How much money is it actually?
College student here,
Just wondering actually how much is it when you’re making over 100k a year right out of school?
I’ve never made more than 20/hr, and the thought of making over 100k right out of school is pretty mind boggling.
I guess my question is like, how ridiculous is it once you’re making that kind of money? I know COL is the biggest factor here, but I’m just wondering from an outsiders perspective how crazy is it making 130k a year as a first year analyst?
Thanks y’all!
I worked in REPE and banked ~155 all-in plus ~15k in expense reimbursements. Post tax, it's more like 60K of cash from salary, 30K from bonus and 15K of savings. Which means for the first 11 months, you are averaging 5K/month post-tax, half of which goes to rent and the other half goes to spending exorbitant amounts every weekend to feel alive ($250 on food, $250 on clubbing/drinks). On bonus month, I banked ~40K and paid off loans/new apartment expenses.
Ended up with net zero in savings because I like to live a little; no regrets. Still felt like I was being underpaid for the hours I was working, never felt fully free to be off the grid since anything could come up at any moment. The feeling of spending $500/weekend on good food, drinks, etc. also was extremely short-lived. Wasn't making enough to feel like a true big baller, but enough to not have to care about the difference between $$$ and $$$$ on Yelp or pitching in for a table at a club. I also didn't account for saving for a vacation since nobody on my team really look long vacations, just the odd day or two off every couple of months.
As you said really depends on COL above all else, but let’s assume NYC. It’s not much really. Yes, you’ll live comfortably and cover all expenses and some student loan payments, but you won’t really be able to save a huge amount if you want financial freedom relatively early on.
Well what about if you aren’t in a city like NYC and are in Charlotte where the cost of living is much smaller
A city like that? You will be living quite large and well with substantially more savings. The thing is this becomes more apparent a few years down the line when you are upgrading from a small studio to a larger 1BR or maybe 2BR as that’s where the real differential in rent between cities comes from. Too bad those on this site would have you believe you’ll have no exits or prestige opting for there over NYC (hint: they’re full of shit)
Depends what you were used to growing up I guess. My parents made way less than my first year base salary, so to me its pretty huge. I've seen plenty of ppl on WSO say these salaries are nothing till you are making mid-high six figures several years in, but even these analyst level comp is pretty surreal to think about sometimes. With the new base, my post-tax salary is about 6k per month and after 1.7k rent and living off of meal stipends Sunday-Thursday and a gym stipend, I don't have much else in terms of costs other than splurging on weekends to do basically anything I want to. If you ever think its "not much" compare how you get to live vs your college friends who work typical jobs outside of finance, etc that make 40-50k first year out of school that have to carefully budget eating out or taking an Uber somewhere.
Yeah but it’s also about the savings amount you can do. Sure all bases for expenses and fun will be amply covered. But I assume you don’t plan to stick it out in banking for many years (maybe you do?) and savings so you can do something else more chill is necessary.
I've been able to contribute enough to max a 401k and IRA just from base and bonus is nearly all to my brokerage account too. Will I be retiring rich in 5 years? No, but two years of that is a pretty good nest egg that has plenty of time to compound to move onto something chill. The security of that is infinitely more valuable to me than consistently spending $500 a weekend(??) on balling out.
Yeah my dad doesn’t make anything more than 190k, and my mom is handicapped and doesn’t work.
So me making 120k+ right out of school, then yeah it’s a pretty big deal for me!
Based on my experience when I was an IB analyst, after tax & other withholdings you only get 65-70% of the ~$100K, so ~$67.5K divided by 26 pay periods in a year nets you a $2,600 paycheck every 2 weeks, or ~$5,200 every month. Of that, ballpark ~$1,750 goes to NYC Rent, lets assume $2,000 goes to Food, Leisure & Other, and debt paydown on college debt is a black box (I had $30K college debt after college so low payments, but others are much higher). So you end up saving $1,000 - $1,500 per month, maybe less, maybe more if you can cut that $2,000 down. Not really earth-shattering money TBH --- what you really care about is the first bonus. $60K-$65K was typical bonus for 2nd year analyst pre-COVID at a bulge bracket, which would net you like ~$45K of cash to your account (after withholdings). Just make sure you save as much of that as possible in case you burn out or move to a lower-paying industry.
I got chills based on how accurate this math is...
I was on the street at a BB 2018-2020 as an analyst, so I have pretty good pre-COVID insights. Now that COVID hit and the junior incentives are coming in, think the economics have changed drastically, though. Wouldn't expect these numbers to hold up anymore as a solid guidepost.
65 was a good pre covid second year bonus, that seems low? Our first years (mm bank) got 45-65 during covid (2020 summer bonus). This past summer was materially higher.
$65K was mid-bucket 2nd Year Analyst bonus at my shop and the few shops that I had friends at. I was above $65K.
When WSOers complain about only netting 60k post tax when that’s how much my parents made in an entire year altogether raising a family of 4 in the middle of a major city, lol. Wage labor will never be “enough” money. Find gratification somewhere else.
How is it in a city like Houston?
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