Are you making enough?
 

All of the time I see people who literally seem to make fun or or mock those who do not make vast sums of money or apparently wipe with one hundred dollar bills. I am sure you can recall many posts where someone tells someone to quit now, leave the industry, or go back to burger flipping. I still even see these types of posts when someone reports to be making eight hundred to one thousand a week.

I know many feel it is in the spirit of the board or whatever to make as many people feel as bad as possible about themselves whenever they can. I am also sure many of the haters are more than likely envious of the others accomplishments. I would just like to bring a little perspective or reality into all of this.

If you happen to be living in the US and happen to be making more than seven hundred and eighty five bucks a week you are doing fairly damn well. Before the haters come and scoff at that figure keep in mind that is the average household gross median income. Typically that is including more than one income earner in the household as well. If you are making close to that or more you are doing better off than the vast majority of Americans. So do not let anyone get to you or make you feel like you are doing less than you should.

I will not pretend and say making more does not matter, nor will I claim that is not reasonable to do so with hard work ethics and a strong desire to do so. What you do currently have though is an occupation that is paying you a fairly decent rate of pay despite what the haters and others claim. Keep at it and do not let them get to you.

good post :D

We are all dependent on limited resources. Money, as well as anything else we deplete when we use it. For me, the energy is burned at an alarming rate. Yet, I never achieve all I hope to in a day. Many of you think that because I seem to have so much *time* to write all these words, that I am not busy with anyrthing else. LOL. Sorry, but LOL. When I write, it's usually because I have to, and when one has to do things one usually does them very quickly. In spite of the power of impulse in these expressions, I have tried to deliver a number of messages. In each case, I thought it a good and beneficial message. But, there are other messages that may, because they came at the wrong moment into my head, or the timing was not otherwise right, I never got down. I'd like to thank the gentleman who started this thread for taking care of many of those messages for me, adding his own spin and passion, where mine was not available. TX -- :thumbsup

good post yo!

Agreed :pimp

No, I'm not making enough. And if I was making the combined income of everyone else on gfy, it still would not be enough. Total world domination is going to require some serious funds.

Dude, where did you get that sig? where is it from??

Well said... :thumbsup

Most webmasters forget that most people live without all the plasmas, new exotic cars, and pay girlfriends.

hm, aren't you the one who said in the "$4k per month thread" that such income is shit and that's $4k per day which matters?

and this is why i have a great deal of spect for ASM.

great post man

ASM, good post!

Probably one of the best posts I've read in a long time on here. I could not agree more with you on it either. I don't make a ton of money, but I live comfortably and I don't care about fancy cars or traveling to exotic locations, as long as my family's comfortable. Success is different in everyone's eyes. I'd rather make less money and still be worth a damn as a human being then not be worth as much as shit I'd scrape off my shoe and be loaded. :2 cents:

Sort of reminds me about a talk I had with my brother a week or two back. He had called me up and was asking about needing additional ways to make money, something to invest in that would return X amount per year. Now he owns a construction and roofing company and his monthly take home is around twenty thousand. Doing my best to avoid the question at hand because I did not feel like telling him I would not let him invest in anything I am doing (family and all), I asked him about his take home and after I got the answer I asked him why he needed to increase it. He then explained that when you make that much your bills go up as well. I chuckled some and made sure he was talking about his take home pay and he assured me he was. I tried to explain it to him but it never seemed to sink in. At least I avoided the whole issue of telling him why I would not let him invest.

I am one of the ones who is not making enough and I can tell you that I am willing to accept any help. My goal is to create something in the next 3 years that is both durable and portable. Hopefully more of those in the know will embrace the idea of helping make this a better business for everyone.

What exactly were you trying to explain to him that didn't sink in?

If I was your brother I would be doing the same exact thing. The more money you make, the more you pay in taxes. So you find new assets and investments to acquire that not only lowers your profit (and taxes) but increases your assets, future profit, and overall worth. Of course, as the profit grows its a continuous problem of spending the additional profit, but thats how the cycle works.

He can pay a load of taxes on $20k monthly or he can invest $18k, pay taxes on $2k, and walk away with an asset that will generate income worth at least $18k.

I've supported a family of six on $1200 a month, so sometimes I am floored by the lavish lifestyle some people here claim to have, lol.

A lot of people around here that put others down also don't consider the taxes, child support, and other garnishes that other jobs have taken out of paychecks. People that make $50k a year bring home less than $700 a week.

People that work at Walmart or other low wage jobs for say $8 an hour, 40 hours a week, are only bringing home $200 and change. When you sit down, put things in perspective, and get in touch with reality, the gap between the truly wealthy and average American is WIDE.

I think he was trying to say that someone netting $20k per month, *should* be happy about that rather than bitching that he doesn't make more

1K a week is good. That is a decent job in the US. It's not a ton, but defintely enough to live confortaby. Plus if you have a day job or a spouse, you are probably over 100K a year which is enough to live very comfortably.

I don't shit on anyone. We were all there at one point, so what is the point?

Someone making $2k, or $4k, or $8k monthly should be just as happy as someone making $20k. Money isn't going to make an unhappy person happy. I don't see anything wrong with trying to grow ones wealth.

Point was that he is taking home 20k a month and the reason he needs to earn more now is that is standard of living as outgrown his income. He never thought of investing nor anything until he relized that all of his earning were vanishing to pay his regular bills.
I am all for one making money and having your income grow, well as long as it does not involve investing with a family member again. Increasing assets and worth is a great thing. Knowing that if he was able to double his monthly income his standard of living would still increase and thus still be broke.

Ah, agreed.

If you make it, you want to enjoy it. Only problem is people don't know how to enjoy it intelligently. Of course your lifestyle will get more expensive. That is the point of making more money. It's just a matter of how much more expensive it gets. If it grows proportionally it shouldn't be an issue.

I dissagree. Your lifestyle does not have to get more expensive. Nor do I see the point of making money is to spend it. I find it very important to think ahead and and plan for the future. So few have anything to fall back on and even fewer have enough saved or working for them in the future when possibly they can not work.

I know my personal income is pretty damn good. My standard of living though has pretty much remained the same. Only real change is that my house is paid off. I am not spending more on clothes, cars, or other stuff that really does not matter to me. Sure I take vacations that I previously could not afford and things like that. Yet I have made sure I am not building up any recurring debt or payments to enjoy my life. I do not care to much what others think of me or have a need to show off what I make. Afterall my twenty dollar watch tells the same time as an expensive one.

It is very hard not to get sucked into the American culture of consumerism. My income has risen thanks to porn, and I spend more then I used to. I will never have a Rolex or a Mercedes but I do travel tons.
I think it starts to level off once you have made the better money for a few years. When it is so new, it is too much like lottery winnings.

In some cases, that's very true.

Back in the 70s we had a family member who owned a large ceramics company in Toronto (one of the largest ceramics wholesalers in Canada at the time)...and they always seemed to be doing very well for themselves. They owned a nice penthouse apartment suite, a new luxury car, a 40-foot yacht...the works. And they were always flying off somewhere exotic for nice vacations at the drop of a hat.

Until the day a bailiff showed up at OUR door and asked if we knew their whereabouts - he had a summons to serve them.

As it turned out, they basically operated all on credit - they never actually had any genuine assets themselves. It was all for show. As their business and earnings increased, so did their lavish lifestyle. And to keep up with it all, they ended up running bigger debts just to keep up appearances even when things were crumbling behind the scenes.

In a matter of months, their company went from the appearance of being highly success....to insolvent, a padlock on the door and a handful of creditors left eating their losses.

I always keep their bad example in mind whenever the wife and I are about to make a decision on a big ticket purchase these days.

This is a great post! One thing not mentioned though is that this isn't just a normal 9-5. There's lots of legal risk doing this business from the USA, China, and many other countries. Most countries, in fact. So you do have to take that into account with your formula on how much money makes the risk worth it.

I agree... "enough" is the keyword I think. So what if someone is at home living with his mom... chances are, he can be living with all the same plasma's, cars and fancy toys as someone who isn't.. it just doesn't require as high of an income since his expenses are lower. It's a question of whether or not he makes "enough".

On the flip side, yes... high and lower income earners should be making that money work for them, regardless of the dollar amount.

The truly rich are the ones who are smart with their money, no matter the amount.

good post silent knight, passive income is far different than earned income, one requires blood and tears the other just collecting a check. And keeping up with the jonses is a high stakes game if you don't know what you're doing.

good post ASM

IDEM :pimp

Average or median? Those two rarely coincide.

Now let's put things in another perspective and take into account non-US webmasters, EU-based to be more specific. You may do quite well on that $3-4K/mo in say Poland or Czech, but if you'd compare with Germany then you'd probably be better off working in a factory, making about the same or more. Also, keep in mind that most EU taxes are a lot higher than US taxes, both income tax and sales tax. Also consider the fact that, as self-employed, you'll also need to pay some additional "social" taxes, which would normally be paid by your employer. So you may well end up paying about half that in taxes, as well as having to deal with higher purchase prices on just about everything, due to the 15-25% sales tax (depending on country). Factor in the weak dollar and you'd pretty much be better off having a day job.

So at the end of the day that money may not be all that much, as it is highly relevant where you live.

I do not know enough about the incomes in European countries to even coment on them and that is why I kept the figures US based.
My figures are also median, though also keep in mind that figure is for a dual income household where the totals would be combined to get that figure.

Dont be playa hatin, ASM...



j/k...

Great post, thumbs up!

I figured that, that's why my post was meant to simply put things into a different perspective, not to take a swing at you by any means. Either way, I just wanted to illustrate the fact that, although to some $4K/mo may seem good, you rarely end up with ALL that additional spending power at the end of the day.

I would prefer making 3-4k as self-employed at home over 3-4k working for someone any day of the week :)

That was part of my point, in most EU countries grossing $3-4K as self-employed is far from netting $3-4K as employed by a company.

great thread ASM !