What do you do that you earn six figures?

r/financialindependence • u/fidgit86 • Aug 13 '21

It seems like a lot of people make a lot of money and it seems like I’m missing out on something. So those of you that do, whats your occupation that pays so well?

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u/danxthexman 32M / 68% SR Aug 13 '21

Accounting

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u/MyPokeballsAreItchy Aug 13 '21

I’m on path to make 40k ~ potentially more ~ as a third year BBA student with two internships this year, both public and private. Pretty stellar.

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u/danxthexman 32M / 68% SR Aug 13 '21

That’s great, I started at 40k after college 10 years ago with a dual bachelor.

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u/MyPokeballsAreItchy Aug 13 '21

Yeah I got lucky. Good people skills and working at a public firm as a tech for 6 months while taking three classes last semester in sophomore year with COVID paid off in more ways than one. Through the end of the year I’ll have experience with SAP and hopefully SQL as well, so it leaves me lots of room to navigate around this career path before I even have a chance to get my CPA. Highly recommend anyone that actually wants a job that you may be able to work from home eventually to consider accounting. It isn’t engineering and it doesn’t exactly have glitz and glamour but it is highly underrated as a major especially when I see the success stories on r/accounting

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u/gizamo Aug 13 '21

With inflation of the last ten years, that $40k you made would be $50k now. Wages for accountants are decreasing. Opportunities are also decreasing.

Source: programmer who's automated most accounting for my employer (a Fortune 500). We didn't fire anyone, but as our accountants retire, we're hiring significantly fewer replacements at lower salaries.

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u/MyPokeballsAreItchy Aug 13 '21

Yeah I wouldn’t necessarily say they are decreasing; that’s highly dependent on your location and your skill base. I went to a polytechnic and took a lot of IM/IT courses in addition to the standard financial/managerial accounting courses and although I would say the public salaries are not exactly well paid for the first two years of your career after you get your CPA things change real quick as you’re going to be making 10-15% more each year just by having the designation before you factor in actual promotions/the potential to piggyback and leave for industry. You can’t fully automate and properly conform to IFRS/U.S GAAP; you will always need someone to perform the controls so I’m really not that worried in the scope of a <40 year career.

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u/gizamo Aug 13 '21

I think you're correct on all points. We've been automating everything we can, and the financial units are the hardest, and it's getting harder all the time. I imagine that's true for everyone trying to automate financials of any kind. Also, I can confirm that our accounting team all have decent salaries; they always have, even if the starting is a bit lower nowadays. Cheers.

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u/MyPokeballsAreItchy 29d ago

It’s good to hear from someone already in the industry that they’re even seeing the challenges of automating things especially with changes after COVID and new asset classes like crypto coming in. Gives me some reassurance I’ll be able to get a job once I’m actually done my undergrad :)