Some Background on My Earnings History & Where I Hope To Go Soon

I am 27.

I think I was 19 when I got my first job at the library, earning $5.93 an hour, shelving and checking in books. It was fun, but, not much of a wage.

Soon enough I got a job at an office making $10 an hour. This lasted on and off, interchanging with other odd jobs at the same company, with a pay range between $10-11 the whole time.

Then, in 2004, I went to a technical school, got an IT degree, got a PT job for $10 an hour (less than the $11 I was making as an office clerk) in an an entry level IT position. I quickly jumped into a salaried position at $32,000 in a few months at this company, and working the weekends, I actually got paid a bit more, making my salary $36,000 a year.

A year and half of doing that, and you're up to February 2008, where I got promoted and my salary jumped $8,000 dollars to $44,000 a year.

Let's look at those numbers again:

I Look At How Much Money I've Made From Jobs
1999-2006 : $5.93 - $11.00 an hour
2006-2007: $36,000 a year or $17.30 an hour
2008-now: $44,000 a year or $21.15 an hour

The trend here is pretty sweet: getting a degree in the IT field and kicking some ass at work, focusing on my job and trying to do good, is paying off nicely, raising my income about 50% in 17 months.

If I stay focused in this field, I could be at the $60k level in 2010 if I try hard enough.

And that's where I get into a bind. It's hard to put so much into your job and also retain the time and energy outside of those 40+ hours dedicated to the job to coming up with alternative systems for income, such as blogging and selling insurance (I may get my life insurance license - more on that in another post).

Either way the future is interesting:

I am hoping to restructure my life by the end of the year so that I can save about $1,000 a month for my immediate future, and additionally $150 a month into a combination of my IRA plan and an income producing Life Insurance plan (both which kick in at age 65).

If I stay at my current income level, $1,000 a month will become $60,000+ saved up in 5 years.

If my earnings go up, I'm hoping to save $1,500-$2,000 a month, and will be getting close to hitting that $100,000 savings mark in 5 years.

Now, 5 years isn't terribly close, but it's not that far off either. (Time flies! I've already worked at my current job for almost 2 years now.)

So I like to think in terms of 5 year increments, and imagine what I can do in 5 years with the money saved up.

$60,000 saved up in a mutual fund - the kind that allow you to invest a bulk sum and then live off some of the interest while getting your money back at the end- could draw me a few hundred dollars a month to live on. Not much but if it's supplemented with an income from various web-based ventures I've set up, then the 60k savings point could be a realistic target for quitting my day job and focusing on optimizing other income generating strategies, full time.

$100,000 saved up and invested in a mutual fund could provide a bit more money to live on, more than $500 a month for a 10 year period, the end of which I would I would get back my original investment and then some (unless the market is horrendous for a 10 year period - unlikely).

Now I realize $500 isn't a ton of money - but to have it automatically coming in whether or not I worked is a very meaningful amount of money to have. It means I could work part-time doing IT work and work part-time setting up a side business such as insurance sales, or something online. It also means I could travel the world indefinitely off that $500 a month income. That is a hell of an exciting idea to me.

So, when I feel down going to my job, I just try to think of things in terms of 5 years.

5 years is not long.

And if I play my cards right, I will have tens of thousands in the bank and a small automatic monthly income to my name, without having to work at all, in just 5 years.