Income Generating Ideas

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Topic Author
edudad
Posts: 66
Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2021 10:47 am

Re: Income Generating Ideas

Post by edudad »

Colorado13 wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 10:26 am I may have missed this, but it appears thst you are married? If so, does spouse work? If not, spouse could get a 50K job.
I bet, spouse brings in $83k (took a 10% pay cut due to covid19 expected loss of revenues, pay not restored yet, not sure if they will ever restore, though they are rolling in feds money now.), pensionable job.

I don't want to sound greedy, but we as a family make base pay about $187k after our cuts.

Both of us have graduate degrees in STEM subjects from good universities, and I feel, we are under achieving.

Not sure if we made correct choices to serve the government when we were younger. Now we are over the mid point of time to get full service pension.

We followed the footsteps of my parents, working for government, but they did it in a different era.
Keenobserver
Posts: 1043
Joined: Thu Aug 13, 2015 1:05 pm

Re: Income Generating Ideas

Post by Keenobserver »

You are underestimating the true vlaue of your pension. You also mentioned that you have good life work balance. Pvt sector may not offer same kind of balance. How about day to day stress? I imagine public sector might be less stressful. Not to forget job stability. How stable is your current public sector position vs pvt? The older I get, the more I wonder if I should have joined a pension position and stuck with it. Pensions are not easy to come by these days. Who else would offer you a guranteed stream of income after retirement? How much is that peace of mind worth? So its not always as simple as $ salary amount.
stoptothink
Posts: 15368
Joined: Fri Dec 31, 2010 8:53 am

Re: Income Generating Ideas

Post by stoptothink »

edudad wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 10:39 am
Colorado13 wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 10:26 am I may have missed this, but it appears thst you are married? If so, does spouse work? If not, spouse could get a 50K job.
I bet, spouse brings in $83k (took a 10% pay cut due to covid19 expected loss of revenues, pay not restored yet, not sure if they will ever restore, though they are rolling in feds money now.), pensionable job.

I don't want to sound greedy, but we as a family make base pay about $187k after our cuts.

Both of us have graduate degrees in STEM subjects from good universities, and I feel, we are under achieving.

Not sure if we made correct choices to serve the government when we were younger. Now we are over the mid point of time to get full service pension.

We followed the footsteps of my parents, working for government, but they did it in a different era.
You are not even remotely close to underachieving, except in the Bay Area/Seattle tech bubble. You're very close to 90th percentile for HHI nationally and have the amazing perk of a pension, and it sounds like you are pretty young. The individuals making $200K+/yr are the minority, even in your field.
killjoy2012
Posts: 1329
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2012 5:30 pm

Re: Income Generating Ideas

Post by killjoy2012 »

I won't repeat all of the valid points made by others in this thread, but I think your view/expectations of the corporate life & comp is just a bit off/skewed. It sounds like you live in a lower cost of living area, and if so, expecting comp to change from $100k to $250k/year for the roughly the same role at a private company is just -- off. My experience is it's more like a 20%+/- difference, which is about what you saw. Based on your posts, I would say the $120-130k numbers you saw when interviewing are about right. $200k/year plus bonus in your current market in the private sector is likely a Director level role managing a team of 5-40 people, with 20+ years of experience... and in a hot area like cloud or security.

As other have said, you need to decide if max money is the priority, or work-life balance, or something else. If it's about the money, then roll the dice -- sell your house, move the family to SV, live in an RV to start, get your foot-in-the-door job as a sys admin or whatever... and try to be the next Zuckerberg or whomever working 60-80 hour weeks including weeknight, weekends, etc. And you better do it now, since ageism in the SV Tech market is a very real thing, and plan to be at dead end by your mid-40s... short of inventing the new best iOS app, or owning a start up, or being the product owner for some major app at a FAANG. If you're not willing to do that, I think you need to adjust expectations... and $102k/year with full public pension doesn't sound bad at all for someone in their 30s.

IME, anyone making $250k/year + bonus outside of the HCOL areas are at the Director/VP level managing a large team/function, or are highly specialized technical SMEs that travel to customer sites 48 weeks a year and live out of their suitcase (think Big 4 employee), maybe with a very small few who are ICs WFH/local either in pre-sales SE roles (travelling to customer sites; comp largely variable based on revenue)... or a very lucky few working for a FANNG in a large but IC/remote role... and that has pretty much ended since COVID since most FAANGS are now cost-adjusting comp for remote workers.
Dottie57
Posts: 12379
Joined: Thu May 19, 2016 5:43 pm
Location: Earth Northern Hemisphere

Re: Income Generating Ideas

Post by Dottie57 »

edudad wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 10:47 am Reasons why I came up with the idea to have a side income instead of switching to private:

I feel, I am deep into the public pension system, past a point when returning makes not much sense. Better job security and WLB than private is also making me resort for the public job.

But am I in a bubble?

I feel the $50k/year supplement will give me the opportunity that I gave up in the private industry.

If I am wrong on the above - please talk me out of it.
Op, you are way too focused on salary(which I think is good). I bet you have good health insurance, good vacation, WLB and the cherry on top (pension). Did you really check out the benefits of any job you interviewed for?

If I were you I would sit back and enjoy your life. Stop fussing about more $.
RJC
Posts: 1489
Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2018 12:40 pm

Re: Income Generating Ideas

Post by RJC »

OP,

Why don't you switch agencies? I have seen GS-14 business analysts making 160k at HHS.
Topic Author
edudad
Posts: 66
Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2021 10:47 am

Re: Income Generating Ideas

Post by edudad »

RJC wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 12:20 pm OP,

Why don't you switch agencies? I have seen GS-14 business analysts making 160k at HHS.
I wish.

I work for state and local government, not feds.

I did look into the GS-14 positions, I have made about 150+ applications to GS13+ jobs all locations, got only 2 interviews, no offers. It looks like its almost impossible to get into feds, even though I have extensive public sector experience and background.
Colorado14
Posts: 1792
Joined: Thu Apr 07, 2011 4:58 pm
Location: Colorado

Re: Income Generating Ideas

Post by Colorado14 »

edudad wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 10:39 am
Colorado13 wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 10:26 am I may have missed this, but it appears thst you are married? If so, does spouse work? If not, spouse could get a 50K job.
I bet, spouse brings in $83k (took a 10% pay cut due to covid19 expected loss of revenues, pay not restored yet, not sure if they will ever restore, though they are rolling in feds money now.), pensionable job.

I don't want to sound greedy, but we as a family make base pay about $187k after our cuts.

Both of us have graduate degrees in STEM subjects from good universities, and I feel, we are under achieving.

Not sure if we made correct choices to serve the government when we were younger. Now we are over the mid point of time to get full service pension.

We followed the footsteps of my parents, working for government, but they did it in a different era.

Thanks for the reply. You're fortunate in that your pension is less likely than a corporate pension to get cut. That's quite a perk. Enjoy the work/life balance; it's not that common at higher salary levels.
fastrak99
Posts: 117
Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2018 10:02 pm

Re: Income Generating Ideas

Post by fastrak99 »

Coming from an entrepreneur / several business owner over the last 20 years - $50k / year to me seems more like on the way to a successful business capable of replacing your 'job' if you keep putting effort in, not a side hustle where you can easily 'do something' part time and earn upwards of $4K / month.

In the mentality of a 'side hustle' - it will be hard (but not impossible) to break a few hundred bucks a week (thinking flipping items, consulting, uber-ing, etc).

I'd approach this more like a business - and try to run the numbers of where your business can lead to if it leads to your definition of 'success'. If you sell a $60 product with 50% clearance ($30) - you need to sell ~1600 items a year (~4.5 a day or so) to hit that number. With some work, that is a great target to shoot for, and doable.

I'd look in the e-commerce space (think: etsy, amazon, ebay, walmart, shopify store, online courses, etc), rather then purely exchanging your time/$ to build up that sort of profit (you already do that at your job!). The first year or two might be slow and a ramp up - but with grit, determination and trial and error - it is more than possible.

Please don't think that $50K/year (whether you call it business or side hustle) is very EASILY attainable - as for most that's a good salary for a full time job.

There are plenty of opportunities out there, but you will have to re-orient your thinking, approach and value trade offs to make this possible. Good luck!
SnowBog
Posts: 4699
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2018 10:21 pm

Re: Income Generating Ideas

Post by SnowBog »

stoptothink wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 10:15 am
edudad wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 9:39 am On the other, I get a feeling that I should look for FAAMGT type of companies to boost my pay, with higher workload.

How does one land a $250k job in these companies? I don't see any posting or even Glassdoor/LinkedIn (expected pay range in job posting) numbers that corroborates $250k, for titles like architects, solutions expert, PM etc.
It's about RSUs, not base salary.
To add context - I don't think there are many non-Director level W2 jobs that pay > $250k in "salary" (I'm sure there are some - but I can't imagine there are a ton)...

Its usually a combination of a base salary (which might not be much more - in some cases less - than what you make now) - combined with "bonus" (or other "incentive pay" - either based on personal and/or company results) as well as "stock" of some sort (or some other form of "profit sharing"). And its usually the "stock" portion that makes the biggest impact...

My employer provides RSU's which vest over a number of years. As an example, let's say its a 5 year vest schedule - and each grant was worth $50k (I wish). Conceptually, in year 1 you get $0 (nothing has vested yet), in year 2 you get 1/5 of Year 1 = $10k, in year 3 you get 1/5 of Year 1 + 1/5 of Year 2 = $20k, until you get to years 5+ where you are getting 1/5 of each of the prior years = $50k (sort of - see below).

The other - bigger part of that is the "vested" amount is the "then current" stock value - not the value when the RSU was "granted". So let's say that the stock when granted 5 years ago had a market value of $100 (so $50k RSU / $100 share = 500 shares which will vest over 5 years). Let's say the stock grew at 14.9% per year, after 5 years those shares are worth $200 each. Each year the actual "vest" amount would be > than the "grant" amount (as the stock price was going up). And in the 5th year, when the last 1/5 of the shares (100) vest - they'll be worth roughly $20k (14.9% would basically double the stock over 5 years, so now $200/share = $20k instead of the $10k they were worth when they were granted). Combined with the other year's vests (in our hypothetical scenario of an even 14.9% growth per year), that would be closer to $80k "vesting" (than the $50k "granted"). And if the stock was growing by say > 30% a year... Well you get the idea...

So if you can land a job which includes "stock" as part of compensation at a company with a fast growing stock - you can potentially have significantly higher income - even if the "base" pay isn't much different... But those are obviously "high demand" jobs - lots of competition to get in (so you need to stand out as a candidate) - and in many organizations - lots of "stress/risk" in keeping the jobs (as the company knows they can find someone else willing to do the job). And this is perhaps where part of "ageism" comes in... Why keep around an older employee - who is likely getting paid at a higher rate - and [especially in tech or fast changing fields] who's skills may not be as 'up-to-date' as a recent college grad that is willing to work for a lot less? I don't like it - but I understand it for what it is...

Is it worth it? I'll probably "make" more money than you - if I can keep my job long enough (or find another)... But I don't get any pension - so I effectively* need to fund my retirement accounts - and hope I don't outlive them - meaning I needed to make more money than you. You can work - likely as long as you want - and you will likely have a very sizable pension that may well cover all (or majority) of your retirement needs for life (combined with social security) - so anything you save is likely "gravy on top" (or helping you retire early). And your pension is effectively guaranteed regardless of what the economy does whereas mine is subject to the economy not crashing... You might be "envious" of my higher pay - but I'm very envious of your guaranteed retirement income... IMHO that is worth a lot more than you are giving it credit...

To add an interesting historical context... Many, many years ago when I was in college (before the tech bubble burst - aka before 2000), others I knew in what (at least back then) was "computer science" courses shared with me that nearly every instructor complained about Microsoft. Eventually they learned that pretty much every one of the instructors had at at least one of the following occur:
  • They turned down a job with low pay - just stock - back when they were a "start-up" company...
  • A friend/acquaintance/former co-worker/former student/etc. had accepted a job, and had retired as millionaires after a few years...
  • They were never "offered" a job...
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