn banking as a trade, not at university, so you basically work full time in a bank and attend classes at a vocational school for about 2.5 years and then graduate with a diploma in banking.
I've then started a bachelor's in business administration (again very generalist on purpose) in evening & weekend classes while continuing to work in the bank, and then by chance the university I attended opened a campus in Luxembourg. Since that's full of banks I just thought I'll try my luck and was eventually hired by a wealth management office there and could continue my degree more or less seamlessly (had to take one semester break for the local students to catch up).
In the job I did all kinds of stuff from back office, trade support, some customer facing roles, a bit of compliance and KYC, and eventually they asked me to support with a major IT implementation project since I had working knowledge of 2/3 of the inhouse departments, so that was my first stint into project work. Took about 2 years and was big fun.
By the time I was about to graduate I was however fed up with all the rich people and decided to try my luck at the opposite end of the spectrum, reached out to a ton of NGO's, development agencies etc., and eventually got a job as a project consultant for a microfinance holding operating local microfinance banks in Africa and Central Asia. They basically brought me on as domestic staff in the respective countries (Liberia, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar and Georgia) to implement projects locally. I'd take on operational roles during this period (head of finance, deputy COO, head of IT security...) to have the required local authority, and would after project implementation phase myself out and hand the project over to daily operations there. Typically I'd be 6 months - 2 years in country, depending on the complexity. At that time I also started to work on a part-time MBA, since in many countries it's getting harder and harder to receive a residence permit with only a bachelor's. Didn't aim for the stars here, I wanted a cheap and easy degree, and managed that in about 3 years.
Afterwards I joined the holding's head office and actually devised the projects and coordinate with other consultants in the target country to help them implement it, but that got boring soon. In my spare time I ventured into the medical field as I had seen a lot of crap down in Africa, got certified in medical entrepreneurship and ISO 13485 auditing (medical device quality management systems), and ultimately a German startup wanted to open a factory in China and approached me if I wanted to help set it up. They were basically looking for someone with entrepreneurial spirit and track record of succeeding in foreign countries, not really an industry expert as they had enough of those in-house.
So we've embarked on a fact finding mission in late 2017, and ever since early 2018 I've been living in China now, first as local CEO of the factory, and then doing what I always did - hiring teams, setting up facilities, and making myself redundant. I basically stepped down through the ranks from CEO over CTO and COO to regulatory director, then procurement manager and will soon leave China as a supply chain auditor. Which is ideal since I will only interact with suppliers, making me location independent. I'll essentially work from home or at the supplier's site from now on, and have chosen Malaysia as my new home starting April/May. Just waiting for the paperwork to be out.
I'll be a grossly overpaid auditor, basically... But they wouldn't dare cutting back after I was fundamental in setting things up to begin with :-)
1/3 median home price for area of employment.
I make 120k in a medium sized city where the median income is about 75k. I'm pretty content, tbh. I also don't buy shit i don't need. Most of my expenses are my hobbies. I do have a lot of hobbies. But I still make enough every two weeks where I'm able to stash it away in a savings account.
Now if I only knew how to and had the balls to invest beyond retirement accounts.
Investing tip #1: don't take advise from strangers on the Internet
Investing tip #2: get a zero commission trading app, like Fidelity or TD Ameritrade, and just squirrel away a bit of each paycheck/monthly/whatever into a low expense ratio, broad market ETF, like VOO (https://etfdb.com/etf/VOO/#etf-ticker-profile)
Start slow, but contribute regularly. Keep enough cash in the bank for emergencies, and don't bother even thinking about trying to "time the market" - just set it and forget it.
Yeah I think my issue had always been no knowledge of how to pick even the right etf. For example, how did you even land on that one?
Criteria for that one: low expense ratio, so you aren't losing (much) money to the fund manager, large market cap, so you are less succeptible to shock, and the ETF probably isn't going anywhere, and as a S&P 500 ETF, it holds stocks from all 500 businesses in the S&P 500 (weighted by the respective market cap of said businesses), so it's not tied to any single sector, making it more resilient for long-term investment.
$69420
No but seriously, about $70k would make me feel a lot better.
You'll make that easily on the west coast of the US. We have a lot of aerospace and green energy companies, startups and behemoths in the mix.
But... Rent is quite high.
I applied for several West Coast positions and was not even interviewed for them. I applied for literally over 300 positions in my field all over the country and got no offers, so at least for the near future, I have to conclude I'm unhirable. Most companies I applied to do not offer relocation assistance, so even if I was hirable then they would pick a West Coast local instead.
Hmm... Sounds like a "you gotta know someone" kind of thing. Are there any networking or trade events that could help? When was the last time you looked for an event?
I went to the college career fair twice last year as well as a co-op fair, and I'm going to the career fair again in February.
(sorry for the story)
I think I'm okay. So far I guess. I'm in my first job after grad school and am almost there a year. I was hired at 58,000 but they did an adjustment because retention was so poor and now I make 69,000.
When I was younger I always thought 70k would be the number I would be totally fine with but adjusted for inflation 70k then was a lot more than now.
I had been making about 10k a year before now working fast food while in school. It was a weird feeling for me because I was so happy to pretty much meet my "goal". I thought I would feel so rich after that jump. I have no lifestyle inflation because I live in the same place and drive the same shitty 500 dollar car I have for years.
But for some reason I feel just as poor as I always felt and it feels like nothing changed and it's not going as far as I thought it would. I thought it would be life changing. And it is I suppose but not like I thought.
I feel bad complaining when it's a privilege and many people make worse. Even I made less until recently. The entire system is just fucked and I feel bad for anyone who makes less than me because I still feel pressure and I don't even really have anything.
Sorry if this makes me sound like a piece of shit I'm not trying to come off this way
(sorry for the story)
All good; I'm usually on your side of this interaction.
But for some reason I feel just as poor as I always felt and it feels like nothing changed and it's not going as far as I thought it would.
I mean I made 15k a year doing fast food before I went back to school, and even that was hugely important for me to get my mental health in order. I can't go back now though; too much has changed, and I need to focus on grad school.
I feel bad complaining when it's a privilege and many people make worse.
Don't. It sucks that we have to work at all. You always have a right to vent and be an emotional human no matter how safe your situation actually is relative to others.
10,000,000 per year. I could stop working after 1 year and live off the interest and never have to worry about money again.
Even a million would be enough for me there. That would give me average yearly income of 70k. That would maintain my current level of living and I'd probably just keep getting wealthier still.
70k of what currency?
Any currency that you've invested a million worth of
Ten million of what currency?
USD. I am using the 4% rule that states you can withdraw 4% of you investments annually and never run out of money. This assumes an average 7% market return and has a buffer for inflation and fluctuations. 400k per year is about double of what my wife and I make, so it woild allow us to have a cushy lifestyle.
$13k/yr post tax, just depends on how much work I'd have to do for it
I reckon I'd have severely diminishing returns past 6 figures, and I would (and do) trade income for less hours with a better work environment well before that.
I'd be happy with 50k SEK/month after tax with the current inflation.
Anything over $100k is plenty to live, travel, and invest with if you don't plan on having kids. There's a point where it's time and experiences that are more valuable than the money, so I'd prefer fewer working hours or more engaging work than simply just salary increases. I'm certainly happy to receive bonuses and raises, but as an engineer who has never made under $100k/yr the money doesn't change anything about the way I live and enjoy life (note that I don't have expensive tastes and carefully watch for lifestyle creep).
There's a point where it's time and experiences that are more valuable than the money
I think what you mean is there’s a point where free time and experiences are more valuable than food and shelter.
Money isn’t balancing against these things. Money is the thing the brings you things of value. It’s not Money vs Y. It’s money spent on X vs money spent on Y.
I eat a lot of french fries. So maybe about 50lbs annually.
Happy as in "all absolutely necessary for survival bills are getting paid on time, all outstanding debts are getting paid down regularly, and I can afford to eat at a restaurant slightly above fast food grade once a month or so?"
$308,740/yr for the first year would do it.
After that I could probably look at halving the salary and live, if not comfortably, at least without constant worry.
Maybe start putting something away so I can retire before I hit 70.
Happiness doesn't come from money, but it sure would reduce stress.
around three fiddy
It isn't just the salary though. I am convinced that there is enough wealth to go around so nobody has to live in fear any more.
In the short term? $50k. Enough to get by and save for big purchases with enough left over to get a faster motorcycle.
In the long term? $100k. Enough to seriously save up for an actual house to live the American Dream.
$150k/year. Enough to afford the house I'm in and still have enough left to not have to worry about being short on any recurring bills. Note: I'm in California. Most other states and id be fine at 90-100k.
Yes
I could make what I have now if I just had a single family home with an acre for my kids to live in when I’m dead. That’s it.
None, what I need is UBI.
What if UBI was your salary for living under a system of laws
I get your point, but I disagree, because otherwise it wouldn't be universal.
300 million per week
5k€ (equivalent, inflation adjusted), per month
$80,000 / yr before taxes
I’m doing pretty good with $47k income right now. I would like to have a little more so I can grow my savings faster.
Enough that I'm not completely broke before my next paycheck.
Seriously, that's all it would take for me to be happy, a little bit of disposable income.
>5k gross
140k lets me start getting ahead properly and even start thinking about retirement.
200K so I'd be able to purchase a decent flat
The one I'm on is fine. I dont need more money to be happy. Safety and security matters a shitload more than material stuff, and unfortunately money doesnt guarantee those without a bunch of other lifestyle compromises
Honestly, I'd like to double mine (to about $400-500k AUD pa) and only work 40% meaning I'd be on about 175-ish.... and it'd be fine. Sadly I can't see it happening any time soon.
Edit: I know I'm doing well, but I find work super draining and would love to work part-time.
I don't care about the income. It's the costs are killing me.
If I could live without costs, that'd make me happy.
With income you can nullify those costs.
The day I got signed on for 120k was the day all my financial anxieties went away. I'm not rich by any means. My rent is still stupid high. My bills never stop coming in. But I can finally afford furniture. I can finally afford to visit my family when I want to. I don't worry about min-maxing at the grocery store. I'm not "happy" but it's the closest I've ever been
Being able to walk into a store and drop 50 dollars on something on rare occasion without having to have a panic attack and spend the day before doing in depth financial analysis and math, I cant imagine how much healthier my life would be without that stress.
120k what? Bananas per hour?
That is far too many bananas. You wouldn't even be able to sell them fast enough.
Bananas are for eating my friend
Congratulations! I’m surviving but without furniture lol.
I’ve got a little bit of disposable income, but just had to go out of network for a surgery because my insurance is weak.
I don’t really have financial worries either though. What’s weird is I make just under $50k now, but the most I ever made was $110k, and at that time I had financial stress. Now is the first time I’ve ever gotten off the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.
But my financial success currently stops at furniture, so I know exactly what you’re saying. I’ve got a futon, a 5x7 rug, a table, a dining chair, and an armchair. The futon and the rug are the only ones I paid for; the rest was free from craigslist. I carried that damn furniture for miles. Well I had a vehicle for the armchair.
Next thing, after my savings recovers from the surgery, is a 7x9 rug to fill the other half of my main living space, so I can cut down on the creaking boards. Then padding for under the rugs. Then finally another dining chair so I can invite someone over for dinner.
At current purchasing power, about 120k. Anything beyond that becomes nice to have, anything below and you're giving something up.
My plumber salary has been more than enough for me. I hope I can maintain it as self-employed aswell.
I'm already in the area of diminishing returns, where none of my daily problems are really money related. To have any significant impact I'd probably have to double my salary, so I could afford exotic cars and stuff like that.
You could hire a cleaner, pay to have your lawn mowed, take your clothes to be washed for you and afford to fly somewhere on vacation a few times a year. Those are luxuries that many people can't afford.
I see your point, but as another person pointed out, machines take care of lots of things. Washer/dryers and dishwashers are already ubiquitous. I work in IT so I wear t-shirts and jeans directly from the dryer, no ironing or anything else. We also have robot vacuums that can even wipe the floors. We don't have a lawn yet, but when we do we will get a robotic mower as well. And having a person cleaning up I think would teach the wrong things to our kids.
As for flying somewhere, we usually spend our vacations flying back to our families, so maybe that counts?
I think once you hit 6 figures (in Europe at least) there's very little extra "happiness" from higher salaries.
Robot mowers are pretty crappy. I'd recommend getting a nice zero turn instead, zip right through the lawn in no time and it's pretty fun.
Machines have handled some of that. A vacuum cleaner still takes time, but it's much faster than what came before, as with the washing machine...it's not really comparable to the situation a century ago. And you don't have to deal with random people having access to your house.
The lawn point is true, though the point of a lawn is kind of that it regenerates itself well, and unless you need something that you can run around on that repairs itself pretty quickly, you don't really need one. Also, in the US, grass lawns really a tradition inherited from England, where it makes a lot of sense in terms of climate...though in the US, some places are really not all that well-suited to it. In the Southwest in particular, even maintenance aside, it really makes more sense to do other forms of landscaping unless you really, seriously have use for a lawn. Though I guess it still can be helpful to have a gardener, even in much lower-maintenance stuff.
Flying costs something, but it's comparatively inexpensive these days compared to other forms of travel. I drove across the US a few years back when I had some free time -- admittedly, not trying to get across as quickly as possible -- and when you factor in hotel stays, fuel, and all that, even disregarding human time it's considerably cheaper to fly.
googles
Yeah, it's headed even further that way. Looks like I can fly from San Francisco to New York two weeks from now on Travelocity for $255 round-trip. The fuel alone for a car would run something like that.
That's not to say that there aren't luxuries out there to be had, just that I think that technology has helped spread out some past luxuries more-broadly.
Universal basic income and universal healthcare so I (and everybody else) don't have to worry about a job, being able to work, retirement, disability, and employers will have to offer meaning, increased quality of life, and actual respect to attract employees.
These social safety nets would be a huge win for worker's rights too. If you can tell a job to go fuck itself on the spot, they can't operate without treating people right.
UBI paid for by liquidating billionaires
the logistics of this are a little iffy. People don't really melt, they burn
They don't need to be melted, they can be forced through a fine mesh instead.
We need to utilize the expertise of the hydraulic press channel for this task. Spaghettifying billionaires sounds very therapeutic.
You really can justify just about anything when you’re one of the good guys
They will be the luckiest of all.
Heat is not the only means of liquidation. If you apply sufficient pressure, they will indeed melt.
Take 1 trillion dollars from the billionaires in total, now distribute 1K to each person each month? Sounds great but you run out of money in only 3 months. Then what?
We won't because billonairs don't hold the knowledge to run factories, they just monopolize infrastructure and collect a toll. We won't run out of money because the production is still there.
Then maybe our source of money should be that production, and not the personal wealth of billionaires?
Like, if you make a car that runs on diesel, and there’s a gallon of diesel in the world, you’ve made a car with 1 gallon of fuel.
If you make UBI that runs on the contents of billionaires’ bank accounts, and there’s three months’ worth of money in those bank accounts, you’ve made UBI that works for three months.
Enjoy the fruits of liberated market. /s Honestly though you assume that the only value of liquidating assets from billionaires is getting their dollar amounts moved from on bank to another. There is a reasonable assumption that freeing up that capital to be enthusiastically invested or utilized to meet demands would provide more economic growth than it sitting in large hoards being spent in most risk adverse ways or in near total whimsy.
There is also a reasonable assumption that taking away people’s money would result in a decreased expected value from future money, leading to a decrease in the motivation to produce that we currently enjoy.
Let’s say a person goes from having nothing to having $1M in the bank. How does a person do that? Well, in a free market they do that by providing $1M worth of value to other people.
Should that person, who we know is capable of providing serious value, go on to try to have two million? It would be good for our society if they did, so we’d better hope they do.
But if our history includes a day when all the billionaires had everything taken from them, this means that they now have to ask themselves if there’s any danger of going over the threshold, become “evil” in the eye of society, and stripped of their rights.
Suddenly being rich is quite dangerous. It alters the incentives. Assuming a very straightforward connection between potential reward and motivation, it could be very bad for the economy to liquidate the richest people’s accounts.
It's a fairly ahistorical assumption that wealth accumulattion is done mostly through wealth creation. Anticompetitive practices, rent seeking, and maximize value extraction are all common practices for incumbent market leaders.
You basically create precedent to give away excessive wealth in order to influence it's effects on the world instead of reinvesting it purely in mechasms of control of wealth.
I earn enough, I'd rather just halve my hours.
And, did that work out for you?
The more money I make the sooner I can stop working.
So bigger salary = bigger happy. Always. There's no number that is "enough".
I enjoy my job, so working 20 more years isn't that onerous.
But I'd rather retire tomorrow than work for anyone else.
A quadrillion dollars per minute ought to be enough for anybody.
See that means I would instantly retire, so I wouldn't be working.
You would work until you got your first paycheck. If it were a job that paid you under the table you could theoretically work a single shift. Best job ever.
Putting that much money into circulation would cause hyperinflation and then a gallon of milk would cost 10 quintillion dollars and you're back to square one.
Honestly? If I won the lottery today I would still work. I really really enjoy my work. It keeps me focused and motivated. My problem is having my livelyhood tied to the wims of a chaotic prideful coke filled VC
I remember a time when someone making "six figures" was extremely wealthy. Now six figures just seems to be the baseline for even having a chance at tackling home ownership in suburban areas. 120k is probably ideal. I don't likely need more than that and it should be enough to pay for a comfortable lifestyle.
Getting there is the tricky part.
120k what? Bananas per hour?
You are not as funny as you think you are.
I'm not trying to be funny. As a non-American am I supposed to assume that everyone is talking about US dollars? Why don't people just specify units?
Yes you are. Whether you like it or not, that's the default.
Says who?
OPEC
Says reality. Says the fact that you think you're trying to take a stand and having to tell people not to assume US default
It's the world reserve currency, it's a safe bet to assume it's USD when people are talking money unless specified otherwise
No, you're confused. K is the currency, they only need 120 of them.
the amount you need to make in order to afford the ever-fleeting american dream is about $140k right now. so I want 280k
I'm sorry but this can't be correct. I live within 30 minutes of two minor cities with plenty to do and me and my wife combined make around 100k. We live comfortably and have 50k in the bank in addition to retirement. We also have one kid. This is highly dependent on where you live. I am not saying the cost of housing,etc is not a problem but some of these numbers need to be put in context.
When did you purchase your housing (rough year range) if you don't mind?
That sounds awesome, but I live in low CoL area make more and feel like I'm just eaking by sometimes.
Genuinely curious, where does that number come from?
There was a questionable article written with that number not long ago. It's completely bullshit though.
I'll use my own experience as an example: I got approved for a mortgage of 125k (which is fairly low for my area, but there are still options) with the understanding that I'd be getting a house with a few issues that I can work on. My 30 year mortgage rate if I had managed to buy a house at that time would have been around 700 a month. If you double those numbers to 250k, 1400 a month and you earn 4x that amount your annual salary needs to be just under 70k.
Just for reference, there are a significant number of homes for sale for 250k or less, and I live in one of the top 10 most populated cities in the country.
$140k won't buy you a house in almost any even remotely popular city or its suburbs.
$140k per year is enough to afford a mortgage on a $500k house. You'd have to make crazy money to buy a house outright on a year's salary, so nobody evaluates it that way.
Is 500k a house to raise a family in or just a place to stay in?
In Boston, where I live? $500k is an unheated garage.
San Diego checking in. $500k is a shack in someone’s backyard. Fuck I love it here but damn sometimes I really don’t.
ok ok I exaggerate a little. But everything is crazy expensive here. Nice weather and beaches though. Get to surf every week. Can’t complain.
$500k houses don't exist in popular cities.
That's why I live way the hell out in the suburbs
Salary? No. Stipend, yes. Give me enough to comfortably live on and pursue interests and hobbies with no requirement for work. That's the closest money would get to making me happy.
UBI
DING DING DING DING
I am fine with my current salary. None of the problems I have are due to having too little money. It is more that I have hardly any time to spend that money and live a fairly lonely life. None of that would be fixed by a higher salary, which is why I have little motivation to try to get promoted.
I would suggest volunteering at animal shelters on your days off might help with the fairly lonely life. The one by me let's you check out dogs to go to the beach with and return.
Might be worth a job change to get better hours and similar or slightly lower income.
Money buys time friend
Not if it’s a salary
What?
Enough to cover my living expenses, working expenses, retirement fund, savings, etc. at about 8-12 hours of work/week.
For varying levels of retirement and savings, this is what non-agricultural humans have done for most of the history of our species.
Time travel has truly revolutionized our understanding of pre-civilized human culture.
If only there was some way to leave traces and/or study left traces. Would definitely cut down on all the time travel pollution
Bills plus car fuel and maintenance plus the cost of good quality food plus full coverage of medical insurance plus deductible (yay America) plus mortgage payments plus 10-20% on top of that.
Basically, cover the cost of very comfortable living and take the financial worry out of being alive.
Edit: echoing other comments, this would not make me happy directly. It would open up more possibilities to pursue the things in life that bring/grow happiness.
I'm happy with my salary.
I actually like my job, and the salary is enough for me and the rest of my household to live off of while making down-payments on the house and the car. Now, if only I was a happy person...
Hey this sounds like me
Enough that I didn't have to worry about not being able to pay rent and bills.
I want to live in a Star Trek Federation post-scarcity world. No need to work unless one wants to, no need for a salary. And that applies to everyone around me too.
ah no stress, no costs... perfect to increase the population and put more strain on the system.
I'll wait for you to solve the overpopulation crisis while giving us all a first-class work free experience.
Contraceptives and abortions available without shaming/criminalizing women and doctors. Boom. Next?
That won't stop population growth. Remember... the stress of work is gone. Now we all can have big happy families if we want without ANY pressure to ever juggle all those stressful conflicting priorities that take up familial resources. Voluntary contraception would not keep population stable or provide a sustainable ecosystem. I personally would have at least six kids. My wife would want more than that. You are free to be childless if you so choose of course, but statistically proven biological imperative drives us to procreate as-is, it's literally human nature.
The biggest problem will quite literally be real estate. Unless you can picture a fully urbanized earth where everyone lives in tiny little cubby holes and not much else as being some kind of utopia. Even then the land on earth is finite.
Eh? Why does birth rate drop in countries with top economies versus those that don't?
You wanting 6+ kids means nothing.
Developed countries tend to have a lower fertility rate due to lifestyle choices associated with economic affluence where mortality rates are low, birth control is easily accessible and children often can become an economic drain caused by housing, education cost and other cost involved in bringing up children. Higher education and professional careers often mean that women have children late in life. This can result in a demographic economic paradox. sauce
In order to maintain that high quality of life you have to work a shitload and to get those high paying jobs you have to spend years of your life upskilling and competing for better jobs.
Remove the economic factor and give everyone that astounding QOL and boom... we can breed without worries of providing and we don't even have to stress about maintaining our QOL. We can all be stay at home parents who just raise our kids if we choose to.
I can't afford a 4-6+++ bedroom house in the Greater Boston area where my friends and family are without having soul-crushing long commute times. I need a commute because I need to work to put food on the table and pay for rent. Remove the barriers and keep at least even QOL and I will not work, i'll instead devote my time to doing literally anything else.
Missing a lot of other pieces from that same source:
Also:
Quite a bit there that contradicts your thesis of people moving to improved economic situations suddenly wanting 6+ kids and the population growing out of control. If people don't need kids for labor, don't need kids to support them in their old age, and women are educated and in control of their own bodies, there is reason to think the world might not even reach replacement rates.
We're talking about a potential utopia where education is available to everyone, not restricted to first world countries. If you bring everyone UP to western world QOL and they are educated, you have to consider it in that aspect.
The immigrant fertility rate thing is because they come from a place with low expected QOL so they don't think they need the american dream with air conditioning, going out to eat or having nice things and instead go with more kids because they were raised that way. The second generation gets used to say american QOL and wants to have those same nice things the neighbors have- after all they grow up in the american school system meeting other kids right?... so you need to work to get those high QOL things and suddenly you're in the situation I have described: needing more professional attainment to keep up the expected QOL and delaying children.
Does that make sense?
Do you have any kind of evidence showing that free of all financial constraints people will not have children in a mid-high COL area?
Do you have any evidence that free-from-labor and wholly financially stable people would want 6+ kids?
Billionaires basically live in a utopia now and they don't (generally) have 6+ kids. Musk is considered a weirdo and probably racist for wanting so many "genetically superior" offspring.
If we're gonna go to sci Fi then you could solve overpopulation with FTL travel, terraforming, and farming, and we'd just spread out across the galaxy and then galaxies until the universe experiences heat death, I assume that solves it.
“This transporter will help us solve overpopulation”
“How’s that work?”
“Stand right here”
Also like. Overpopulation isn't really an issue. Every country that has modernized and increased education, distribution of goods, and gained some sense of reasonable health care has seen a reduction in births
We'll all be long dead by the time interstellar travel is here for a handful of individuals, and we may even be dead before we find another planet that could be habitable in a million years time.
You're realistically targeting ultra-long-term solutions, all of which ignore the fact that we're trashing this one pristine planet right now by filling it with billions and billions of souls more than it can sustainably support.
Indeed, I'm just having fun, that'll never happen
The real solution is right under our noses. We need to shrink humanity.
Any hard science fiction clings to the fact that taking people off the earth is a luxury only afforded to the most influential and powerful, unless you have critical skills to do a job that they can't find with space residents.
Imagine what would be needed to ferry a million people off the earth in one year. Then imagine that there are 20-50 billion souls eager to have that luxury off-planet destination life. The math never adds up.
Imagine what it would have taken in 1800 to build an iphone. Now imagine there are hundreds of millions of people wanting that same luxury. The math doesn’t work out.
Not the same scale. If we had the same technology back then it would probably be possible, but the population has exploded since. If we still had 1/8th the people we might get that, but there's no way we can produce a billion iphones every time an upgrade comes along, let alone 8 billion.
Standards have to drop for real even equity compared to what we are used to in the west. This would be true even if we took everything from the top 10% (which globally seems to include nearly all of the US, even us middle class working peons.)
I mean not really no. Even without any artificial limits, as people gain education and move out of poverty, birth rates naturally go down.
In fact birth rates in some places are decreasing as we speak.
Allowing everyone access to education and a UBI would cut birth rates. Going below 1.5 or so would actually be undesirable.
People with the lowest income have the highest birth rate.
Seems to me like lots of wealth is the solution to the population crisis.
Also with Star Trek technology we can let people live in the holodeck.
Hey you guys, how for away do you think that mirage is?
Yep. One's lifestyle (almost) always expands to fit their means.
As soon as you make what feels "comfortable," you'll want another 10-20k.
Yep. It's much better to focus on your quality of life right now, while keeping an eye on the back of your head for the future but I saw so many people just sacrificing everything to get that extra 20% salary, without realising inflation catches up to it faster than you get raises.
I want the salary that allows me to be independent, take care of my family and have time to spend with them, and that doesn't involve crushing my soul. Living life as happy as possible right now is more important than whatever magical number you think will solve all your problems. Personally I'm trying to achieve that by being a freelance in a passion field.
It depends where you live but it was figured out to be about 110k a decade ago on average in the US. Where I live that sounds pretty close maybe 140. However, I am biased since I truly don't want to own a house. Would rather rent.
I really hated renting, I would rather pay someone to manage my own house than put up with landlords again
No amount will make me happy.
Once your basic needs are met, the equation becomes: Salary = Expenses + Savings. So, the questions becomes, how much savings makes you happy?
If you are happy to work in your job until "retirement age", a small savings rate will do, in theory; that is if the salary is adjusted for cost-of-living and tax.
Are you happy working this job for the rest of your life? Full time (whatever that means in your work culture)?
One that would leave me not thinking about it anymore
Laid back, with my mind on my honey and my honey on my mind
For me, other factors are much more important than the salary.
A tedious job with unpleasant colleagues would never make me happy, no matter how high the salary. On the other hand, if I had a job that was fun and had nice colleagues, I would be happy with a salary that only covered the essentials.
Also, I would rather have a salary that only covers the essentials for 30 hours a week than a salary twice as high for 60 hours a week. What good is money if I can never spend it?
There are more factors that are more important to me than the salary. How much physical labor is involved in the job? Do I have to work at night? Do I work shifts or do I have flexible working hours? Does the employer offer a pension plan? Are there any other benefits? Where would I have to work, close to friends and family or far away? ...
Yeah, there really isn't just one threshold value that would make me happy. More is better of course, but there are too many other factors.
Though it's probably worth mentioning that I don't have any children and don't plan on having any.
$1,000/week UBI.
a 1500monthly UBI would be life changing to a lot of people.
and probably allow people to meet basic needs if they cracked down on corporate greed and its fake inflation.
The inflation isn’t “fake” and it’s not a result of greed. The greed has always been there, during periods of hyperinflation and during periods of stability.
The thing that changed is the competition, which naturally counterbalances the greed, has been reduced during the pandemic.
I mean
It's not exactly a lot of money, but I would definitely stop working the stupid delivery job and just focus on education if I had that.
What would you like to be educated in?
I meant I'd keep working in education, but I would also keep seeking education of all sorts. IT and science mainly.
I live in a third world country, if I can get 3K USD per month I believe I'll pretty good.
Third world countries don’t exist. You’re being over-exploited.
we all know what they meant and we all know that they are
Words can convey negative connotations. Why perpetuate negative colloquialisms that serve to preserve hierarchies of world order? “Third World “ is a constructed designation meant to oppress. Stuff matters, even if it doesn’t to you.
I never said it didn't, this just isn't the right place and in this context it does not matter. It's a term we all know the meaning of and that's what's important.
I wouldn’t say I’m sorry for making you think about the context behind the meaning of words, but because you have had to spend so much energy on this, I apologize.
I don't have a solid answer.
Money alone isn't going to make me happy. Yeah, it removes a lot of one type of stress. But it can also be a trap. Like, I'm doing solidly okay in my job, but it's enough that I can't easily quit and start over in a different career, even though I stopped caring about this one a decade ago. And a high-paying job can come with a lot of other stressors, things that keep you working harder and longer hours than you otherwise would.
$100k would probably seem pretty good for a long time, given where I currently live. If I had to live in NYC, I'd probably say more like $500k.
Something like 100k€ would enable me to do all the traveling I want to do and simultaneously save up enough money for a comfortable early retirement. Currently I'm focussing more on having a job that isn't soul-crushingly stressful and full of overtime though.
A question like this could be an intro to a shady MLM pitch. Break the ice, get the conversation going and gain a sense of the range of numbers to make up for earnings examples.
Money has long ceased to provide happiness. >80% of my salary ends up in a savings account, no idea if I'll ever touch it.
Take a vacation
Oh I travel a lot, we get 30 days of paid leave. I've also changed countries for work 9 times over the last 22 years already, so you could say traveling is part of my work, in a sense. Travel doesn't really make a noticeable dent in my savings though.
Get into warhammer? 😂
Yeah that would be one way to get rid of excess money for sure... I could also develop a severe coke addiction, come to think of.
Out of curiosity, you able to share what you do for work? What little you’ve described sounds really interesting.
In the end it boils down to project management.
I've always tried to be more of a generalist than a specialist and wanted an international career. So I started with a vocational training as a banker, thinking that finance works pretty much the same all over the world. In Germany where I'm from originally you learn banking as a trade, not at university, so you basically work full time in a bank and attend classes at a vocational school for about 2.5 years and then graduate with a diploma in banking.
I've then started a bachelor's in business administration (again very generalist on purpose) in evening & weekend classes while continuing to work in the bank, and then by chance the university I attended opened a campus in Luxembourg. Since that's full of banks I just thought I'll try my luck and was eventually hired by a wealth management office there and could continue my degree more or less seamlessly (had to take one semester break for the local students to catch up).
In the job I did all kinds of stuff from back office, trade support, some customer facing roles, a bit of compliance and KYC, and eventually they asked me to support with a major IT implementation project since I had working knowledge of 2/3 of the inhouse departments, so that was my first stint into project work. Took about 2 years and was big fun.
By the time I was about to graduate I was however fed up with all the rich people and decided to try my luck at the opposite end of the spectrum, reached out to a ton of NGO's, development agencies etc., and eventually got a job as a project consultant for a microfinance holding operating local microfinance banks in Africa and Central Asia. They basically brought me on as domestic staff in the respective countries (Liberia, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar and Georgia) to implement projects locally. I'd take on operational roles during this period (head of finance, deputy COO, head of IT security...) to have the required local authority, and would after project implementation phase myself out and hand the project over to daily operations there. Typically I'd be 6 months - 2 years in country, depending on the complexity. At that time I also started to work on a part-time MBA, since in many countries it's getting harder and harder to receive a residence permit with only a bachelor's. Didn't aim for the stars here, I wanted a cheap and easy degree, and managed that in about 3 years.
Afterwards I joined the holding's head office and actually devised the projects and coordinate with other consultants in the target country to help them implement it, but that got boring soon. In my spare time I ventured into the medical field as I had seen a lot of crap down in Africa, got certified in medical entrepreneurship and ISO 13485 auditing (medical device quality management systems), and ultimately a German startup wanted to open a factory in China and approached me if I wanted to help set it up. They were basically looking for someone with entrepreneurial spirit and track record of succeeding in foreign countries, not really an industry expert as they had enough of those in-house.
So we've embarked on a fact finding mission in late 2017, and ever since early 2018 I've been living in China now, first as local CEO of the factory, and then doing what I always did - hiring teams, setting up facilities, and making myself redundant. I basically stepped down through the ranks from CEO over CTO and COO to regulatory director, then procurement manager and will soon leave China as a supply chain auditor. Which is ideal since I will only interact with suppliers, making me location independent. I'll essentially work from home or at the supplier's site from now on, and have chosen Malaysia as my new home starting April/May. Just waiting for the paperwork to be out.
I'll be a grossly overpaid auditor, basically... But they wouldn't dare cutting back after I was fundamental in setting things up to begin with :-)
1/3 median home price for area of employment.
I make 120k in a medium sized city where the median income is about 75k. I'm pretty content, tbh. I also don't buy shit i don't need. Most of my expenses are my hobbies. I do have a lot of hobbies. But I still make enough every two weeks where I'm able to stash it away in a savings account.
Now if I only knew how to and had the balls to invest beyond retirement accounts.
Investing tip #1: don't take advise from strangers on the Internet
Investing tip #2: get a zero commission trading app, like Fidelity or TD Ameritrade, and just squirrel away a bit of each paycheck/monthly/whatever into a low expense ratio, broad market ETF, like VOO (https://etfdb.com/etf/VOO/#etf-ticker-profile)
Start slow, but contribute regularly. Keep enough cash in the bank for emergencies, and don't bother even thinking about trying to "time the market" - just set it and forget it.
Yeah I think my issue had always been no knowledge of how to pick even the right etf. For example, how did you even land on that one?
Criteria for that one: low expense ratio, so you aren't losing (much) money to the fund manager, large market cap, so you are less succeptible to shock, and the ETF probably isn't going anywhere, and as a S&P 500 ETF, it holds stocks from all 500 businesses in the S&P 500 (weighted by the respective market cap of said businesses), so it's not tied to any single sector, making it more resilient for long-term investment.
$69420
No but seriously, about $70k would make me feel a lot better.
You'll make that easily on the west coast of the US. We have a lot of aerospace and green energy companies, startups and behemoths in the mix.
But... Rent is quite high.
I applied for several West Coast positions and was not even interviewed for them. I applied for literally over 300 positions in my field all over the country and got no offers, so at least for the near future, I have to conclude I'm unhirable. Most companies I applied to do not offer relocation assistance, so even if I was hirable then they would pick a West Coast local instead.
Hmm... Sounds like a "you gotta know someone" kind of thing. Are there any networking or trade events that could help? When was the last time you looked for an event?
I went to the college career fair twice last year as well as a co-op fair, and I'm going to the career fair again in February.
(sorry for the story)
I think I'm okay. So far I guess. I'm in my first job after grad school and am almost there a year. I was hired at 58,000 but they did an adjustment because retention was so poor and now I make 69,000.
When I was younger I always thought 70k would be the number I would be totally fine with but adjusted for inflation 70k then was a lot more than now.
I had been making about 10k a year before now working fast food while in school. It was a weird feeling for me because I was so happy to pretty much meet my "goal". I thought I would feel so rich after that jump. I have no lifestyle inflation because I live in the same place and drive the same shitty 500 dollar car I have for years.
But for some reason I feel just as poor as I always felt and it feels like nothing changed and it's not going as far as I thought it would. I thought it would be life changing. And it is I suppose but not like I thought.
I feel bad complaining when it's a privilege and many people make worse. Even I made less until recently. The entire system is just fucked and I feel bad for anyone who makes less than me because I still feel pressure and I don't even really have anything.
Sorry if this makes me sound like a piece of shit I'm not trying to come off this way
All good; I'm usually on your side of this interaction.
I mean I made 15k a year doing fast food before I went back to school, and even that was hugely important for me to get my mental health in order. I can't go back now though; too much has changed, and I need to focus on grad school.
Don't. It sucks that we have to work at all. You always have a right to vent and be an emotional human no matter how safe your situation actually is relative to others.
10,000,000 per year. I could stop working after 1 year and live off the interest and never have to worry about money again.
Even a million would be enough for me there. That would give me average yearly income of 70k. That would maintain my current level of living and I'd probably just keep getting wealthier still.
70k of what currency?
Any currency that you've invested a million worth of
Ten million of what currency?
USD. I am using the 4% rule that states you can withdraw 4% of you investments annually and never run out of money. This assumes an average 7% market return and has a buffer for inflation and fluctuations. 400k per year is about double of what my wife and I make, so it woild allow us to have a cushy lifestyle.
$13k/yr post tax, just depends on how much work I'd have to do for it
I reckon I'd have severely diminishing returns past 6 figures, and I would (and do) trade income for less hours with a better work environment well before that.
I'd be happy with 50k SEK/month after tax with the current inflation.
Anything over $100k is plenty to live, travel, and invest with if you don't plan on having kids. There's a point where it's time and experiences that are more valuable than the money, so I'd prefer fewer working hours or more engaging work than simply just salary increases. I'm certainly happy to receive bonuses and raises, but as an engineer who has never made under $100k/yr the money doesn't change anything about the way I live and enjoy life (note that I don't have expensive tastes and carefully watch for lifestyle creep).
I think what you mean is there’s a point where free time and experiences are more valuable than food and shelter.
Money isn’t balancing against these things. Money is the thing the brings you things of value. It’s not Money vs Y. It’s money spent on X vs money spent on Y.
I eat a lot of french fries. So maybe about 50lbs annually.
Happy as in "all absolutely necessary for survival bills are getting paid on time, all outstanding debts are getting paid down regularly, and I can afford to eat at a restaurant slightly above fast food grade once a month or so?"
$308,740/yr for the first year would do it.
After that I could probably look at halving the salary and live, if not comfortably, at least without constant worry.
Maybe start putting something away so I can retire before I hit 70.
Happiness doesn't come from money, but it sure would reduce stress.
around three fiddy
It isn't just the salary though. I am convinced that there is enough wealth to go around so nobody has to live in fear any more.
In the short term? $50k. Enough to get by and save for big purchases with enough left over to get a faster motorcycle.
In the long term? $100k. Enough to seriously save up for an actual house to live the American Dream.
$150k/year. Enough to afford the house I'm in and still have enough left to not have to worry about being short on any recurring bills. Note: I'm in California. Most other states and id be fine at 90-100k.
Yes
I could make what I have now if I just had a single family home with an acre for my kids to live in when I’m dead. That’s it.
None, what I need is UBI.
What if UBI was your salary for living under a system of laws
I get your point, but I disagree, because otherwise it wouldn't be universal.
300 million per week
5k€ (equivalent, inflation adjusted), per month
$80,000 / yr before taxes
I’m doing pretty good with $47k income right now. I would like to have a little more so I can grow my savings faster.
Enough that I'm not completely broke before my next paycheck.
Seriously, that's all it would take for me to be happy, a little bit of disposable income.
>5k gross
140k lets me start getting ahead properly and even start thinking about retirement.
200K so I'd be able to purchase a decent flat
The one I'm on is fine. I dont need more money to be happy. Safety and security matters a shitload more than material stuff, and unfortunately money doesnt guarantee those without a bunch of other lifestyle compromises
Honestly, I'd like to double mine (to about $400-500k AUD pa) and only work 40% meaning I'd be on about 175-ish.... and it'd be fine. Sadly I can't see it happening any time soon.
Edit: I know I'm doing well, but I find work super draining and would love to work part-time.
I don't care about the income. It's the costs are killing me. If I could live without costs, that'd make me happy.
With income you can nullify those costs.
The day I got signed on for 120k was the day all my financial anxieties went away. I'm not rich by any means. My rent is still stupid high. My bills never stop coming in. But I can finally afford furniture. I can finally afford to visit my family when I want to. I don't worry about min-maxing at the grocery store. I'm not "happy" but it's the closest I've ever been
Being able to walk into a store and drop 50 dollars on something on rare occasion without having to have a panic attack and spend the day before doing in depth financial analysis and math, I cant imagine how much healthier my life would be without that stress.
120k what? Bananas per hour?
That is far too many bananas. You wouldn't even be able to sell them fast enough.
Bananas are for eating my friend
Congratulations! I’m surviving but without furniture lol.
I’ve got a little bit of disposable income, but just had to go out of network for a surgery because my insurance is weak.
I don’t really have financial worries either though. What’s weird is I make just under $50k now, but the most I ever made was $110k, and at that time I had financial stress. Now is the first time I’ve ever gotten off the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.
But my financial success currently stops at furniture, so I know exactly what you’re saying. I’ve got a futon, a 5x7 rug, a table, a dining chair, and an armchair. The futon and the rug are the only ones I paid for; the rest was free from craigslist. I carried that damn furniture for miles. Well I had a vehicle for the armchair.
Next thing, after my savings recovers from the surgery, is a 7x9 rug to fill the other half of my main living space, so I can cut down on the creaking boards. Then padding for under the rugs. Then finally another dining chair so I can invite someone over for dinner.
At current purchasing power, about 120k. Anything beyond that becomes nice to have, anything below and you're giving something up.
My plumber salary has been more than enough for me. I hope I can maintain it as self-employed aswell.
I'm already in the area of diminishing returns, where none of my daily problems are really money related. To have any significant impact I'd probably have to double my salary, so I could afford exotic cars and stuff like that.
You could hire a cleaner, pay to have your lawn mowed, take your clothes to be washed for you and afford to fly somewhere on vacation a few times a year. Those are luxuries that many people can't afford.
I see your point, but as another person pointed out, machines take care of lots of things. Washer/dryers and dishwashers are already ubiquitous. I work in IT so I wear t-shirts and jeans directly from the dryer, no ironing or anything else. We also have robot vacuums that can even wipe the floors. We don't have a lawn yet, but when we do we will get a robotic mower as well. And having a person cleaning up I think would teach the wrong things to our kids.
As for flying somewhere, we usually spend our vacations flying back to our families, so maybe that counts?
I think once you hit 6 figures (in Europe at least) there's very little extra "happiness" from higher salaries.
Robot mowers are pretty crappy. I'd recommend getting a nice zero turn instead, zip right through the lawn in no time and it's pretty fun.
Machines have handled some of that. A vacuum cleaner still takes time, but it's much faster than what came before, as with the washing machine...it's not really comparable to the situation a century ago. And you don't have to deal with random people having access to your house.
The lawn point is true, though the point of a lawn is kind of that it regenerates itself well, and unless you need something that you can run around on that repairs itself pretty quickly, you don't really need one. Also, in the US, grass lawns really a tradition inherited from England, where it makes a lot of sense in terms of climate...though in the US, some places are really not all that well-suited to it. In the Southwest in particular, even maintenance aside, it really makes more sense to do other forms of landscaping unless you really, seriously have use for a lawn. Though I guess it still can be helpful to have a gardener, even in much lower-maintenance stuff.
Flying costs something, but it's comparatively inexpensive these days compared to other forms of travel. I drove across the US a few years back when I had some free time -- admittedly, not trying to get across as quickly as possible -- and when you factor in hotel stays, fuel, and all that, even disregarding human time it's considerably cheaper to fly.
googles
Yeah, it's headed even further that way. Looks like I can fly from San Francisco to New York two weeks from now on Travelocity for $255 round-trip. The fuel alone for a car would run something like that.
That's not to say that there aren't luxuries out there to be had, just that I think that technology has helped spread out some past luxuries more-broadly.