Are You Allowed to Talk About Your Salary?

[Flubber]

Re: over 50,000 people

Originally posted by pchang


live in Cupertino and you figure anyone who has been living here for more than a year must be able to afford it. Thus, I figure me and my 40,000 closest neighbors must all be overpaid.

Compared to my wife-- I have no doubt that I am overpaid -- or perhaps she is underpaid. Looking at our jobs, I cannot justify the discepency. But it is the market rates here for a lawyer and a nurse and is unlikely to change much except to make the difference wider

[Flubber]

Re: over 50,000 people

Originally posted by pchang


live in Cupertino and you figure anyone who has been living here for more than a year must be able to afford it. Thus, I figure me and my 40,000 closest neighbors must all be overpaid.

Neighborhood doesn't tell all when it comes to income. A friend of mine lives on our street largely due to some family money they had. I don't know his income but he has joked about "hoping to get to 6 figures" and he refuses to get even basic cable due to the cost despite the fact he quite likes TV.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
As a government employee, my pay range is public record. ==But I don't like to talk about it.

Ditto.

I did get a 10% raise in the last contract my union made with NYC, so that was nice. The final 4% instalment kicks in next month.

[Dinner]

Re: Last year

Originally posted by pchang
I made over $200,000

You must be counting in asset appriciation and not just salary. Right?

[pchang]

Its a bit of an inside joke really

Housing costs in where I live are completely overinflated. People do live here and can afford it, but only because they bought their homes more than 8 years ago (during which time prices seem to have tripled - if this is an exagerration, it is not by much).

A lot of the city consists of the neighborhoods with small old houses, that still cost about $1,000,000 each. Even at my income, I rent here. It doesn't seem possible that such a situation is sustainable, but it has been for almost a decade....

[Flubber]

Re: Re: Last year

Originally posted by Oerdin


You must be counting in asset appriciation and not just salary. Right?

Why? Its not that high a number.


BUt that leads to another issue. If you do disclose you salaryn do you just say the base amount and leave it be or do you round up to include options, pensions and expected bonus.

[pchang]

Re: Re: Last year

Originally posted by Oerdin


You must be counting in asset appriciation and not just salary. Right?

Actually no - that was all W-2 income. However, a significant portion of my work pay is a variable sales commission.

I would not include pension, but I would include all taxable income (in the US - it is the form W-2 income).

[Flubber]

Re: Its a bit of an inside joke really

Originally posted by pchang
Housing costs in where I live are completely overinflated. People do live here and can afford it, but only because they bought their homes more than 8 years ago (during which time prices seem to have tripled - if this is an exagerration, it is not by much).

A lot of the city consists of the neighborhoods with small old houses, that still cost about $1,000,000 each. Even at my income, I rent here. It doesn't seem possible that such a situation is sustainable, but it has been for almost a decade....

Actually in Calgary we started from a much lower housing cost base than almosty anywhere in urban California but we have had a doubling in the value of our house since we built it. But its just paper gains since there is no point in selling . It is nice though to have a mortgage far less than half the appraised value

[SlowwHand]

A Sales weenie. Get a rope!

[Dinner]

Damn, and I thought I was doing well at $80k a year.


The anwser to making more money seems to be to go into business for yourself. I know my brother in law really started raking in the money after he decided to go out on his own. He wrote code for three big clients and practically ran every step of the contracts for the company. His employer didn't want to give him the raise he wanted so he went free lance and the three big clients all hired him as a consultant since he wrote the code and had the information they needed. He now makes triple what he was making since all the money is now his instead of just a portion of that money.

[pchang]

And I think I'm doing well

until I compare myself to the cost of housing, the pay of CEOs, the stock gains of workers in companies that successfully go public, etc.

What's really important is that I can provide for my family the lifestyle they want and still save for retirement so my wife and I can live the way we want when we get old.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Damn, and I thought I was doing well at $80k a year.

And you are . Why would the salary of some internet stranger in a different field change your perception of your own salary?

Would it help if I said I made 75K? Would you feel worse if I said 140K? How about 225?

[pchang]

plus

I'm older than Oerdin and we all know that incomes go up with age.

[Flubber]

Re: And I think I'm doing well

Originally posted by pchang
until I compare myself to the cost of housing, the pay of CEOs, the stock gains of workers in companies that successfully go public, etc.

What's really important is that I can provide for my family the lifestyle they want and still save for retirement so my wife and I can live the way we want when we get old.

I agree wholeheartedly. There will always be someone "higher". Beside money isn't everything. That oft-repeated platitude is actually true in my life since I gave up the chance at really big money at a law firm for a better lifestyle, less work and less pressure.

[Jon Miller]

Why do people worry so much about how they stack up materially?

JM