I wouldn’t use this thread as a means of comparison, the “Share your salary” one that you have linked would be the one I’d use to ponder my own salary progression, what to aim and negociate for and if a career change would seem warranted.
This poll just gives me a datapoint to understand that when I read that an 8K bed or 40K+ car are considered normal purchases, one can’t hope to live in Switzerland on 40K of income and marginal tax rates should be expected to be 35% at a minimum, we are really speaking of the situation of high income earners mainly in the Zürich area and that doesn’t necessarily apply to my own situation.
There are many paths to FIRE but frugality is at the core of mustachianism. Many topics here are more about high income earners interested in [passive] investing than people trying to optimize their consumption and grow the badassity muscle by relying more on muscle power than machinery or hired help. That’s an important lense to know to have when reading things on a forum called “Mustachian Post”.
When you look at the poll you see that about 1/4 of this community earns less than 100k and 1/4 more than 175k, the other 50% are somewhere between. The mean salary of this community should be somewhere around 130-140k I guess.
I guess you could compare this community more to Bogleheads. High earners with a tendency to save a lot more than the average Joe.
Director position in a large company (but small presence in Switzerland) recently offering 200k + bonus, which I assume it’s another 20k.
But it’s a long grind to get there, and once you’re there I am quite sure it’s an even worse type of grind.
Unfortunately you can throw these assumptions out the window for higher level positions, the lifestyle requirements do not pair well with frugality (e.g. needs of representation, networking, travel, no time available for “cheaper” alternatives to things, etc.) you’ll have more than enough to compensate for your lack of frugality but your mindset will change.
The few times I managed to overcome my shyness on this topic resulted in pretty cool conversations. I had only good experience so far (not that many, though)
Not pleasant but you can act on it, maybe your performance is lacking, maybe you haven’t negociated enough, maybe it’s time to move to another company or even start your own…
Though I do understand that at some income levels, the compensation comes with some expectation of restraint in regards to communicating your work conditions, in which case, that expected restraint should be priced in the compensation.
Depends on the company. I’ve worked (not long) for terrible employers with a culture of “everybody is equal at an equally low pay”. Good performance wouldn’t net you a better salary in such an environment (and you would likely leave, but this is the reality for some people).
Also in the public sector, while there is some leeway for performance oriented compensation, most of it is set by the position, age and experience.
“Reality” depends on your environment and the tradeoffs you are making/willing to accept.
Sales, my friend - switch to sales and in the good years, when you hit your plan and the bonus moltiplicator kicks in, you get the big paycheck. Not unheard of that some salesman (no manager) end up making more than top executive. In the same company.
But it is an hard job. You gets lots of “no”. Your manager is going to put pressure for the big deal etc.
(I’m sales engineer - no commission for me, I’m just scoping out technical requirements, but I do work very tightly with salesmen in my company)
While I agree that talking about salaries can be detrimental to the amount of positive emotions felt at work, some knowledge of where you stand among your peers can be good to have, especially if you realise you are on the lower end and therefore can more confidently ask for a raise.
it depends if you work for a big or small company and the age.
When you are young, you get experience maybe changing every 2-3 years so your salary will increase, then find a medium-large company where you feel happy and grow there…not easy, but possible
Looks like you’ve only worked in large corporations with lots of policies and politics. I can tell you from experience that smaller companies tend to be a lot more agile in terms of salary increases. Where I work at we don’t even couple title to salary because me and my boss don’t care about the title nor do we have any company policy that does so.
If the market price of what I do goes up or my work is substantially helping a company that is what im being paid for and not what my title says and what would theoretically be my duties based on my title.
I think the “problem” we have in this forum is that we are not very representative for the swiss population… but that’s no surprise… as most swiss are not financially literated and thus this topic tends to draw more “high incomer”
I’d say anybody can do it if they feel it’s warranted. Call it “fine grained income level poll” and call it a day. It’ll sink to the bottom of the forum if it’s not deemed attractive or replace this topic if more successful.
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