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!!

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[–] OhmsLawn 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Congratulations!

I went from earning $12 under the table to 6 figures in 5 years. It's a really major change. Once you have a year or two of that, and enough saved to survive basically any adversity, you realize how stressful your life was before.

Some unsolicited advice:

Budget. I've never been good at it, so this is my strategy:

I Keep two months' basic expenses in checking account. Food, gas, rent, phone, internet, insurance, loans.
At the end of the month I transfer the remaining money to 3 accounts: 1/4 to long-term savings (this was initially my 3-month emergency fund, but turned into something more blended with a 3-month reserve). 1/4 to short-term savings (travel, gifts, clothes, fun). 1/2 to investments (stocks, ETFs, etc).To start out, all the money went into the long-term account. Having 3-month's savings is the true key to both feeling safe and avoiding credit card debt.

That's it. Literally. If I transfer less money at the end of the month, I either overspent or had some annual "surprise," like auto registration, Prime bill, etc. If I transfer more, it was a successful month.