No offence but the average salary is abt $90000 for what you do. The IT people in permanent jobs with even 10-15 years of experience make less than $130k. I have a friend in NYC with the job title you mentioned , works for BLOOMBERG from Columbia Business school, makes around $130k with 11 years of experience. If you look at data, only 1.2% makes more than 250k in the US---this is for HH as per IRS data. You might make as much you have mentioned, no dispute there but I am just stating the fact here in terms of salary
Again, I do not compare myself with average folks when it comes to career. I remind myself every now and then, I came here for only one reason. Every immigrant probably did. Do wanna make as much as possible before I choose to board the ship. I am not looking to settle down here. Everytime I go to India I feel I need an extra zero. I spend close to 7 weeks every year in desh. But now I have realised greed is never ending. What I have might be enough. It does not mean that I hang around with only successful people. I have my own close circle of high school buddies but apart from it, most are from people I worked with, friends I made through networking, some through family. So the range includes college dropout to doctors to internet company owners, etc. It is a plus to live in a big city.
The ones I posted are my friends. They might not be averages. Everyone makes different amount and spends. But they are not extremes too, except for the couple of older folks in east coast. One works for a company that handles Govt contracting. Although it not very uncommon to find a couple in late twenties from top colleges getting six figure salaries each in a big city like NY, Chicago, etc. My area does not have contracting or it is at lower levels and not pay as much. By the way I am always tied up irrespective of the money, live paycheck to paycheck.
Actually making around $220K is not abnormal Its quite possible, just around $100+ for an hour Thats pre tax amount. If you have nice ways to manage the taxable income, you can make the net amount equal to a regular tax paying earner who gets $250K per year There are many many and even many ways to make the money that you want(non-greedy number here). (One of the reason that I keep my taxes as expenses is to calculate my net amount for each day, not for each month or year.. it gives me a closure control on where and how to manage the TAX along with the income ) I would say K11 earning $250K/year is not a news.. but certainly not daily news
I have never come to the savings part. I do not have anything today except for a decent sum in 401k. I made decent returns in 401k but never invested in my company - big mistake. Who knew, it blew up 10X from 2009 lows to today.
Making 250K is not impossible but that is only a small percentage of people. For full time employees how many get 250K? Hourly rate is different.
In fact a full time employee is more expensive to a company compared to a consultant. If you convert each of the full time employee expense to a company into dollar value, you can see the FTE expense as higher(this apart from the legal and social issues of FTE compared to a consultant)
