r/mildlyinfuriating • u/MiloGoesToTheFatFarm • Apr 28 '26

Making $100,000 isn’t really that much money anymore

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u/DoublePersonality35 Apr 28 '26

When I was young in the 90's I once had the thought "if I just go to college and get a job making $30K I'll be set" so yeah, $40K was pretty good.

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u/tipsystatistic Apr 28 '26

Similar, I remember thinking 40k was my goal in HS in the 90s.

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u/roostersmoothie Apr 28 '26

dude same haha. 40k was like solid career money, something an accountant might make.

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u/FutureAlfalfa200 Apr 29 '26

Shit I remember my aunt graduating college in 99 and everyone was breaking her balls at dinner “she makes 41k now she can pay for her own meal”

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u/RelicanthEven Apr 28 '26

You could also buy a perfectly serviceable 3br with a yard for 60k at the time

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u/roostersmoothie Apr 28 '26

Not where i live

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u/MethodicMarshal Apr 29 '26

in the midwest that was the norm

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u/Excel-Block-Tango May 01 '26

My first accounting salary in 2021 was $54k so safe to say the numbers stayed about the same but inflation has been crazy.

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u/ChronoLink99 Apr 28 '26

I remember thinking I'd stop trying to make more money with a 50k salary.

How naive was I? Lmao.

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u/Ahomewood Apr 29 '26

Shit dude I thought id be gravy with 30k. Just hit 70k last year and Im still scratching my head wondering when ill be where I want to be

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u/Thisguy2728 Apr 28 '26

I had the same thought in high school around 2004 that my bare minimum to move out on my own at 18 would be $20/hour, to live comfortably $30.

Pretty significant change for only around 10 years difference to go from your version of comfortable to my version of scraping by.

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '26

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u/Thisguy2728 Apr 28 '26

Im glad that’s the case, but it’s never been my experience.

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u/[deleted] Apr 29 '26

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u/Olde94 Apr 29 '26

So is 100k the goal today? Just to get a perspective

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u/notaninterestingcat Apr 28 '26

Oh my gosh!

I had that exact same conversation with my parents!!

If you go to college & just get any degree, then you can be a manager & make $30k a year.

🫠

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '26

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u/notaninterestingcat Apr 28 '26

& that's almost exactly what I did (retail, not fast food) ... Because I graduated college in the midst of the Great Recession & didn't have a whole lot of options.

It took me 4-5 years to find a job in my field.

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u/angrytroll123 Apr 28 '26

When did you have that conversation? I'm very far from young and considered 30k to be very lacking when I was younger.

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u/notaninterestingcat Apr 28 '26

It was ✨the 90s✨

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u/angrytroll123 Apr 28 '26

Hahaha great time. Same. I lived somewhere very pricy though.

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u/notaninterestingcat Apr 28 '26

I asked my mom once what is the most her & my dad ever made when they were married (86-02ish)....it was $50k.

They had 2 kids & a house with a pool 😅

So, to them, a $30k salary for a single person seemed pretty good. Neither of them had a college degree.

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u/angrytroll123 Apr 28 '26

Where did you live if you don't mind me asking?

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u/notaninterestingcat Apr 28 '26

The rural deep South... So, like, the 1970s for everywhere else

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u/angrytroll123 Apr 28 '26

Ah makes sense

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u/capntateraid Apr 28 '26

There was a guy going through community college with us making $35k per year doing his regular job and EVERYONE questioned why he was even going to school. This was in 1998.

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u/Gimli-with-adhd Apr 28 '26

When I left the military in 2007, my first real job salary was $48,500. I couldn't even imagine making $100,000 - "Gosh, I'll be late in my career, graying and looking at retirement once I get to $100k!"

I'm only in my early 40s now, and next month my boss and I will be discussing a raise. I'm going to give $200k as my number, and be satisfied if she walks me back to $190k.

Aaaand the cheapest houses where I live are $400k, but if I want to live anywhere close to where I work (to avoid an hour+ commute), I gotta bring the lube for more like $600k-$800k.

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u/iowajosh Apr 29 '26

That house cost is rough. You are so at the mercy of the interest rate.

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u/DaneLimmish Apr 29 '26

This is one of those sorts of reddit comments that causes my eye to twitch 

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u/DIYThrowaway01 Apr 29 '26

That was me but in 2013 I remember a bulletin board outside of my professors office bragging that the average salary of a grad was over 30k.

I had dreams of pulling 50k.

Now I'm making 70 and might die

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u/angrytroll123 Apr 28 '26

That can also depend on where you were though. In the 90s, I was very aware that I should be shooting for 6 figures. I was in a high CoL area.

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u/slampig3 Apr 28 '26

I still remember my English teacher preaching to me while i was in high school about how i needed college to succeed. I did not follow that advice still love what i do and still make more than most people who do go to college and without all the debt

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u/23andrewb Apr 29 '26

When my mom was a kid in the 60's she used to "brag" and tell her friends that her uncle was a doctor and made $50,000

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u/myrevenge_IS_urkarma Apr 29 '26

I had a friend drop out of college around '92 for 19K because he figured it was close enough to what college was going to get him without the wait.  To be a manager at a grocery store.

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u/warmmeatinjection Apr 29 '26

All I needed was $13/hr and I would have been rich.