Hi all. Apologies if this is not allowed here. I know people out there are struggling, but I just want to share my good news with someone.
It’s a big milestone of accomplishment in my life, but I feel weird just telling family members or my online friends about it. The only other people who know are my coworkers because we all got the same raise. Money doesn’t go as far nowadays due to crazy inflation post COVID and my area has higher cost of living than where I grew up, but I’m still very happy about this. I remember back when I used to only make minimum wage. All those years of schooling eventually made their way back to me. I’ll never make as much money as someone like a doctor, but it’s definitely enough for me to live comfortably as a single person.
Anyway, I’ll delete this in a bit (or sooner if it gets removed by a mod), but I hope you guys out there have a good weekend.
Edit: Thank you guys very much :)
Edit 2: Jeez there are so many more comments than I expected. You guys are so nice!!
Congratulations!
removed by mod
Hey nice! My father has always told me that his biggest regret was not maxing out what he was allowed to put into retirement. You don’t care when you’re young, but it makes a HUGE difference for the second half of your life!
To add on, if your company matches for 401k contributions, NEVER put in less than the matching amount. Like, if they’ll match contributions up to 5%, never go below 5%. There are very few times you get legitimately free money in life, and this is one of them. Always put in more if you can, ofc, but the minimum should be the matching amount.
Instead of investment advice, I’ll just say never forget how hard you had it, what it was like to get minimum wage, and remember there are always hard workers being paid less then you that also deserve a shot. You did the work, be proud of what you’ve achieved. But probably don’t get into specifics with family, people get weird about money.
My uncle has money. Every problem from his siblings to his 5th cousins gets him a phone call haha.
I’m gonna double down on your advice and say don’t tell anyone how much you make, except your SO. If someone asks just say “I’m doing well for myself.” And if they press you say “I prefer to keep the specifics private”. When I started bringing in money I made the mistake of calling my friends to celebrate and within months they were all hitting me up for cash and pulling on my heartstrings.
Damn that’s a real thing?
Yeah, sadly. I get messages like “Hey Kit, I’m $50 short on my heating bill this month. Can you help me out?” All the time. A lot of passive aggressive stuff too like people complaining about money but not straight up asking for it until I give 50 "Damn that sucks"s.
Congratulations!
Awesome! Time to give most of it to taxes since you increased your tax bracket 😂
Only increased taxes on the amount in the next bracket. If they’re making 110k a year, only about 10k will be taxed at the 24% rate. Everything else stays the same.
Depends how much they went up by actually.
If they jumped from 60k to over 100k, he’ll definitely feel that on his paycheck.
Also for Quebec, our taxes are very high, and I think after 140k or so you lose 44% total. It’s too much.
Making $60k in Quabec your take home is: $44,428
Making $140k your take home is: $91,713
Using this example, all they’re going to feel is their take home pay more than doubling.
EDIT: Source: https://turbotax.intuit.ca/tax-resources/quebec-income-tax-calculator.jsp#
That’s still a tax rate of 31%, you earn (much) more, you will go up to almost 50% as well. (Plus in your example, the marginal tax rate is 47%)
Anyway, my “half” comment was a bit exaggerated but it still is a lot of money taken by the government.
People who earn more contribute more? They still take home more because it’s tax banded. No one goes “up a tax bracket” and earns less. It’s a nonsense statement.
But a golden classic nonsense statement as it seems. Keeps popping up every time someone speaks of raises
Also, other sites list the take home pay in Quebec as much less for 140, with a tax rate of 37.8%
https://ca.talent.com/tax-calculator?salary=140000&from=year®ion=Quebec
Spoken like someone who doesn’t understand tax brackets or math.
Dude this isnt reddit. No need to be a keyboard warrior here
In all seriousness though, congratulations on your life changing accomplishment. Keep up the great work!
Nice! What did / will you buy to celebrate?
Tbh I was thinking about looking into getting a VR capable PC but idk! I’ve had an Oculus Quest 2 for quite a few years now, but the library and storage is pretty limited compared to PCVR. And I haven’t played with it for a few years lol.
I love it. This was very much the sort of reward I chose for myself when I finally crossed that financial threshold. I had already started to lose my enthusiasm for VR at that point but wanted a really high end gaming PC that could do VR, RTX, anything I threw at it. I went all out and tried to get the best rig I could at the time along with a giant curved gaming monitor. I didn’t build it myself and spent WAY too much on the setup.
I regret nothing.
Yeah I don’t have any interest in building one myself tbh. I know it’s cheaper that route, but I’d rather go pre built and skip any headaches. Part of it tho is that I have no idea where to begin or what the cost will end up. The only thing I’d care about feature wise is that it’s VR capable lol. How did you go about yours?
I tried to find the names of major places that did custom rigs and then tried to find as many reviews as I could about them.
In the end I chose Origin PC. I would recommend them to anyone who has the budget. They do have some prebuilt options that you can choose from or you can customize, which is what I did. I got exactly what I ordered and have had no problems so far. I attached some pictures to show the amazing wooden crate they shipped it in (and it was well padded inside) and what my build ended up looking like (those were the default lights, I have a much more subdued lighting scheme now).
Damn that looks snazzy af. Hope you’re enjoying it!
Look into a bigscreen beyond. I’ve heard good reviews.
Interesting, I’ve never heard of it before. It’s not the headset I’m missing though, it’s the PC.
Congratulations!
I’ll line up to give you a high five on that! It’s a damn good feeling to hit that milestone. Great job!
Fuck yeah man, gg. I’ll never forget the day I hit 6 figures and how proud I felt. Soak it in - you earned it!
Congratulations! As someone who moved countries and started at the bottom ($6 per hour and 15 hours days) I know the feeling of looking back with disbelief. Sounds like you really earned it!
Congratulations!
Congratulations on crossing that milestone! I hope you have a good budget planned and are able to save for both retirement and for a bit of fun.
Nice, but save your money. The best time to do that is now.
