I was a freelance journalist for a while, on a part time basis in the last two years of my first degree. That brought in enough to give me a little bit of drinking money.

Yeah it was a fun time. Not too hard and just enough money for gas and whatever. Wouldn't want to do it for a career, though.

How free were you in what to write?

Not very, but that was mostly by choice. I covered school committee meetings and town meetings mostly. I wrote a few coverage pieces on local businesses and beaches, but I didn't like doing that and wasn't great at it. I liked covering the committee meetings because it just involved sitting down and listening and then summarizing what happened, which I'm good at.

Yeah that sounds like a pretty relaxed way to make money.

steephie22 - I use freelancer.com and I write for local papers and such. it's not a great means of making money but its a way to make extra cash while sitting home.

"You could be the Charles Dickens of websites."

Except hopefully you're more fond of people from Jamaica and India than he was.

I think talking about money is obnoxious and am saddened that this taboo no longer seems to exist.

Yeah because this forum is never obnoxious.

I was in the desert, east of Flagstaff.
A saw a tumbleweed roll by in the 40th paralell.
I knew my CD lifestyle had NMR'd for the last time.
There was no going back.
I was, as it were.
a webdipper without a solo.

I made $14k last year.

I'm not uncomfortable about it because I've learned that the taboo against discussing how much you make is one of the main ways we never organize to demand better.

I also recall that someone here, maybe Invictus, told me I was "eating my seed corn" for deciding not pursue an NGO job in DC and move to New Orleans to take life head on from the bottom up instead. Lol at that. I would have probably killed myself by now if I had done what he suggested.

I earn whatever profit I make from what I sell. Some things make me nothing, some things make me $20, some things make me hundreds or thousands. It pays my rent.

1. Pre-tax AUD109k, plus mandatory 9% superannuation, plus significant company paid benefits, plus very high degree of job flexibility (WFH, time shifting, etc). That's at the low end of what I could get for the job I'm doing (nearly two decades of experience as top quality unix devops - yes, that's a lot longer than the buzzword has been around).

2. I am pretty sure that my pre-tax income even without benefits is literally double the median Australian income. I don't usually volunteer it, but I'll happily answer if asked, because yeah, wage transparency is beneficial to everyone except for people that want to screw other people over. It's even actually beneficial to companies to have wage transparency, not that most of them believe that.

@ Bo_Sox: What sort of things do you sell?

Got any oil paintings for sale? Maybe genuine US PASSPORT?

TESL OR GED? a free bobcat perhaps?

I've made 12.6 million dollars selling genuine Mexican Black Tar Heroin. I should be getting a shipment within the next couple of months if anyone is interested.

Yea let me get some of that black tar. mmmm I love doing heroin while playing diplomacy. It helps my press

HA! Thucy I MAKE a LOT more than you do. I GOUGE it from the world with my AWESOMENESS. I know you jelly etc.

About £13,500 per year as a chef; plus the innumerable tips & fine payments sent to my Chase Account as an administrator on webDiplomacy.net

I make €2.3k net per month as a chemical researcher with a Master's degree. That amounts to 40k gross yearly. This allows me to live very comfortably while saving about €500 per month.
I have no issue whatsoever sharing this in a semi-anonymous forum. I'd be less inclined to share this with colleagues, oddly enough. I know my direct colleagues in the same function make more than me, because they have a PhD, but I don't care about that.

I'm surprised how little some people here make. The education/intelligence level is pretty high here and I'd expected to come into this thread feeling poor.

I make $46k a year, plus any side work I take on. Software Dev.

To clarify: first year out of college software dev. I expect that number to go up rather quickly.

1. None of your damn business.
2. Because it's none of your damn business.

Ironically I work for the government, which means you can look up how much I make.

A real life Ron Swanson.

What sort of dev work do you do, chaqa?

$60k as a non profit lawyer

Work for a company that provides software to life insurance companies. Not flashy but it's a nice place to work.

@Jamie ... time and time I have pointed out the irony, but yes, I do in fact have some oil paintings for sale. Interested?

Sorry, no passports. Yet.

I make about $69K/year. After income taxes, that'll be about $42-44K for 2016, and after sales and other taxes, probably about $39-41K. While this is an above-average income nationally (USA), here in Southern California after adjusting for our abnormally high cost of living (a modest two-bedroom apartment in my area costs about $22K/year), my income is average at best.

I feel very uncomfortable discussing this, although I agree with the point of the vid completely. At past jobs, I have been given raises that put me over what other people in my position with more experience were making, which made for some awkwardness and resentment from my coworkers. Salaries are a serious hot-button issue where I work now that nearly led to fisticuffs recently. I was hired to replace someone who quit to find a job that paid more, and wound up being offered a pay rate he probably would've stayed for - which doubtless would piss off all of his friends who I now work with. My boss asked me to keep quiet about my improved salary, and since he played a large role in getting me that salary (he raised a fuss with his bosses when I pretended that I was going to quit if I wasn't paid more than the guy who left for more money), I do feel morally obligated to do so - except, apparently, on the internet where everything I say is visible to everyone alive for all time.

I'm a network engineer for a ginormous soulless megacorporation.