What do you make?

I have about 30 grand in my savings account.
Just waiting to use that for fun and travel.
I'm doing OK, but it didn't happen overnight. And there was luck involved.
Don't ever let some asshole tell you luck is not a factor.

 

It was all bootstraps!

 

Very much opposed to that kind of thinking.
Ten years ago there were many days I had nothing to eat.
It took a break or two, not feeling sorry for myself and knowing I was due.
Anyone who is underemployed, hang the fuck in there. And never give up, ever.

 

Had three jobs in journalism where I moved up from $19,900 to $27,500. That was four years ago. Now I'm in advertising, and lets just say, I encourage the rest of you to go into something else. (Even a seemingly low paying profession like advertising).

 

I'll add this, mustang, from a colleague of mine who recently left the newsroom for a P.R. gig:

It's not just how much (or how little) we're making now, it's the potential for pay raises or advancement.

With the doom and gloom atmosphere at most newspapers, there's little hope for either.

 

I co-host a daily sports radio show and am in year two of a three year contract that has a base salary of $130,000 plus talent fees, so I'll end up about $180,000. At 37, I know I am immensely blessed but my first radio job paid me a free barbecue meal and two games of bowling for an entire football season. My first full-time radio job (2002) paid $26,000 and I thought I was rich.
I only post this because it amazes me what 21 year olds with zero experience think they should be making. I sound like an old fart but the entitlement generation is nauseating.

 

I'd say this has little to do with entitlement, and more to do with 21-year-olds who saw their parents put in years of loyal service only to be shoved out the door by their company. The kids see that, and they don't want to spend the time paying their dues. And frankly, I don't blame them.

 

I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but your first full time gig must have been, what, 15 years ago? Gigs starting at 26k now don't make the kids feel as rich as they might have at the same salary more than a decade earlier.

 

Based on CPI, your 26K is the equivalent of $33,606.48 now. I would like to make that much starting, or after 2.5 years in the biz. 26K starting out would have been more than I made.

It might actually be nauseating if the institution of raises had not ground to a halt, making things like starting salary (and how you can bump it moving shops) pretty darn important.

 

Yeah, there's a vast difference between "recent grads whining about the reality of starting salaries" and "recent grads looking around a newsroom of people who are five or ten years their senior and seeing it not getting appreciably better." The latter is what's scary right now.

 

I feel what you guys are saying. I guess my point was that I had worked part-time since 1997 to get to that $26K job which didn't come until two years post-college. Those part-time gigs were in a tiny market before I got to a bigger market. I just see a bunch of kids who think they should be able to avoid any sort of learning process and can't understand why they might occasionally have to step outside of their job description to help out.