My current marginal tax rate is 25%. If I earn 10k more, I’m able to save 7.5k more.
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SAP Consultant roles pay pretty well. SAP covers many domains from HR to Production Planning. Training is quite fast, say 4 weeks full time for the basic cert.
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I lost already ~18.5% each month on my income if you not trust retreat amount with debt money value decreasing year after year. Interest too low for compensate that.
After you have ~1.5x (monthly income) to pay depend location by year and yes you can have some reduction with 3a and home improvement but not so much.
If you win less than *k.- per month you pay ~18.5% but no tax and health insurance can be payed for you. If you can have nothing or almost nothing more than debt in wealth it’s better too no tax under 40k else you pay each year a percentage of your wealth but still cheaper than interest rate at the bank even if low.
You need to win a lot for have some advantages on tax or win less for not be taxed. On the middle you pay. I have not finished my plan because need more time but I try to be able to deduct all expenses with very low income. Like that you can choose a job you like and not one for win more money or just decrease percentage for retrieve time to spend to anything other even if you win nothing.
Be happy is an important part of the life and it’s not related to money. If you look a little less people have money more happy they are.
I less and less understand why some people want 1/2/3m in XX years because 1m in 10 years can worth really only actual 100k. The important thing is to be able to live well with less over time.
I think if you stop focusing on money and salary, you’re going to make him come on his own no matter what the method. It’s may be wrong but I view too much people take higher job without have skills and without like their job who are just there for money. I think that’s the main reason why US/EU are on downside and CN on upside. We need again people who work for their enterprise and not for money.
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I’m sorry but I didn’t understand a single word. No offense, but this is far worse than Google Translate.
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The last time I checked, Chinese people were CRAZY about money and saving it. That’s the difference, they save a lot. Their motivation for work is that they remember extreme poverty and want as far from that state as possible. But thats just my opinion.
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(Forum) life is simpler when you have Pedro hidden. 
I don’t even bother trying to read and understand anymore.
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Look Alipay future IPO and the huge amount of money so yes they like money and have much more than Visa
Xiaomi jump from nothing some years ago to the top 5. Nio can replace Tesla in some years. Alibaba, JD, PDD, Tencent, … China grows and is everywhere in some years.
Thanks, I finally found out how that works.
For those curious: Preferences → Notifications → Users → Ignored.
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When looking at e.g. SaaS products, I would recommend getting a certification in Salesforce to anyone interested in bumping their salaries, there are almost no available skills in the market and the client base in Switzerland is growing. Better as freelance for projects in the financial industry, rates are very high, the downside is clearly once the project is over then it’s time for another customer (may require travel).
Otherwise, one of the best investment is to get some certifications in the Cloud area (Azure / AWS / GCP), probably has advantages long-term over specific products… (who remembers when Peoplesoft was all the rage?)
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What are “very high” rates for you? Are we talking 150.-, 200.- or 250+ CHF per hour all-in?
Just having a certification doesn’t make you an expert in Salesforce. I like the idea, but you also need to consider mastering something like that easily takes several years. And clients don’t like blenders who don’t know what they are doing. Maybe it’s different in Salesfore, but in SAP contracting it’s not. Big companies like Accenture/Deloitte/etc might get away with sending rookies to customers, but it’s not working if you are a contractor. Just my 2 cents.
Hi @FIREstarter,
From what I have seen you can get quite easily in the 150-200 range with limited experience. I agree that SAP requires more, that’s why SFDC is a compelling proposition for someone that does want / can put some limited time and effort in certifications.
All told, if you are a developer it pays off to specialize, just don’t make it your only option 
Sometimes even the companies you mention are looking at freelancers to add to their ranks for specific projects, and not always at the most experienced ones.
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100% agree. I would exchange “sometimes” with “most of the time”. I’ve seen it a lot for different customers already. Customer hiring “put big consulting company name here” which hires a freelancer via another head-hunting company. Just imagine how much money the customer is paying per hour, and how much is left for the actual freelance worker 
Getting a certification is quite easy, but companies won’t hire you if you have only a certification on a Saas solution. You need at least 1-2 years of experience and this is the harder part to get (Chicken or the egg dilemma). But in general, the more you are specialized, the higher is the salary.
The two main risk/issue with Saas product is the demand tends to change over time and being bored/stuck in your career.
Now, Salesforce is the leader. You become a salesforce expert, but after some years you’re not up to date anymore with the market, because a new leader has emerged.
I have seen that it was a payroll company hiring for an IT consulting firm, then you would work for an insurance company. So both companies take their cut on your “salary”.
Create a new post with these instructions like that more people can have my comments hidden
This post is really strange seem people work only for money but can explain why people are so bad in some places just go there for money.
I work with software that you can describe as “SAP for banks”, but I’ve been curious about SAP for a long time, because it sounds like a manufacturing company would have more interesting projects than a bank. At a bank it’s all very abstract. Typical projects at a bank:
- we need to meet these new regulatory requirements, please implement them in the system
- we want to use this new tool from the external company, please build an interface to transfer data
- we want to sell this new financial product to the customer, please implement it in the system
That being said, I don’t expect myself to ever learn SAP. It takes time, and me and my friends also achieve net hourly rates of 150-200, so there is no incentive.
I’ve heard of several people in consulting that the yearly income can be up to 250k CHF. One guy was a freelance software developer hired thru a big consulting firm and another guy making about the same paid some 15.- Fr/h to the payrolling company which sent him to a bank for some app development.
Salesforce is the leader for some years now, so I guess it might be a good area to specialize. SAP has a marketshare of >80% in big companies though, and it’s been established for several decades. Which doesn’t mean customers might find alternatives. Still, one big advantage for SAP: if you ever implemented and integrated SAP in your landscape, it’s almost impossible to get out again. It’s like a spiderweb
I’m pretty sure your employer also uses SAP (if I remember correctly, it’s one of the big four banks in Switzerland). You might just not know about it. There are a lot of SAP use cases for banks btw: just think of business warehouse. Senior mgmt loves to have those nice dashboards with cash flow and analytics. Another advantage: instead of you having to implement the regulatory requirements, a lot of those adjustments are coming automatically with SAP support packages. Think of new annual requirements in HR.
I’m not saying that you can’t make a good salary nevertheless 
But imagine if you remove payroll company and big consulting company from the equation. It depends on the payroll company, but some of them keep up to 30% for themselves. So basically the freelancer gets 150.- per hour, while the customer pays 250.- per hour. Pretty good profit for the payroll and consulting company…
By the way, I heard that in some sectors (not sure what it was: pharma, medical research or sth else) it’s the opposite: people fight to come work as internals and the externals get lower money.
But yeah, it’s kind of logical: if you work internally, the company takes “responsibility” of you. They find work for you, send you to trainings, pay your holidays, bonus, make team events. They keep an office running, with electricity, water, cleaning. They have to pay HR, managers and directors. It’s all paid from the added value of a productive worker.
Now, if you go freelancing, you can cut on these costs. No GA, no office, streamlined admin. They pay you per hour and they can cancel this contract any day they want. So when I’m given the option: work internally with a 120k gross salary or externally for 150 per hour, I’ll take my chances with the second one. But it’s not for everybody, certainly you’re always in a temporary situation.
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Pharma is a joke as an external. I received a “funny” offer beginning of this year: working for 90.- per hour all-in for one of the two big Pharma companies in Basel. It was a team lead role. So basically I would have earned almost the same as an internal guy, while having much bigger responsibility. Plus, having to pay AHV/pillar 2 etc on my own. Not getting paid for vacation.
I really don’t know if the payroll company is receiving such a big margin or if Pharma really pays that bad to externals.
Same here. I have more risk, but I also have more upside. Road to FI is faster, but as you said: client can cancel the contract any day.
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I would tipp for the first option… Myself currenly I don’t seem to get better IT offers than around 100-110 CHF / hour from these headhunters/payroll/whatever in between companies and if I mention 150 they clearly say it’s a no go…