Annual Timeline of Income from Working
/I read an interesting blog post from one of my favorite bloggers J.Money at Budgets Are Sexy.
He had a post on his total lifetime earnings. I found that article really interesting and it showed how by looking at your Social Security Statement you can see how much you've made from W2 income since you started working. I liked how he laid out his earnings on a spreadsheet and even labeled each working year with what phase of life he was in.
I decided to do the same analysis after I looked at my social security statement online. You can too by going to www.ssa.gov/myaccount.
MY SOCIAL SECURITY STATEMENT Lifetime EARNINGS RECORD
I took it a step further by added in some additional columns. I wanted to not only see my earnings progress from year to year but the tax impact as well. Here is my annual timeline of Income from working jobs since 2002:
Financial Stats & Facts:
- I entered the workforce since I was 16, and have been working for 13 years.
- Since I started working I have made a total of $444K. Based on my Net Worth of $158K at the end of 2014, this would put my cumulative savings rate at about 36%. This of course includes other miscellaneous income and home equity. But it's interesting to see how my earnings have impacted my net worth over the years.
- The State Tax, although only about 2.1% of my total earnings, is an opportunity is an opportunity to explore moving to a no income tax state in the near future..
- Federal and State Taxes represent my actual tax bills in each respective year based on my tax return. 2014 are estimates based on my calculations for my pro forma tax returns.
- In 2005, I made less than the prior 2 years. I took some time off from working as that was the year I joined a fraternity. That was also the year I moved out of my parents house and started paying rent for the first time.
- In 2010, I quit my job in April and reentered the workforce in June (only 10 months worked during year)
- In 2011, I quit my job in June and reentered the workforce in December (only 6 months worked during year)
- In 2014, I had my best year of earnings ever mainly due to my stock compensation and my bonus. My company had a pretty good year. I also decided that I didn't want to work 40 hours a week. Starting in October, I reduced my work schedule to 75% full time. That 25% reduction of my pay would have had an additional $4K in earnings for the year.
It's hard to believe that my first full time job salary was only $44K, and in 2014, it was $67K but with a $5K bonus and stock compensation getting me to just over $90K. That's nearly a 103% growth rate in compensation!
Although it's really paid off in 2014, I've also realized, that my job as a corporate accountant and working for an employer in general, doesn't lead to a really fulfilling life and I could have earned a six figure salary and it wouldn't make me any happier.
That's all about to change because, I'm giving up my cushy W2 income when I quit my job this year...
Overall, this proved to be an interesting exercise to go through and amazing to see where I started at compared to where I am today.
Readers: Have you taken a look at your Social Security Statement to see how much you have earned over the years?
