I’ve reached the peak of my career.
I built this account because there are too many wannabes preaching things they’ve never achieved and hoping you’re their ticket to greatness.
You’re told the only way “forward” is become a content creator, start a big business, or AI slop. Or you’re told to stay grateful for a salary that was set when someone else decided what your skill was worth.
There is another path and I took it.
I was an engineer in the corporate machine. Then I left. I contracted. I got paid at the top of my field…. top 1% of earners, top 0.1% of engineers and contractors. Not because I posted about it. Because the market will pay a specialist a different number than an employer will and they dont advertise it!
That jump is the whole point of this account.
Not “quit tomorrow.”
Not “buy a course.”
Not “become a creator.”
I will never make a course.
A real strategy:
1. Get expensive at a skill the world already pays for and NEEDS.
2. Stop letting one company set your price forever.
3. Keep a gap between what you earn and what you spend.
4. Use the time and money to build a body, relationships, and a life that is actually fulfilling and full of vitality.
Most people do step 1 halfway, skip 2, fail 3, and treat 4 as a holiday they’ll take when they’re less tired. Then a raise arrives and lifestyle inflation eats it in 90 days. I’ve watched it. I’ve done versions of it. 150k feels tight. 300k can feel tight. A million can feel tight. The number isn’t the leak. The difference between what you earn and how you spend is.
So here’s who this is for.
If you’re an employee (office or site, professional services or skilled trade) and you’re good at the work but underpriced for it, stay.
If you’re already in engineering, law, medicine, accounting, or any specialist lane, stay.
If you want investing to be a tool, not a personality, stay.
If you want a parasocial hustle-bro account, this isn’t it.
What I’ll post:
1. career and salary strategy: when to stay, when to jump, how companies trap skilled people.
2. money behaviour: the spend gap, “enough,” and why high earners still feel behind.
3. operator lifestyle: training, triathlon, time, the parts you can’t neglect and expect money to fix.
4. investing only when it serves a worker with a real income.
Society runs on people who can do the job. Those people should not be the last to get paid well, or the first to forget they have a life outside the job.
Follow if you want the unglamorous version: skill, leverage, discipline, and a lifestyle you don’t have to perform.
Take $65K job, buy $220K house
Meet a good woman, marry her, have 4 kids.
Take her out for $40 dinners.
Cook at home.
Spend weekends in the backyard.
Drive the same car for 10 years.
Pay off the house.
At 70, you have paid-off home, 4 kids, 8 grandkids, and a lifetime of memories.
But you won’t.
Because somehow, we convinced ourselves that simple life isn’t enough.
Depends on the amount you’re investing. Because it changes the timescales.
Any job can make you rich …. Eventually. But we are dying! We wanna get rich now!
So the more money you invest the better. But also your investing strategy. If you only invest in funds and you only invest anything less than £20k per year, you’re waiting your entire life until retirement still.
But if you buy the right capital appreciation / moon shot stocks, this can level the playing field drastically for those trying to change their lives before retirement
But yes, depends on your time scales, strategy, and capital to invest
Everyone says no job makes you rich. Thats wrong. Here are the highest paid “jobs” that can make you rich:
1. Quant Trader / Analyst - £150k to £600k +
2. AI / ML Evaluation Engineer - £150k - £400k
3. Any Engineering discipline (software, IT, mechanical, electrical, civil, nuclear, etc) IF YOU DO THEM as outside IR35 (independent / freelance) contracts. - £100k to £250k
4. Investment Bankers - £150k - £600k +
5. Contract lawyer or accountant - £100k - £250k
6. Independent consultant medical doctor - £100k - £300k
Figures can be exceeded too but they generally are within these ranges.
So don’t let anybody tell you that you have to start a whole business because having a job is relaxing, it’s no risk, and it pays really damn well at the expert level.
@DarloSince1883@_LamNam_ A better idea is for the government to give 12k to everyone at the age of 18 or even better give every child a 12k investment at birth and let that compound until they retire.
But 12k at retirement? Too little too late and what a waste
It would make literally no difference to someone’s life. If someone gets to 65 or whatever the age is, and 12k would make an ounce of difference to their life…. I would argue what have they been doing their entire lives for this to have any meaningful impact.
I for one have no interest in the state pension, 12k wouldn’t even cover 6months of rent.
Young people don’t want to struggle as pensioners. They want to thrive into old age.
And the government wants you to wither away and fund their funds
@YashHustle_22 That’s the right take. Software engineers worried about AI should learn to technically review, systemise, optimise, structure code … the best stack combos for their niche applications, secure-by-design frameworks.
The more cash flow you have the better your investments can be whilst living your life. But we are investing to be financially free asap. Not to retire at 65 all the same.
So the less you have to invest…. You’re not going to have any meaningful benefit from that cash until it compounds to at least £1million. And that’s hopefully you had it in an ISA and it’s paying a dividend.
Buy a fully managed profitable business for around an EV value of £2million. Then pay myself an income from the business of around £60k then scale that company and buy another business and scale that and pay myself another £60k, so £120k a year now plus a few million in equity that I can sell for many multiples to PE in future to retire on many millions.
If you can’t work or work part time then state pension is still not going to help.
You need to build up a support community, you can’t be independent, you can’t be alone. You need to rely on family and friends support as well as the support government already hands out to those that cannot work.
If you cannot work or work part time … this does not stop you from starting a TikTok shop online
You could do any number of online business or content creation in these circumstances that can generate large cash flows. I would lean towards this option if I couldn’t work.
Building a startup is obviously much harder… and it’s also lower paid.
Startup founders usually make very little money, less money than the team they employed to build the start-up.
Getting a job in a high paying field is great. Getting ANY job? Well getting any job is very easy
If it’s not…. I’m sorry to say you’re doing something wrong.
What jobs do you want?
Depends! If you’re gonna start a business right now then ofcourse do that instead. If you’re gonna do something great… then do it! But if you’re gonna be doing low paid jobs without a degree then get it over with.
The ideal situation is just to start earning money, then do the degree part time online, then upgrade your job when it’s done.
Only if you’re in a career that needs it to access higher money
@niqudrift It’s all Google anyway, because the other LLMs just search Google for you. Google search didn’t become redundant… now there’s just a middle man. You ask the LLMs to search what you asked them