Nathan Miller breaks down why a typical $80,000 salary leaves you with only $1,400 monthly discretionary cash after taxes and expenses. He contrasts the 9-to-5 trap with starting an online business: Year 1 costs $10k to learn, Year 2 breaks even, Year 3 can hit six figures. Miller bought a $5 million house at 22 by choosing the entrepreneurial path.
Chapters
Most people think that making 80k a year, it's like a normal 9 to 5 job. They think that's pretty good, right? But what if I told you that this is actually a trap and that it's actually not as good as it seems and this comfortable lifestyle could be killing your long term. So here on this board, right, I have it broken down and if you guys don't know who I am, my name is Nathan Miller. I took this route and all these things that I have on the board are something that I've personally done. So I can, you know, verify that it actually works. This is kind of like almost a best case scenario, right? And, and so 80k a year, you break that down into 12 months. How much is it per month? $6,666 a month in income. But with taxes it only goes to 5k a month because you get taxed a lot. You're in a certain tax bracket, you don't have an llc, you don't have any way to like write off taxes. So you're paying as much as you can. Like you're just paying so much in taxes and then these expenses, right? So you're going to have rent, that's normal. 18, you know, $1,800 in rent. 500 dol for cars and gas, 500 for food, few 300 for like subscriptions, like movies, like you know, different, like Entertainments and then 500 for like miscellaneous. So like I don't know if you want to go out to the bar, you want to get some drinks, like going to a concert, stuff like that. That's kind of what I put into there. And from this 80k salary, right? This 80k salary you get left over each month with $1,400 if you're lucky. This is, if this is like a pretty conservative actually estimate, a lot of people what is they get like a car they can't afford because they got this nice salary, right? So they get like even more expensive cars. They might even spend more on food. Like this is very conservative, so keep that in mind as well. This is also not factoring in any debt you got from college, any medical expenses, insurance, like stuff like that. So you got to keep that in mind as well. Like phone plans even are not even like this is very bare bones, right? And what do you get with this, you know, 80k a year job? You get two weeks of vacation every year, right? Two weeks. You get 14 days out of 365 that you can do what you want when you want Two weeks. Just let that sink in. You get a nice cozy cubicle most of the time. You know, I know now like some of the places they have better work environments, but a lot of jobs still use cubicles. So you'll be nice, nice little hut, you know, locked in there, you'll have job security, which is a total BS statement. Like if you're working under someone, there's no such thing as job security because what if they go out of business? What if they go into debt, what if they do something stupid? Then you're going to be gone. So job security is one of the benefits. You also get to work 40 to 50 hours a week, which is just amazing, you know, working for someone else, making someone else money raises, you might, if you're lucky, you might get a 5% raise every year. Maybe 5 to 10 if you're like really good. So that's going to add, you know, I don't know, an extra what, 400, maybe like 300 on this number right here. So wow, another 200amonth. That's really life changing. And then also your income is pretty much capped aside from the raises. Like you don't have opportunities where you can double your income, right? You can't triple double even like one point. You can't even 50x your income because you're in a job like you're working a 9 to 5. That's just not what happens. But you do get the ability to retire in 30 to 40, 40 years. So in four decades from now, you might have the ability to save up enough money to you where you can actually start living life and actually start going places you want to and actually start enjoying all these benefits from the 40 years of slavery you just worked. Right? So this is the college to 80k a year, right? And like it's kind of crazy because I, when I was in high school, this is something that I was looking at. I was like, I wanted to be a computer, like, I don't know, one of those coder people, I can't even remember the name because it's been so long. Always thought that like 80k, like 100k, like that I would feel so good about myself. But when you break it down to 5k and then 1400amonth that you have left to spend if you're like super conservative, that's insane. Like that's actually insane. So now we're going to go over to the risky online business. You know, the risky, the risky route, what everyone likes to call risky. All right, so year one minus 10k, right? You're so in this route you didn't go to college, right? Usually you're either got some savings or you just have like, you know, a job. Like I did, like I was working at a pizza place, I worked at Chipotle. And so you're kind of doing this kind of on the side for the first year or two, right? And so you're minus 10k because you're investing in learning, right? You're investing in courses, you're testing different products out or you're trading different stocks. Like you're just learning, right? With learning there's going to be a lot of failure and you're going to lose some money. It's just everybody does it. Everyone who's ever like had a bunch of success has lost money. Like it's just what happens. Year two, you might break even and you might be profitable. This kind of depends. For me, honestly, year two I was very profitable. Year one I was like a little unprofitable, break even. But year two I like really, that's where I found my stride. But for a lot of people, they're going to be break even or maybe a little bit profitable. And so you're still probably at this point still working, you know, whatever other job you're working, you might, you know, still be having that savings that you're using or you know, working just like at fucking Chipotle like me. Or you might be able to at this point if you're a little bit profitable actually, you know, go all in on this online business or this risky online business. And that's when it gets to year three. In year three, like if you actually lock in, I don't see many people who don't make a shit ton of money. Like if you're genuinely locked in, you're learning every day. Like you move the needle every single day from year two or year one to year three, like you're going to make a lot of profit. And so like 200k pure profit that's 100% doable. So many people do it. So many like young kids, like there's, there's probably like a 16 year old out there who's doing this like a month. Like it's actually kind of crazy. Like the uncapped and like the unlike limited potential you have with the online business route and then the perks as well. Little to no debt, right? Like depends on like the business you're going into. But usually you don't, you don't have this college debt that you just, you know, Paid for. So like you don't have all that. You have basically ultimate freedom. Obviously with, you know, more freedom, you need to be more disciplined. But you have like the ability to like bend your schedule to like, if you want to go do something that you just want to do for whatever reason, you have the ability to like flip your schedule around and go do it. Unlimited income. Like there's literally not a cap on how much you can make because this just, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. You can keep, once you start learning more and more, you get on to bigger and bigger things, bigger and bigger problems, creating bigger and bigger solutions which equals more money. You get a hot wife because you have actually time to, you could, because you have time to actually spend with her. You have money to spend on her. You have like a legitimate like income. You have vacations, like girls, chicks dig that man. So like you're gonna get a nice little wife for you and then you can, you have the ability to create your own schedule. And I already said that, but that's a huge one. And then guess what? You can actually live life now. You don't have to wait 30 to 40 years to go travel. You don't have to wait 34 years to go to wherever you want to do to go live it up. Go life. You can start living now. You can grind for like a few months out of the year and then you can just go on like a little week vacay whenever you want. Because it's an online business, you have the ability to live wherever you want. This is a good outline and I want to like tell you guys, my success happened way quicker than this. Year one, I was like, I probably lost money. Year two, I made multi six figures in profit. Like and then year three, I'm in year three right now and it's already going pretty well. So definitely if you are considering like what you want to do or even if you're in like college or something, like, dude, the pros and the cons are there. Like it's such a no brainer to me. It's kind of crazy how this is the risky route when this is like a guaranteed 40 years of just mediocrity. All right, like a 40 years of just being a slave or some basically being a cuck for a guy making money. Like you're just watching to make money and you're sitting in the corner while this, you're making it for yourself. You're in control. They both have pros and cons when it comes to like obviously this Might seem a little bit more comfortable because it's like consistent this year's obviously you're gonna have a lot of self doubt. Like it's not easy. I don't want to make this seem like this is going to be super easy. Like for me, like there's so many times I thought about quitting. So many times I was like, what the heck am I even doing? Like this is not making any sense. This is not working. Because it's not like with, you know, an online biz, you don't have like this course, you don't have like a college course. You don't have someone holding your hand the whole way. You're kind of learning stuff on your own. And so that is a huge jump. And that's honestly it takes a lot of willpower and a lot of just like grind to get through that. Whereas for college, like everyone, like almost everyone you know has gone through college. Right? So like, you know it's going to work. You know, you're going to probably be able to find a job. Like it's a proven thing. But how many people do you know who actually did this? Right? Most of them you see online. So it's hard to believe. But I'm telling you right now, there's so many people printing right now, there's so many kids out there who are like 12 years old actually, but like 16, like 18 who are like already making like 10k per month. Like I know a lot of people think 80k a year is this crazy, you know, solid job, but it's really not all that much. And look where I'm at, man. I'm 22 years old, I'm in a 5 million dollar house, just moved here like a month ago into this new city. And I'm living life like I'm working on myself every day, working on my businesses every day, getting into literally like swim in the pool, go out to nature like all the time. Like I can do whatever I want. Basically I'm in a new city, exploring and it's honestly like the dream life, like I'm really living right now and I need to like be more grateful for that and like just. I am very grateful but I need to like really understand that because what's the average 22 year old doing right now? So hopefully this inspires you guys. Like look at this crib, look at this crib. Like I'm 22, I'm no smarter than you, you can do it too.
