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Home > Kind of Interesting - A Lifetime of Wages

Kind of Interesting - A Lifetime of Wages

November 27th, 2006 at 06:12 am

I was putting papers away the other day and found our most recent Social Security Statements. So of course what does Ms. Accountant do - throw it in excel and see how much money we have made over the years. Quite Interesting.

Year Dh Moi TOTAL IRA/401K
1991 2,693 0 2,693
1992 3,757 0 3,757
1993 3,962 1,820 5,782
1994 3,263 1,972 5,235
1995 7,061 3,756 10,817 2,000
1996 7,614 5,250 12,864
1997 10,063 8,262 18,325
1998 10,944 10,104 21,048
1999 20,986 20,617 41,603
2000 41,371 47,870 89,241 6,622
2001 42,461 56,765 99,226 5,768
2002 29,049 52,671 81,720 5,000
2003* 0 44,665 44,665 0
2004 0 64,474 64,474 4,000
2005* 0 45,955 45,955 0
2006 0 70,000 70,000 2,000
TOTALS 183,224 434,181 617,405 25,390

It is amazing to me to think dh and I have made $617,405 between the 2 of us in our young lives. On top of that I estimate we received around $33k in unemployment and disability. I put a * next to the years I took maternity leave, but did receive $6000 in disability, or so, in 2003 & more like $11,000 last year. This year I just estimated my total. I would guess dh received $10-$15k unemployment in 2002 & 2003.

Dh he is a year older than me and when he started working it was allowed to work at 15, not for me when I turned 15. He worked at the local amusement park from age 15 - 22. I can't believe he was making as much as me those days. For me at the time every penny was going to college. For him, he was living at home all cushy - it went for the down payment on our house though - no complaints here. Wink He saved up $40k easy by the time we graduated. All those game systems and fancy toys - even with all that - hehe. I know he worked at a bank, AT&T, Macys in between there somewhere - while working at the amusement park. Graduate college 1999, laid off 2002. Made $40k or so a couple of years in between. I believe his salary was up to $50k, but then his company did mandatory days off and vacations and such - at the end he was only working 4 days/week. Beat being laid off as it seems everyone and their brother was laid off back in 2000 and 2001. Though eventually they did lay him off.

As for me, I worked the amusement park - summers - from age 16-18. 3 years. At age 16 or 17 I Also started teaching piano. I am not sure if I reported all my income on that the first year - either that or my parents helped me more than I remembered - hehe. I lived rent free in 1995 (house sitting) and rented my first place in 1996. Those were some tight years. Oh yeah - just remembered I also had another job in 1998 which helped boost my income a bit - bookkeeping for a security firm. I believe there was a time I was doing that, teaching, and I took another summer job - didn't take many summer classes - phew. I Am kind of bummed all that and I Could have just kept working with dh in the sumemrs and look at that dough - LOL. Graduated 1999 - first job paid $32k or so, but quickly got promoted - that whole desperation for qualified people thing. Has served me well you see.

The end of 2001 we moved and I took a slight pay cut. Eh, you move to where housing is actually affordable, a few k less a year, eh. Plus with the 10% profit sharing contribution I Came out ahead. My prior job had 401k - but a crappy match. I think they matched me $300 when all was said and done - ??

The 2 years I had kids are a little obvious - took some time off...

1991-2001 were all about saving money for a house, and me just surviving and paying for college so I guess we don't have much to show for that - well except all our equity. Started putting more into retirement a couple of years and then got sidetracked by the whole kid thing.

Right now my social security would be $1,158/month at 62 and dh's would be $325. Ah, but not counting on it. We both qualify for medicare too.

I thought we had a year or 2 of six figures, but you know, we never made it - hehe. Darn close.

Dh's first job out of school was a whopping $28k/year. SO we started at $60k combined and I think that was our income when we bought our $260k condo. We couldn't afford a cent more, we really lucked into it. But we quickly got raises and so it worked out pretty well. It is amazing to me we went from 60 to 90 to 99 so fast. & that 7 years later I am making more than the 2 of us combined at our first jobs out of college. IS this a commercial for college education or what? Wink

Looking back you would think we could have saved more. All I know is we put $50k down on a condo in 1999, and then we proceeded to save most of the down payment on this home - another $30k or so, over 2 years. We had 2 homes for a while and sunk a lot of cash into 2 mortgages. I think our mortgages totaled $500k for a few months. That took a chunk of our income for almost 6 months. You know sometimes I wish we lived somewhere where we could buy a house for $80k. Ah. Or even just a stinking condo - hehe. Oh I am sure there are trade-offs. But the idea of all the money we have sunk into housing and how much we still owe - blah...

In 2002 we made $81,000, but I would guess our take-home was the same or even less than today, with taxes. Kids have proven to be a nice tax deduction. I wonder how much in tax we paid in 2000 & 2001... Probably a lot, whereas we have swung a couple of years with 0 income taxes since then.

Well now you know the whole financial story of my life.

5 Responses to “Kind of Interesting - A Lifetime of Wages”

  1. LuckyRobin Says:
    1164617538

    Interesting. It is amazing how much you can make in a decade and a half. I can't imagine ever having to pay what you had to pay for a house, even in the less expensive area. Location makes all the difference, it really, really does. We bought our house for $65K. It's worth 100K now after putting in propane, a furnace, wiring it (you don't want to know what the shape of the wiring was in, had to wire for cable and phone, too), tearing off the old roof and putting on the new one, sanded and painted, tearing down the ramshackle "greenhouse" (worse than Tina's crack shack), trucking in dirt (it was all gravel before) to put in lawns), putting in a raised bed garden again with quality dirt. Our realtor uncle says once we complete the renovations it'll be worth about $150K. Putting up a new cedar shed (cost $1000) will increase the value by another $5000 to $10000. Just for the record its an 1800 square foot 4 bedroom 2 full bathroom, family room, play room, full kitchen on 3/8 of an acre. If we were to have bought it in town it would have probably cost us $150K to buy it and it would be worth double that now.

    If we put in new floors, which I want to do, put in hardwood in the living room and playroom and new laminate in the kitchen and bathrooms, it'll boost it even more. Not to mention when we tear out the ugly old bathtub and redo it. Look at me, here I made this comment about my house when I was supposed to be talking about yours. Oops. LOL

  2. LuckyRobin Says:
    1164617807

    This was supposed to go on that last comment but it went weird when I tried to edit it in.

    You guys have done a really good job for your ages. You're only seven years behind me and DH and you are doing very, very well. Better than us.

  3. kimiko Says:
    1164632488

    Your financial story gives me hope Smile

  4. monkeymama Says:
    1164638094

    Well it's good for something - hehe. Glad I can give someone hope.

  5. monkeymama Says:
    1164638272

    If we hadn't of moved we would have to pay $500k for a really small crummy house. That is the scary thing! Or I guess stay in our condo. Wasn't so bad but we have twice as much room AND a garage AND a yard here for a little less than our condo sold for.

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