I make good money but am now constantly worried about losing it

[Anonymous]

I can easily tell that you’re a woman. No man would ever think like this or doubt himself in any way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please describe your career path and how you made this quantum leap in salary.

Props to you for it!

I’m curious too, but my guess is that OP is a woman and got a huge bump up over the past few years of promoting URMs to exec positions so the company looks more PC.

[Anonymous]

Interesting. I'm a man.

[Anonymous]

Oh, sorry for not answering my background.

I work tech. I have about 20 years of experience, with roughly the last 10 in the government which stagnated my income. When I went back into the private sector, I took that "junior c-suite" position which gave me the income I described. So it's a pretty sudden change and maybe this is an adjustment period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please describe your career path and how you made this quantum leap in salary.

Props to you for it!

I’m curious too, but my guess is that OP is a woman and got a huge bump up over the past few years of promoting URMs to exec positions so the company looks more PC.

Not the OP but I went from $100K in govt ten years ago to $800K in private sector in ten years. I’m white.

I have similar fears to OP which is why I keep my kids in public schools and have a small mortgage. To the extent we have lifestyle creep it’s so we can get help to make our lives easy since our jobs are stressful with lots of work in the evening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please describe your career path and how you made this quantum leap in salary.

Props to you for it!

I’m curious too, but my guess is that OP is a woman and got a huge bump up over the past few years of promoting URMs to exec positions so the company looks more PC.

Not the OP but I went from $100K in govt ten years ago to $800K in private sector in ten years. I’m white.

I have similar fears to OP which is why I keep my kids in public schools and have a small mortgage. To the extent we have lifestyle creep it’s so we can get help to make our lives easy since our jobs are stressful with lots of work in the evening.

Wow. We’re a dual-income household making $200K total.

I’d bank $600K a year if I had your salary, not changing a thing about how we live. Retirement and inheritances would be amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please describe your career path and how you made this quantum leap in salary.

Props to you for it!

I’m curious too, but my guess is that OP is a woman and got a huge bump up over the past few years of promoting URMs to exec positions so the company looks more PC.

Not the OP but I went from $100K in govt ten years ago to $800K in private sector in ten years. I’m white.

I have similar fears to OP which is why I keep my kids in public schools and have a small mortgage. To the extent we have lifestyle creep it’s so we can get help to make our lives easy since our jobs are stressful with lots of work in the evening.

OP here again.

We bought a new house (same neighborhood but larger to accommodate a growing family). I intend to pay it off as quickly as possible because 1) the rate is horrendous and 2) I want to get our spend rate back down to our prior levels - again, mostly out of this low-grade fear that my income could drop back down without warning. Otherwise, the kids remain in public school (not that private was ever a temptation), cars remain the same, no fancy eating. We are more inclined to take nicer vacations, but that's about it. Nothing we couldn't shut down instantly if needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please describe your career path and how you made this quantum leap in salary.

Props to you for it!

I’m curious too, but my guess is that OP is a woman and got a huge bump up over the past few years of promoting URMs to exec positions so the company looks more PC.

Not the OP but I went from $100K in govt ten years ago to $800K in private sector in ten years. I’m white.

I have similar fears to OP which is why I keep my kids in public schools and have a small mortgage. To the extent we have lifestyle creep it’s so we can get help to make our lives easy since our jobs are stressful with lots of work in the evening.

Wow. We’re a dual-income household making $200K total.

I’d bank $600K a year if I had your salary, not changing a thing about how we live. Retirement and inheritances would be amazing.

Pp here. I don’t think you could bank $600K because I don’t make that much net of taxes! I do save about $250-$300K a year (including maxing out retirement accounts).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, sorry for not answering my background.

I work tech. I have about 20 years of experience, with roughly the last 10 in the government which stagnated my income. When I went back into the private sector, I took that "junior c-suite" position which gave me the income I described. So it's a pretty sudden change and maybe this is an adjustment period.

Did you actually apply for the position, or did they recruit you into it? Is your background an honest good fit for the position or was it mostly networking that got you there? Were you doing similar level work previously? Would you have been able to get the same job at another company if you applied there? Does the position even exist in other companies? If you could switch to another company then that should help you to feel more comfortable.

I’m also in tech and usually people are ICs for life rather than switching to management at a very high level. There are career managers but they usually wouldn’t say “I work tech” since they could really be a manger in any industry. Did you do IC tech work in the government?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can easily tell that you’re a woman. No man would ever think like this or doubt himself in any way.

No man would ever reach seven figures and say "Oops! I never saved a dime of my previous salary. How did that happen?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Try not to let lifestyle creep take over. Save aggressively for a few years, and build up a 6 month emergency fund. I think then you will feel more comfortable.
- a former fed ($125k) who has a $500k/yr job and felt this way at first

Agree with PP. Save aggressively. Careful of lifestyle creep.
- Former military now business owner worth over $20M.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can easily tell that you’re a woman. No man would ever think like this or doubt himself in any way.

I'm a guy (not OP and I make way less but still a lot by most standards) and still feel this way because I was a kid whose family was impacted during the 2008 GFC and witnessed many friend's families also become impacted by it. It made me realize how fragile most people's financial situations are, how you can quickly lose your lifestyle in the event of a job loss. I saw people making 200k+ having to start over in retail. I'm not as financially conservative as I could be, but I'm way more conservative than most people at my income level and how I normally would have been if it weren't for these experiences growing up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can easily tell that you’re a woman. No man would ever think like this or doubt himself in any way.

I'm a guy (not OP and I make way less but still a lot by most standards) and still feel this way because I was a kid whose family was impacted during the 2008 GFC and witnessed many friend's families also become impacted by it. It made me realize how fragile most people's financial situations are, how you can quickly lose your lifestyle in the event of a job loss. I saw people making 200k+ having to start over in retail. I'm not as financially conservative as I could be, but I'm way more conservative than most people at my income level and how I normally would have been if it weren't for these experiences growing up.

Same except I was in high school in NYC area during the early 90s recession and saw a lot of friends’ dads lose their jobs in their 50s and never really recover. So I was very focused on saving enough so that I’d be ok if laid off at 50.