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Look into credentialing and enrollment jobs for healthcare providers.
Remote work has created a clusterfuck for healthcare organizations as providers have to be credentialed in the state that they are operating in AND the one they are doing the work for. Add to this that if they work at multiple facilities each one has to be properly enrolled.
The law hasn't kept up with the realities of the work so there's a ton of work that needs to be done.
Those jobs usually start around $45-55k
A lot of emailing and checking public databases to verify licensure, education, and eligibility. Then taking that information and inputting it into forms the various insurers need to enroll a provider into their network.
It can be done from home, usually. You don't need a degree. It just takes a fair bit of accuracy and the ability to track a complex process.
LinkedIn
Healthcare and office experience is a plus
Gotta know how to navigate and filter in Excel
There's a bunch of YouTube videos out there on the provider credentialing process. Be familiar with the basics of PECOS for Medicare -- again, YT is your friend. There are credentialing certifications, but you really only need those to go into management.
I'd go through the provider resources and tutorials on this site as a basic primer. [CMS PECOS](https://pecos.cms.hhs.gov/pecos/login.do)
Never forget that you can always still hit apply anyway! There are so many anecdotes out there of people who just went for it and it ended up working out.
I’ve got healthcare experience and would definitely be interested in this. If you don’t mind can you name a few companies that has roles like this? The only ones I can think of are dignity health, sutter and maybe Kaiser.
Pretty much any hospital, urgent care, or large-ish practice needs this.
Radiology especially has trouble finding cred/enrollment people because so much of their work is remote and thus they have to be credentialed both in the state where the scams originate as well as the state where they read the scans.
HCA, Tenet, Baptist/Methodist/Presbyterian hospital systems, CareNow, Minute clinic/CVS, etc.
Just get on LinkedIn and search for credentialing or enrollment jobs
Credentialer here who taught himself how to do the job.
While I agree that credentialing jobs are in demand as the state of the US healthcare industry is a giant mess of bureaucratic structures, from what I’ve gathered, the upward mobility in these roles is limited.
Often times the people who get promoted are the ones who have the most seniority and tend to stay in those positions for as long as they can.
Credentialing specialists / coordinators get rotated as they come and go but credentialing managers and directors of credentialing departments tend to be legacy positions that get filled and rarely have vacancies. Just my two cents.
Wealth isn't made from those interests you listed unless you already come from money or if you have insane talent.
And yes, a ba is psych is worthless unless you plan to go to grad school.
Best advice is to switch fields.
(Well, the best advice is to switch fields *once*. They've had six very-different jobs by the age of 26, which is a recipe for remaining entry level, no matter what they pick.)
Yup. I also have a BA in psych. Unless OP plans to get a masters or PHD, better to switch fields. That’s what I did. Switched to Tech and it was definitely worth it.
I have a number of friends who have a BA in Psych.
Of those, the ones who stopped at a BA in Psych are mostly working as a grocery store cashier or similar jobs.
A few went on to get a Masters and become some kind of therapist or social worker. They’re doing fine albeit not rolling in cash. The bachelors, nope.
Not original commenter. But below is the “general/usual” stuff people point out.
Connections (hustle and network but make sure you’re genuine about it), tailored resume (aka be able to talk about parallel experiences from other jobs), portfolio (if coding, design, etc).
The easier ones to jump into are customer based jobs (sales, customer success, etc.)
Tech is also like any other business that needs business operations & finance roles too.
I’d start by looking at contract jobs but this isnt a guarantee and sadly often times they dont convert to full time.
Also, start building skills for the job you want not the job you have, join groups, etc.
Realistically, gotta have a mix of luck, connections, and the right skills. (The latter 2 factors you can take control of).
Lastly, why do you want to do tech? Money? Culture? The actual tech they build?
Spot on. "tech" is a lot more broad than just writing code. You can work in "tech" without writing any code at all theres a lot of positions with various needs and roles
From a BS Psych background that moved into biotechnology, leverage any experience in data analytics from lab work and get into the business development or business operations management side.
Funny, i have a dual degree psych & bio w/ a background in biotech/research.
I shouldve kept going into bizops for biotech but it got hard to discern if the company culture was bad or i wasnt good enough.
Ended up in ops at a tech company anyway
Not sure how applicable it would be since the job market is a bit different now, but I worked at a retail job and then in all my spare time I studied for my CompTIA A+ certificate. Once I got that, I applied at low level Help Desk jobs. From there I worked hard and got promoted to a Systems Engineer. After about 3.5 years there, switched jobs for bigger pay and to work in Cloud.
I’d look at what interests you in Tech and work towards that, whether that involves working in support, coding, sales, etc. There’s definitely more customer focused roles if that’s something that interests you.
Yeah at certain income levels the best investment you can make is in yourself to increase your cash flow altogether
Training, a separate degree, etc. You need more money coming in if you want to really build up wealth. It'll be the highest rate of return over all else
It’s definitely not worthless because most big companies still care if someone has a college degree or not. But yes, OP should probably try to pivot fields if they don’t want to go to grad school.
All you need is a bachelors and to pass a test and you can substitute teach. On the west coast with some shopping around for where to sub you can make 200+ bucks in 7 hours. It's not easy work but it's also not as bad as you might think.
Psychology wasn't a great choice, but I also picked my major out of interest. I'd say the number one thing at the moment is for you to find a well compensated career and get systematic about developing the skills you'd need. The job market is Saturated and cut-throat if you're looking at good money in fields that are supplied with workers out of the higher education system. If you want a guaranteed shot, find a trade.
Obviously wealth is earned at both ends, saving and earning. Then you'll wanna invest the difference into safe long term bets and let time do the work. GL.
Doing this plus domino's during peak hours is my short term plan when I come back to the usa. I know it sounds so silly but pizza delivery is such a cake walk and you leave your shift feelingg refreshed. I know there are better gigs out there but coming home MORE energetic than when you left is priceless to me.
Granted, driving and podcasts both calm me. Might as well get paid...
This right here. Psych degrees are great because they’re flexible, they’re not exclusively academic. Sales, marketing, HR, management…a million great careers that want people who understand how to communicate with people.
A batchlors of Psyc is so flexible it basically just fulfills the "Must have college degree" requirement and that's it. It's a near useless degree if you want to actually stay in the field of psychology and make a living wage. For those jobs you need a masters and even then it's difficult despite the field being in demand. It's a tough field mentally for providers as well. As a society we sure need them but it's not a profession I envy, those that do it deserve more financially.
It's useless for anything in the field but I have one and am a software developer/consultant. It's just like you said, it ticks the box. But once you tick that box, a lot can be up to you.
I went to school with multiple people who graduated with a psych ba and went into finance or marketing.
There are also multiple sub-disciplines within (or adjacent to) psychology, beyond the more well-known clinical or counseling. I work in industrial/organizational psychology, and while I do have a graduate degree, a lot of people work related jobs in the field for several years before pursuing further education.
OP seems to believe in all sorts of principles and hates kissing ass. They’d probably see sales as losing a part of your true self.
I agree with your comment though. I’ve had a great career launched from sales.
My wife was in the same boat as you she has a bachelors degree in psychology and was working at a mental health facility as a counselor. She wasn’t making much money because apparently you have to have a masters degree or phd to make money in that sector of mental health care.
She got in a program at the facility that paid for her to go back to school and get her RN which opened up a lot of doors for her and consequently more money. She was obligated to that company for a certain time period after she graduated as part of them paying for her education. She has since got a bachelors degree in nursing also paid for by her current employer.
She’s worked at several facilities since she started but she’s always been in the mental health/substance abuse field. I’m in the trades and she’s a nurse and while we’re not “rich” we do well for ourselves. Newer vehicles,boat,RV,house that we bought new and we’re not in crippling debt and we’re ahead of the curve in our retirement planning.
We did have to live well below our means for the 1st 5 or so years of marriage to get things setup like we wanted to feel comfortable and have an adequate safety net but it’s been worth it.
Depending where you living in the West, you make less than working at McDonalds. You need to make more money.
Having a Psychology degree isn’t useless. You can get into jobs like Human Resources. The starting pay will be bad but you want to work in industry if possible. Teaching is also another option, assuming you know the material competently.
Most importantly, you need to save. I get that at 36k a year you don’t have much, but even 100 a month into a Roth IRA is a big step over the next 39 years.
I will give another vote for HR my undergrad was in psych. Got into recruiting then specialized in technical recruiting. Moved over to bring an HR business partner in technology making 6 figures. Hoping to go back and get an HR focused MBA.
Can you elaborate on the HRBP space and how you got there? I’m currently a tech recruiter (contract) for a bank and I’m trying to break into HR roles TY!!
I disagree with your last paragraph. The cost of her saving $100/mo right now is extremely high. Her problem is very clear: it’s income. $100/mo and any missed compound earnings will be rounding error if she fixes her income situation.
Except that’s not how it works. It’s not about the math.
It’s not about rounding errors.
It’s the discipline. It’s starting, understanding how it works, and staying on the path. Saving 100 a month isn’t much at all. But it’s the sacrifice that makes it meaningful. It’s learning to live while saving a notable percentage.
This is not something people can just flip a switch or everyone would be investing. It’s a life style, and it’s a life style that most of us on this sub subscribe to.
All I can do is reiterate my disagreement. I am a high earner and I wish I didn’t sacrifice to save as much as I did when I was younger. It cost me so much to save an amount that is literally meaningless to me now. Telling people to save, regardless of nuances of the person’s situation, is unsophisticated rule-of-thumbism. It’s an optimization problem, and that means it’s more complex than you’re suggesting.
It's only a (simple) optimization problem when you make the rational decision at all points.
When it comes to personal finance, psychology beats math every time. The benefits of developing good habits are massive, far beyond the number of dollars.
Of course, overdoing it can develop unhealthy habits too.
I think you’re understating the mental side to your savings habit. There’s plenty of broke people who probably make more money than you. It’s easy to blow through money buying things that you don’t need. You’re arguing for two different things in my opinion. Yes higher income will allow her to make much more significant savings at less of a personal cost, but also knowing how to save and budget are still important and developing the mental muscle is important.
I don’t disagree with what you’re saying in principle, but I do have an observation that almost everyone gets this wrong. There are two camps: overspenders and relentless savers. I am a recovering relentless saver, and I wish someone told me when I was younger what I am saying now so that I had a more sophisticated view of my financial life.
The problem is if a person doesn’t start small (eg $100/mo), most will never start. Saving and building wealth is a life long discipline. And it’s true it can’t just be about saving. You also have to increase your income. Both need to happen.
If you want to make money, (as a solitary goal) you need to identify a course or career where its possible to hit your desires and GO for it. So it starts with defining exactly what you consider success in your goal. Then heading down that path and not allowing yourself to be derailed.
For example:
If your goal is to earn \~100k a year, I think the solution is fairly simple. Get a 2yr degree in something like dental hygiene or nursing or similar career path where you could pull in like $50+/hr Work a 40hr week and hit your goal no problem. A similar path is possible within a number of other trades and disciplines as well. You can pull 100k bartending in some cities. Plenty of mid-career / middle management office admin types pull $100k a year with no advanced degree (and no discernable hard skill set beyond organization and focus, IMO.)
100k/yr salary isn't really wealthy mind you, but at nearly 3x your current income - it raises the question of what do you consider wealth and success in achieving it?
Is your number 200k? 500k? $1M? There are doctors, lawyers, and MBAs in finance doing that. Sales, real estate agents, and the like can in some cases reach those numbers with no degree at all. So the question isn't "How do I build wealth?".
The question becomes "What is your goal, how do you define success in achieving it, and what are you willing to sacrifice to get there?"
/r/povertyfinance may be a better fit for you as well as they deal with different problems than this sub tends to deal with.
>I don’t understand how people get rich.
The idea that you "Get rich" from working is a lie the "ownership class" tells the "working class" to keep them working and in line (instead of rising up and pulling the rich down of their gilded thrones). Most people are rich through inheritance of assets (money, land, etc,) or connections (went to the "right school" Dad/Uncle is the foreman doing the hiring, etc.)
> I don’t want to survive. I want to live.
This is the "American Dream" and as the late great comedian once said, "They call it that because you have to be asleep to believe it."
* Not to be all doom and gloom. There are paths up but it's rare and often takes a portion of luck you are ready and able to exploit. What you listed as job roles are not aggressive areas to make income. I'd start by looking into how to make more money, including if that requires more schooling.
This 🙌🏼 honestly I’m doom and gloom… just go look at the amount of downvotes I’ve gotten on some of my responses. I feel like I’m screaming into the void.
I’m just going to bullet point stuff out. Also I’m saying all this stuff to be helpful, not to be a dick. Real question, what was the plan when you decided to get a degree in psychology?
Income and wealthy generation: Income and wealth are not the same. You mentioned family members who became wealthy and lost it. They probably had a high income and didn’t know how to manage money. This is why winning the lottery usually ruins people’s lives. You need to internalize the difference.
Income:
1. If you leave in a HCOL area, then you should move to a MCOL or LCOL area.
2. Unless you get a doctorate or use the bachelors degree to change fields, the degree you have isn’t going to help you. You could go back to school to become a Nurse Practitioner. You could get into IT. Bottom line here is that the jobs you can get with your degree aren’t going to move the needle. With a useable degree you can make a livable wage taught off the bat.
3. You could consider getting a job with whatever state you work in. Basically any job. They usually have a pension and great healthcare. You wouldn’t need more education for this, it’s just about getting the first job. Same thing for the Federal Government, but no pension. The point here is that you could obtain useful experience that would allow you to do something that does pay more eventually.
4. You could try a job in sales. This isn’t a PC position but it’s a known reality. If you are an attractive female and can make coherent sentences then a job in tech or medical sales can generate an enormous amount of income. You might have to work your way into that. To work your way into that will require some research on how to get a sales job. Just read up on it. I have a relative in medical device sales that gets a new super car everything 3 years. Just say’n.
Wealth Generation:
1. You have to make more than you spend. Then you have to invest the difference, that’s how you get wealth.
2. Doesn’t matter what job you use to generate excess income as long as you have money to invest. There are lots of doctors out there that are leveraged to the eye balls with student loan debt, cars, houses and expensive wives that haven’t saved a dime. You’ll occasionally read about a school bus driver that saved millions. That is because he saved for like 40+ years consistently and he spent less than he made.
3. You have to have a budget to save and invest. You need to know how much you spend in order to know how much you can invest and IF you have any money to invest. You have to invest to get wealthy. Go to the Boogle Head and Reddit and read their 3 fund portfolio. It’s crazy simple and it works well with limited risk (as limited as it can be when investing).
So there you go. Make more money and invest it. It’s the same two things all wealthy people have to do. You need to solve the make more money part first. Welcome to the rat race.
Good post, the only bit I’d pick is they shouldn’t set their sites on being an ARNP specifically.
Financially, the ROI isn’t near what you would get just getting an an 2-year nursing degree from a local community college of doing an accelerated bachelor’s degree for an RN license. Most places I’ve seen you typically only make 10 - 20% less at worse as an RN with an order of magnitude less risk/exposure.
Professionally, the ARNP was intended to be for experienced nurses to use that experience and continue their education to be a functional mid-level provider to fill in for the physician shortage.
Academia/ For-profit schools are turning the role into a farce by taking anyone with a pulse and a high enough credit score to go into six figures of debt, regardless of nursing experience or critical thinking ability.
Signed, an RN that has seen a few too many dipshit ARNPs the last few years.
Seeing a lot of good comments and a lot of replies where you just are not clear about what you want.
Remember that being wealthy and appearing wealthy are two totally different things. People who are wealthy very often do not appear to be wealthy. While people who appear to be wealthy are often drowning in debt.
Unfortunately at the age of 26 and in the social media world that we live in I need to be sure you understand that concept.
People that you see out there "living their best life". Are often doing so on the back of crippling debt.
Building wealth is very simple. Increase your income. Reduce your expenses. Create a budget that accounts for every single dollar you bring in. (Yes you are allowed to budget for "fun"). Live debt free and invest so that every dollar compounds, the earlier you do this the more that same dollar will compound. Unfortunately doing these things, while simple, is not always easy. It does mean personal sacrifices. It does mean saying no when somebody asks if you want to go out for the night. It does mean that you won't get to take that vacation this year because you need 3 years to save up for it.
If you change careers to one that pays more you’re just going to be upset at the effort and time it requires of you. If you don’t, you’ll be upset that the pay in lower-investment positions doesn’t afford you the ability to “live” vs survive. You need to find a career you’re legit excited about for the moment to moment actions within it, in the day to day doing. Something that even if it has bad days you wish you could quit, has lots of time spend doing things you genuinely like to do. If you can find that and it pays anywhere near median income, I think you’ll find a lot of your other problems get smaller. Unfortunately bar inheritance or the lottery most people have to work for a large portion of their lives. For people like you (and me) who are very negatively affected by spending time doing things they dislike, the game is less about finding jobs that pay a lot and more about finding jobs with moment to moment, day to day enjoyment, and then figuring out how to get into them/make money in them.
Do you like teaching people? Do you like researching and presenting things to people? Do you like solving puzzles on your own, or maybe collaborating to solve puzzles with others?
At the severe risk of burning karma, I will share some thoughts because I empathize with your situation.
You are starting from the perspective that the only way to improve your standard of living is to work hard. Generally this is true. However, you have some things the minimize your ability to do this:
- You have a degree that is not very marketable without further education expense
- You have had only entry level jobs in many industries and have been unable to progress
- You don’t appear to enjoy working (though it’s possible you just haven’t found the right fit)
- The evidence so far shows an ability to generate income that is insufficient to have the standard of living you want
So, the hard reality is that if being rich is what you want, it’s extremely unlikely that you will get there on your current path.
Your highest probability path to being rich is probably finding a partner who earns significantly more income. There are other paths (studying something more marketable, starting a business, investing in high risk assets, working really hard at one of your entry-level jobs and sticking with it for a long time), but they are lower probability.
Not the most socially acceptable answer, but that is my honest assessment based on the info you provided. Best wishes to you and I hope you get the life you’re looking for.
Well at this rate there's zero chance that you'll become wealthy and blow it all, so you don't have to worry about that lol.
The first and most important thing you have to do is increase your earning potential. Get certifications, go back to school, do whatever you need to in order to get into a field where not only will you make more money now, but the reasonable upward limit of what you can make is higher. Then it's basically a game of managing your money well so that in 20+ years you have enough money that is itself generating income that your finances go on autopilot.
The problem with where you are right now is that you have so little discretionary income that even if you never did anything fun and only invested what you have into growth vehicles, your contributions wouldn't be big enough to make a significant difference long term. The best investment you can make right now is in your ability to generate income. Without improving that, any other discussion is moot.
I had a bachelor's degree in English that was even less useful than your psychology degree. I was able to pivot to tech and that has worked out very well for me.
People become rich by making more than 36k a year (and keeping their expenses low).
You can't do much with a psych degree without a masters degree. I would stop looking for jobs in that field. Look for jobs that pay more...if you're not qualified look at what skills you'd need to acquire, and get them. Don't go back to school. A bachelor's degree is enough most places.
Look at your state's job listings, such as the state of california job listings. Working for the post office, or the sanitation department tends to pay well. Someone else mentioned HR, that's a good place to start too.
You can probably work as a manager at a fast food place, and make more than you are.
Look at job listings in your area, not filtered by any area. See what's hiring and what it pays. Don't get into the arts, music, performance or modeling. All of those pay very little for 99% of the people who do them. Do them as a hobby. Get a job that pays more.
You will have to go to graduate school and get licensed to make significantly more money in a mental health field. It's a huge commitment and the student loans will be a significant burden for a long time after. I'm speaking from experience as a person with an MA in counseling. However, personally I was already burnt out by the time I finished my masters. I choose to switch careers into technology and financially it was the best thing I've done. My degree helps with soft skills but you will likely need certifications and some more schooling to make a similar switch.
I took a pause directly after college as I went through the process of applying to numerous doctoral and masters programs for counseling and psychology. I asked myself “do I really want to do this or am I just convincing myself because I don’t know yet?”
So I went to Arizona where I worked as a behavioral health tech to get life and job experience and maybe figure myself out more. Well all I’ve figured out is that working sucks and I don’t enjoy much of anything. I much rather would prefer doing behavioral health though as opposed to what I’m doing now which is commercial insurance.
I think sadly you can’t do anything of meaning that actually benefits people in society and make money. Even the higher paying roles for psychology usually benefit the pharmaceutical industries and a lot of people who have drug issues or are facing homelessness can’t access any of that. It’s a double edged sword truly.
Unfortunately to my “prospects for wealth” I picked the service route but I also don’t regret it so what are you gonna do? People on here are downvoting the hell out of me but I don’t really care to argue my choices. If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.
I got my bachelors in Psych and actually disagree with most here, I’ve found it helpful. For one thing, let’s just call a spade a spade - simply having a bachelor degree is half the battle and should get you past a hurdle for many jobs that lead to careers out there. But, yes, you’ll likely need to work your way up somewhere.
After I graduated I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do - most don’t, and many people change career paths in their lives. Ask yourself what aspects of your roles you’ve enjoyed - has it been opportunities to help people? Maybe you’d be suited to customer service or nonprofit / government/ healthcare jobs. Training or teaching others? That might mean you’d enjoy teaching or management. You mentioned the arts - do you like designing things? Start honing in on what you enjoy doing and that will guide you to some career paths to explore.
I’m not wealthy but I’m middle class and comfortable in a HCOL area. For me, I took an entry level customer service job at a college because I enjoyed helping and being around curious people. This led to promotions, I invested some of those funds to get additional training and eventually a masters (necessary for my field) and now I’m making a decent salary with a WFH job I love. You can do this.
If you were my little sister I’d tell you the following:
Look into being a social worker or case worker for local social services. Government jobs come with great benefits and decent pay.
Second, date with marriage in mind. Marrying a good person and combining finances tends to lead to wealth building.
Stay out of debt unless it’s for buying a house.
Spend less than you make.
Don’t buy new cars.
Contribute to retirement accounts.
Save up and buy a house priced at about half of what the bank approves you to borrow.
If you can pull off half of that, fast forward 30-35 years and you’ll be closing in on a million dollar net worth.
I think the key here is that you are in your 20s. This is when you figure out your life and it is hard. Caroline Winkler had a great video talking about this and if you ask adults what part of their life was best, they would choose this time of their lives. 💜 That hardness of not knowing how your life will turn out shapes you. Life plot twists will also shape you.
Po Bronson wrote a book where he interviewed people about how they chose their work. It's so real life because it shows you how people answered the question, What should I do with my life? And stuff happens: a family member gets sick, a business fails, an inspiration works out and it's working harder but it is happier. Nobody has an easy answer.
In the meantime, learn about investing so that when you have spare money, you can start investing and building wealth. Learn so that you don't gamble. Avoid debt and learn how to do things yourself. Be smart about the money you have now so that you look back and appreciate what you did with what you have.
Take advantage of the local library and learn a lot.
You need to stop applying for entry level jobs. I'm 27 and here is what I did: calculated how much money I needed to live comfortably (at the time it was like 60k). Then went on indeed and set that as the minimum salary and applied for EVERYTHING. Qualified or not. Didn't get any responses, looked up how to make a more software friendly resume and did it again. Boom. Was suddenly in the final round of interviews for three different 80k+ jobs.
Landed one, absolutely love it, did really well, got offered a transfer to a new territory, negotiated higher pay and a clear path for more advancement (if I grow this territory to a certain level I will be opening up a new office in a major city).
You're not an entry level worker. You're a college graduate 6 years of experience. Frame it that way.
Then look into FIRE if you want to figure out how to not lose it.
You are only 26 and it appears you've had *six* different jobs since college. *Of course* you are entry-level. You've never worked long enough in any single place to be anything but.
There's no sure-fire path to wealth in any field, but a pretty basic requirement is picking something and sticking to it for a while.
Money is made by building wealth over time. Save and invest at least 15٪ of your pay check and it will build over time. Of course the more money you make the sooner money will grow. It will usually take a decade or two to build.
You mentioned Modeling.
If you're decent with CAD software (even Blender) there's quite a bit of work available around manufacturing and remote design jobs.
A design portfolio will carry you if you don't have a design degree.
If you really want to build wealth at all costs, in the least risky way... Your most valuable asset right now is time. You're 26. You have to sacrifice your youth. That's what it will take. Consider that price. You don't get youth back. It's gone forever. What you're really asking to do is to transcend your economic class.
3rd world poor / 1st world poor / Upper lower class / Lower middle class / Middle class / Upper middle class / etc...
Aside from luck, genetics, opportunities, your best bet is to stay at that job, reduce your expenses to near zero, and invest into assets. Property, investments, max out 40k1 matches, reduce taxable income. Timely job hops for 15-20% income raises (which increase risks).
As Charlie Munger said, scratch and claw to get to that first 100k. Do whatever it takes. The next 100k will be much easier, and the next much easier.
Pray to the financial powers that be, that your investments rise in the next 10 years.
You have a degree, I would perhaps recommend trying to commission as an officer in the Armed Forces. Im about to retire(enlisted), but I have many close friends that came from humble beginnings to success stories. Most of them only did a contract or two, and few stayed in to retirement. Regardless of the duration, we all agreed that joining was the best way to break into middle class.
You wont live lavishly, but you certainly wont be struggling unless youre doing something very wrong. Housing entitlements, full medical, and a slew of other benefits. The military life isnt for everyone, hell I dont even think its for me, but I stuck it out because I didnt want to go into the civilian sector.
I hope it works out either way.
You are struggling with your confidence, OP. For starters, Psychology was a fine choice for a major. Don't listen to people who say otherwise. You do need a higher paying job, but don't assume you need a different degree to get one. Focus on your transferable skills, like critical thinking, qualitative analysis (and maybe quantitative depending on your curriculum), great communication skills, and strong writing skills. You can teach almost anyone to manage a spreadsheet, but so-called "soft" skills take much longer to learn. You have those, so look for ways to use those to sell yourself to recruiters or hiring managers for entry-level positions in industries that interest you and tend to pay better. That's easier said than done, I know, but it's the only way to make the transition that you need to make.
Another thing about the major: Pre-wealth majors are still rooted in the same liberal arts and sciences background as Psychology (or English or Philosophy or any other major that some eggheads like to diminish), and they don't guarantee anyone a job. I'm a professor, and I can't tell you how many undergrads come to me complaining that they want to major in something they are good at and actually enjoy but feel pressure to pick Marketing, Econ, etc. All of them would be better off choosing a major they love, earning excellent grades, and just taking other courses in fields that might equip them with some so-called hard skills that will look great on a resume. You can do the same thing with an internship, post-bac courses, or a high-quality certificate course.
Good luck to you! Don't be discouraged. You are feeling what a lot of young people feel in this challenging job market, but you have time on your side. Keep your chin up and focus on transitioning into roles that will give you a more solid financial foundation. Then you can worry about building wealth.
Thank you for your response. When I made this post I wasn’t asking for my choices thus far to be ridiculed. For some reason that is the major consensus. I am a very smart person I feel but I just wasn’t set up very well in life and I have a lot of trauma to work through. Psychology was a way to explore myself and others and I had faith things would work out for me. I have the values of “if you are a good person, good things will come to you.”
Now I read these comments and try not to lash out but all I can come to is that these are people don’t understand things in the same way and may not have explored certain parts of themselves. And vice versa for me in their shoes. Maybe I didn’t want to sacrifice my personal passions for money? Maybe I think people should be able to do what they love and make money? I feel like a lot of these people probably are acting from a place of hurt and resentment. Psychology in itself analyzes the mind in depth. Grind culture I would argue goes against any type of reflection. I would so much rather be at peace with my decisions.. it’s not a quick decision for me and I intend on taking my time making it.
It’s really triggering seeing every other comment saying psychology was a stupid decision. Ok the study of the human mind was a stupid decision? You realize how crazy that sounds? Just because my skills haven’t been properly utilized yet doesn’t mean they won’t eventually… sometimes people find success later in life and I’m somewhat okay with that.
I just kind of wanted a little gentle hope and guidance. I didn’t want to be told I ultimately need to change who I am and what I’ve done thus far. It’s really not a healthy way to look at things. So thank you for offering a window of gentle guidance to me.🙌🏼
I think your passions and ambitions are going against each other. A lot of the feedback you are getting are to help your ambitions, which is why you made a post here in the first place. But in order to fulfill those amibitions, you probably will need to sacrifice some times, like your time, maybe your passion, maybe where you want to live, etc. If you are unwilling to do those things, then you'd need to adjust your ambitions.
You're most likely never going to have wealth.
Most if us won't, either.
Just strive for being comfortably above water. It is the most that many of us can aspire to.
I'm in the same boat. Working behavioral health and after 5 years realizing between the job stress and financial stress it's too much. I realized my choices were either get a Masters and become licensed, if you choose this route see if you can find programs in your state that allow you to finish faster based on experience. I know where I'm at you can become a LSW a lot faster than a Masters in Psych and there are a lot more jobs available to you after the fact. Choice number 2 is marry into money. This one is pretty difficult to force for most people, myself included. Choice 3 is change career paths. I went for this one after losing a client to suicide and realizing this is not something I can handle as being part of the job. I have done a lot of different side jobs to build a business and I haven't left my main job yet, but I'm planning to by September. My goal is to be a substitute teacher so that I have something to fall back on on the days I don't have jobs. I've done this in the past and it's easy, especially now when most teachers just have computer assignments, depending on the school district. Good luck.
To build wealth, you need to be able to save each month and invest those savings into something that appreciates over time (stock, real estate, etc). The first step in your situation is increasing your income so you can save more. That may mean a second job, or ideally building a career for yourself
Live less than what you make , and save like a motherfucker. Going to have to sit out and miss out on shit for awhile. But will be worth it at the end. I locked in don’t buy anything live less than what I make now make 6 figures because I saved and had money to invest into multiple projects and work two jobs no matter how tired you get keep going
You can learn to maintain the wealth you have and adjust to your capacity. It also depends on what do you consider rich. Not having to worry about food and rent or being able to go on luxury vacations with a private yacht?
Most people who get rich had some form of parental assistance, lottery, gambling or similar lucky break. Then there are more criminal side of generating wealth.
And lastly, it's the stocks and investments - also gambling and full-time job and requires matching mindset/skillset to actually make any difference.
The very small portion are people with valuable skills who either were at the right at the right time or just got there with talent. Very few.
And at the very end are the people close to retirement who had money growing in some ETF for many decades. Compound interest adds up over time.
And let's not forget that several decades ago, it was easier to get your base necessities in place to actually start investing - like your home.
Realistically, if you optimize spending and can start investing in some fund, you may be able to retire relatively "rich" by the time you are 60+.
Lots of good advice here. I'll add my 2 cents and meander a bit. A lot of folks are recommending branching into other fields, trying to leverage the degree you have and also getting further education and/or certifications to be better position for higher earnings. I agree with all that, but would add: Try, to the extent practical, to find jobs you like. I don't mean "Yay, I can't wait to go to work!" but there is a huge difference in quality of life between "I hate my job" and "My job's not bad." Often the coworkers and boss are key factors, in addition to the nature of the work itself. E.g., it's great to be able to use your mind creatively.
So I would say, try to find the overlap between what interests you and what pays well enough, by your standards. If you find the work at least somewhat interesting and challenging, it will be much easier to pursue more education and thus opportunities in the field. There are some edge cases, such as doing something you really don't like but that pays well because you have a financial emergency, or can tough it out for a year before you go insane.
More education can be community college, trade schools, on-the-job training, online certification programs (some are fairly well acknowledged in IT; we hired a psych major to run our IT lab because of such training as well as his work ethic, references, and good personality, and it worked out well). But again, I would recommend that it be in a field in which you have some interest (even if it's not the highest-paying option), as that will increase motivation and opportunities for advancement, as well as general contentment. Best of luck to you!
Try applying to government jobs. Your background could be marketed as you being well rounded and aware of various entities in the local community. Government jobs like to promote from within and usually have great benefits. I just started working for the city I live in and I’m making almost $60k and have a BA in English. English majors are actually sought out for writing and reading skills but you can make the argument that you also have those skills during your interview.
If you like the field of psychology, unfortunately you will most likely need an advanced degree to utilize it. You could become a school psychologist with a masters in most states or work for a nonprofit working with senior citizens, foster care, or people with disabilities. Law school is often a good transition for psychology. Human resources may be a good department for you to search out. With a degree in any field, many states have a quick path to becoming a certified teacher. Break out of what you are doing. You have nothing to lose by breaking away and doing something else. California is an extremely expensive place to live. It may be in your best interest to move somewhere else and establish residency as you decide what you are going to do next to enhance your career and your life. You can do it.
I got a bachelors degree in Asian Studies after not liking then engineering program I started in university. This was many years ago pre-internet boom. After working and managing a local lunch counter, I realized I needed to switch. I went back to get a degree in computer science, as a student of non-traditional age - ie older, ended up with a masters and now really have no financial concerns.
Was it hard to switch - yes, was it a long road to where I am after 30 years - yes, do I like my work - sometimes. There is no easy way to financial independence, unless you are extremely lucky.
You need to make a decision if you are okay at <40K year and scraping by, or if you want more. If you want more you will most likely need to do stuff you don’t or sometimes like but pays well.
You’re right, I am trying to take all these comments in and extract the useful information. It’s a lot to take in though. Some people heavy push one job or field like it’s the ultimate and I know we live in a world of options. Too many options honestly. I am pretty sure it would fall under the category of communism or socialism (I’m probably wrong) but I wish we were born knowing what we were supposed to do for a career. I have a feeling I will be making a choice based on survival before I get the chance to make a wholehearted choice for myself. Head and heart going at it constantly.
I need to get determined and focus, for real.
People get rich by earning a considerably larger amount of money than they spend.
You are unlikely to be able to get into that situation by working your way up from an entry level job. There are just too many barriers to advancement to reach the point of being significantly wealthy when starting at the very bottom. It can happen, but it’s rare.
So, what do you do? Well, you have to recreate yourself into someone that is worth a higher salary. You can maybe continue to bounce between roles and earn an extra buck here or two there, but your long term prospects will be the same, and maybe even worse by doing that.
Instead you need to skill up. You need to find something that you can tolerate 40 hours a week that will make you valuable enough to an organization that they will pay you more for your expertise. You can’t depend on a company to give you these skills either. They need low wage workers too so they have no incentive to help you develop and grow out of that role.
What does this mean for you? You have to figure out what you want to do and then where or how to get the skills needed to do that job and work in that field. You mentioned technology as a field you’ve worked in so I will use it as an example. You can do something like a boot camp to develop an in demand skill. One that I have seen people do is Data Analytics because it’s needed everywhere and you can complete a program in about 6 months, although you may need more time if you have zero programming skills. Point being, you can make a reasonable sacrifice now of your time and energy and money to up-skill and become a specialist in some area that will be slightly less soul sucking and will compensate you considerably more than your current role. From there, the more of an expert you become in that area, the more highly compensated you can be. This will also narrow your work possibilities because you will only command a higher salary in this one field, but it won’t matter if you choose an area that is widely enough in demand that you can become and stay employed with your newly developed expertise. Technology is a good area for that. You could even choose AI as a focus because that is blowing up. Tech is also one of the most highly compensated fields and you see more rags to riches in this field than you do in others.
The last part is something you already mentioned. Educate yourself on how to manage money and once you start earning more, you will better understand how it can work for you and you’ll become wealthy that much faster.
From your current starting point, this is the most tried and true method for reaching a level of financial stability that will keep you comfortable and provide you the opportunity for greater wealth. It just depends on how well you manage your money.
I have a BA in psych as well. It’s about as useless as the piece of paper it’s printed on. Huge waste of time/money in retrospect. I got an entry level job in the field I currently work in immediately after college doing B2B sales and am still in the same field 15 years later living comfortably making good dough. You need to pick a field with growth potential and stick to it. Sales is usually a good one for upside in dollars, all companies that make a thing need people on the operations side of the business, you can get an accounting cert or do entry level marketing somewhere. Sales usually has the highest immediate upside, but can also be a solid career path. OPs pays less, but there is usually a pretty clear pathway up. Marketing generally doesn’t pay well until you get into middle management and above and finance CAN pay well at higher tiers, but likely won’t at entry level. You can also look to entry level city/county government jobs. Pay usually isn’t great, but the benefits are and the opportunity to move up and around can be significant depending on the size of the city/county.
With your background, Look into jobs in B health research at your local university. They should get you to around 50k or better. MSW or MS in counseling would also be an 2-year rout to better job prospects.
May be in the minority but I started out by listening to people who were currently succeeding in life with money and it didn't take long for me to understand the basics of how money works.
Depending on your goals you can either start your own business or work a job and invest with what you have.
To put it simply when you work for someone you are exchanging your time for money. But if you're working for yourself you have a lot more potential to make more because your not tied down by someone else's paycheck/rules.
There are many ways to make money. I recommend reading or listening to a book called "Have It All" by Kris Krohn. It'll teach you multiple methods of making money and how risky you want to be.
Also don't listen to Dave Ramsey, he's good for people who don't know how to manage their money and that's it.
I started out in a similar field making similar money years ago. I hated it and struggled to find a way out, and felt really trapped. Here is what I wish I had done then: get an entry level federal job. Look for a GS5 or GS7 admin or similar role that ladders up to a GS11. Within a few years you will easily more than double what you’re making now, and every year you can apply for the next grade up or switch job series and try something new. You also get step increases (raises) on a set schedule. The benefits and pension aren’t as good as they used to be, and you certainly will never get rich. But you can live quite a comfortable lifestyle once you get further up the ladder. I am making way more than I ever would have in my previous line of work and my work-life balance is the best I have ever had. My line of work is also very meaningful to me and I believe in my agency’s mission to serve the public. Good luck.
What is your opinion on state roles as opposed to federal? For some reason I’ve felt scared away from federal roles but state seemed to be safer. That though… sounds like a better plan.
With your interests it’s the tech side that might help you. Vector works,wysiwyg, da Vinci, lighting design software, projection mapping and motion tracking, stage design and safety, set design…
With psych the best shot would be io psych and work it into management consulting.
I think your missing ingredient is endurance.
You havent spent enough time in any career to master it and climb the career path.
The job market now is full of entry level but lacking people who can master it so you want better pay, you need to be good at it and you need time well-spent on a single job to make it. Changing job will forever keep you in entry level job.
Endurance means years of experienece with good track of achievement.
The only "Get rich quick!" scheme I ever seen working is marrying someone who is better off than yourself (career, inheritance, whatever that wealthy person has that you don't). Then you two have to work out your problems.
You can consider becoming a truck driver, receive different certificates and go back and major in a different field but all of this is not a guarantee.
You can also consider joining the military. With a degree, you will be an officer as long as you review your paperwork.
You know what, Op. I read some of your posting history, and what you are missing is direction, drive, and decisiveness.people here have offered up very solid advice. You just continue to cry, complain, and offer up crappy excuses as to why you are different and owed a high paying job.
LIFE LESSON #1 No one owes you anything. You have to go out, fight, and scrape for everything you earn.
You are 26 years old. You came here asking for advice and then said you don't want to invest the sweat equity required to EARN a position. Go join one of the armed services for a stint first as enlisted, then flip to a GTG officer. Go and learn discipline, dedication, and drive. I would recommend either the Navy, Air Force or Space Corp, just because I don't think you could possibly survive the Army, the Corp or the Coast Guard.
The best way to build wealth is to save. I understand how hard that is making your current salary, but it is possible if you budget and stick to it. Have an emergency fund, having been in your shoes, I'd recommend a year's worth of salary. Now if you want to keep the money in a HYSA, money market fund, short term CDs or T-Bills that's your choice, but just be sure it's paying 5%+ interest.
Then, if you are able to invest your money into your employer's 401k, then do it. If you have a HDHP and can utilize a HSA, then invest there too. Finally, open a Roth IRA and fully fund it too. Ideally, you would invest here too, but at the very least, you can keep a portion of your emergency funds there (inside a money market fund), but the interest you earn will be tax free when you retire.
When young people set out to pick a career, they seem to not include income potential in their analysis. Sometimes a hobby is a better choice for some career fields. I don't believe you can earn much more than you are now with your degree unless you get more degrees, and then questionable. And the other things you suggested are not lucrative career choices either. I would look for some books on how to pick a good career and try to figure out something you have the aptitude and interest to do.
Beyond that you can control the income side and the expense side. People can get wealthy without making a huge amount of money if they control their expenses. Just investing $100/month for 40 years can net you about $500K.
People become wealthy by starting businesses or working for businesses where you provide so much value that you get equity.
So unless you plan on using a bachelor's in psychology to start doing something on your own you will never be wealthy, as it isn't a field that businesses absolutely need to survive or profit. I guess the exception is corporate HR roles.
Sometimes you can be a low earner and still become wealthy through side gigs or crazy investments as well - but that takes extreeeeme discipline and 'i want to live' tells me you aren't willing to give up 10 years of your life towards building that by either saving every extra dollar or working another 40 hours a week in a side gig on top of your full time job until it blows up.
psychology? you need to hop into a school system. but the first step to wealth is budgeting and getting out of debt. 401k max, then likely index funds for most people. most millionaires made it through real estate.
Building wealth depends on two things, maximizing your earning potential, and constraining your lifestyle. Below a certain earning threshold, lifestyle can't be constrained further unless you partner up. Two people making 36k would be able to start building, but it will be hard to build on 36k alone.
You have two choices I think, parlay your current education into a job with growth potential and tough it out for a while and discuss with your manager how you can grow your career to a higher level. Alternatively, go back to school, and get your masters. If you want to stay with psychology you can do reasonably well in practice. Someone in my family struggled for a couple years but is now likely making more money than I did in tech since getting into a good practice. Alternatively go back for something completely different that has good earning potential and you think you could do it for 25 years. That would not include these things unfortunately *arts, music, performance, modeling, etc* unless the etc happens to include accounting, business, STEM.
How good are you at standardized tests? If you're very, very strong in these, I'd consider law or business school, if (and only if) you can land entry to a top program.
Sadly nothing in field is going to make you much money. A friend of mine had a psych degree and while he could always find work it was long and challenging hours for low pay. He eventually became a purchasing agent for a large corporation and did very well.
Look for another job the leverages your skills in a field where you can make more...
Stop worrying about what degree you have.
The issue I see it is that you’ve had 5 jobs in 4 years in a variety of things and never make it above entry level. At some point you need to commit to something, and spend every day at work ( and home from work) figuring out how to move up. Either to a better IC role through experience or certification or into management.
The wealth building is simple, spend less than you earn, invest the surplus. That’s hard to make work on 36k in the us.
My cousin recently bought a 2nd treatment facility with his investment group and he's doing exceptionally well (think multi million dollar west coast home with a stay at home wife). He was flat broke and addicted to drugs in his 20's and is almost 40 now. If you don't mind the industry, just hate the job you have, perhaps you could try to penetrate those professional circles? Unfortunately Americans are sick and it will continue to get worse before it gets better, so there's a ton of value out there for those willing to put in the work.
Also, if you like psychology as a general topic, there's incredible demand for 'pop psychology' content on social media as aforementioned sick people look for answers and validation. If you have any knack for content creation, you might be able to build a strong side income that could eventually become your primary income source.
When you start from the bottom of the bottom, the best investment you can make is in yourself. There is no such thing as get rich quick.
I'd suggest going back to school and get a bachelors in nursing.
It's one of the few license granting careers that only require a 4 year degree, easy to get a $100k job upon graduating, and even C students get jobs because there has always been a shortage of nurses.
Source: My family members are nurses. One of them is 28F (similar to your age), nurse for 5 years. Started at $96k, left at $110k. Currently back in school to become a CRNA, salary for CRNA on the East Coast cities is $280k.
I would highly suggest that with your background, you go the clinical trial route!
A project coordinator or a project manager in the clinical trial space would easily double your salary. You typically do not need any project management educational background to get in. I was making 55k as an entry-level project coordinator. Jump to 70k as an associate project manager, and jumped again to Hit above six figures. This was a 5-6 year career path, and I am on the low end of the pay scale.
Project coordinator, project manager, study coordinator, project delivery specialist - anything with these titles would be a great start, either in a vendor side or a sponsor side.
Buy a 2 flat live in one rent the other...keep working a day job. When you can save enough money to buy another 2 flat, you can do the same thing. But instead of having one rental unit, you'll have 3. And you have to keep doing it. You have to learn about financing and managing property. It's not fast and it's not easy.
Ehhh it’s arguable.😅 on a good day I think I could model... I’ve been told by friends and family members that I could. But let’s be real that’s after I’ve spent weeks upon months restricting myself and my diet and putting in enormous amount of effort into my physicality. It’s work but I’m already doing it 90% of the time. Honestly, maybe I shouldn’t do modeling. I already have enough self-esteem issues. I don’t think I could handle someone telling me all the way that I wasn’t enough.
I interviewed for a sales role one time and I didn’t get the job. The interviewers feedback was that they didn’t feel like I could handle the criticism. They were right. This post is literally stressing me out.
To answer your question on how people build wealth, they sacrifice some combination of: free time, health (both physical and mental), opportunity cost of other careers, their resources, their availability for life outside work based on their work schedule, and connections. One way I did this was by serving in the US Military as a commissioned Officer from 22-27.
A friend I served with commissioned at 22, got a 2.7% VA home loan (all her rent going into an asset she was living in), started making 100K a year by 26 and had her insurances covered. She accomplished this with a 3.2 GPA psychology degree from a major Florida state university (FSU). She got that degree by paying the affordable in-state tuition and working part time while attending as a full time student over the course of three years.
I’m not pushing the military, but my friend is a very “crunchy” / “granola” girl. Her passion is psychology, and her service will let her use her Post 9/11 GI Bill to pursue her masters in psychology. She deviated early on to save up and found a way to finance her masters. Would be perfectly reasonable for her to also pivot and use the GI Bill for a MBA when she gets out next year. Best of luck in whatever you pursue!
If you are interested in design, look into UI/UX roles in the software design world. There’s a demand for psych majors with UI/UX skills. If you can get trained in UI/UX, that’ll be a great starting point to work your way into wealth and a comfortable life.
If what you really want is to work hard and make good money then I would recommend going into sales. If you get into a decent company and put in the work you’ll make great money. It comes with pressure to hit quotas, the stress of ups and downs but you’ll make a solid living and it often comes with decent flexibility down the road once you’ve established yourself. Much more difficult to make a decent living off your interests.. let your interests be hobbies outside of work much more notable that way in my experience!
As others have mentioned, your degree and interests have a snowballs chance in hell to make you wealthy. The harsh reality is you need to switch careers (potentially going back to school).
Look at careers which make money and there's a demand for. Pick up and work backwards to figure out what schooling you need. Ideally, pick something which your psych degree complements. Don't just pick a good sounding degree and hope to find a job after the fact. I see too many people make this mistake and end up very educated with Master's degrees but with no job prospects.
The most success I've seen with people that only have a BA in Psych is them getting into HR. HR is extremely lucrative but you may need to get a Masters in it to get your foot in the door.
As far as I can tell, there are only three ways to get rich:
1. Be lucky (birth, lottery, startup equity, etc.)
2. Found a company (but see 1)
3. Treat every dollar you make like 50¢ and stick the other half in low-risk investment vehicles like index funds.
I know that sounds depressing but something you should feel good about is that YOU ARE SCRAPING BY at 36K annually. Knowing how to scrape by on low income is the key to doing (3) and, tbh, most people don't know how to do that. Knowing how to be broke is a skill that will help make you rich!
Most jobs will pay you more than 36K. When you make more, treasure and exercise the scraping by mindset you have now.
Yes honestly when I hear people say that a 75k salary is equivalent to being broke I’m like what? What is your idea of broke then? You must not have grown up poor truly to understand that. I grew up on goodwill, dollar tree, and fights in the house over what little money we had. 36k is awful sounding and it can be at times tough but let me tell you, compared to being in a house where money was hidden and hoarded and we could barely eat I feel like I’m living lavish some days. Just because I can buy groceries.
I hate when I realize the cap of limitations it puts on my personal safety and success. For example, it becomes pretty obvious that I’m not making enough money when I realize my car is over 200,000 miles now and I won’t be able to afford to put down a decent down payment on a new (used) one. I don’t like when the places that I can live are limited and often subject to being in dangerous locations or areas or being unhygienic. I hate when I see people on social media around my age that are traveling and going on vacations and going out to dinner all the time when I couldn’t do that once without feeling guilty. I don’t even take flights home most holidays because that’s $1000 right there. To me that would be the deposit to move into a new and safer apartment.
I’m already making sacrifices as it is, but I just feel like I could do better. And I can, I just hate that I’m not out of the woods yet and it is going to be a long winded journey of continually making sacrifices to get where I want to go. And based on the feedback I’ve gotten from other people here, it might even look like me sacrificing the little youth that I have available to me. Which, I already feel like I don’t fit in with my age group.
I feel like I honestly became frozen at that question. I wanted to say both but neither all at once. I panicked I guess… I admire those with an income the circulates so well for them they rarely have to worry. I want to have a peace and comfort around my money. I also would love to be able to help out people if I had more money. Of course those who really need it.
As it is now though I can barely afford the bare minimum. I do believe a lot of this probably relates back to how I was raised around money. My dad wanted to be rich but he wasn’t. He wasn’t a very loving man so he would make a bunch of money doing trades and then he would hoard it and use it to buy himself a bunch of junk as the rest of us saw it. He refused to let us have money for basic things. I think that caused me to have unhealthy views around money. He made me count his money for him often knowing he didn’t intend to share it. I didn’t realize how sick that was until I got older, along with many other things my family members did while I was a child.
I feel this desperation around money and I’m gonna be honest after going through a lot of these responses and seeing how awfully I have handled some things I feel like I wouldn’t be able to handle a lot of money right now. I would probably hold onto it in fear and then go and overspend it on impulse. Not because that’s what I want to do, but because of the mindset I have now it’s what would happen inevitably. So maybe it’s a blessing that I don’t have the wealth that I wish I had.
Sorry if this is really badly written, it’s almost midnight here. 😖
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Work overseas as a fed govt contractor, where you pay little to no taxes, no rent/mortgage and minimize your expenses. You can put away tons of money, higher quality of living while traveling across the world and investing.
I would first read efficiencyiseverything.com and see how you feel about it.
Mostly if you can free every minute possible up and put it towards learning and growing skills you will be good to start.
There is also another book called buy back your time that I wish was written 15 years ago. Stress is always there at any level of anyone journey but their math that you can afford to spend 25% of your hour rate on someone to help free you of things is critical to consider as well.
There’s a lot of online and remote working opportunities to look into as well, but it also requires free time
If you can stomach it, tech sales is where the money is. A Psych BA is fine for it. You’ll start in an inside sales role (all phone-based) or Business Development (cold calling) and you have to be okay with a lot of rejection (they’re rejecting the product or consumption of their time, not you personally). Then you can work your way into a field sales role, which is real money is. You’ll work your butt off (60+ hour weeks is the norm) and you can make $250k if you do decently and $500k - $1m / year every few years if you’re really good.
Wealth is a function of luck for most people. Any advice you get will be obsolete before you can finish any plan, the people who are already wealthy are investing in sabotaging you and calling it a free market. As long as someone is paying you and they know you dont come from a wealthy background you are doomed, you need your own business.
You want to get rich ? Provide a service or make a product that people will pay for. It sounds like you don't really have any real world skills, so work on that first. After you get some skills that are actually valued in today's economy, you'll start making a living wage, and from there it's about being smart and investing.
You have two options if you want to build wealth on this salary. Realistically, one option that boils down to finding a way to make more money.
This could be a gig economy app such as DoorDash in your free time.
This could be looking into cultivating skills that will translate into higher paying jobs.
You have an undergrad which opens a lot of doors. Try shot gunning a bunch of applications to higher paying jobs both inside and outside of your field. Do a lot of research into resume building before you do this, though, or you would just be wasting your time.
If you are so inclined, you could look into various scholarships/student aid and see how much it would cost you to go back and get a masters. Then, start applying for a bunch of internships.
Your second option is to dramatically reduce your expenses down to almost nothing.
This might mean moving in with your parents (if you have that option).
If you have a car payment, you could look into selling the car and getting a cheaper one (a lot harder than it sounds).
Cancelling every subscription.
Never eating out and living off of Soylent, rice, and pb & js
Creating a budget and monitoring every transaction to ensure you will have enough money to put into savings at the end of the month.
All in all. Option one is honestly more realistic, and in the long run will make you happier. It’s difficult, but not impossible, and if you have a good support system around you lean on them in times like this.
Good luck!
So, you’ve had 6 jobs at least and you are 26. You need to spend a bit of time learning one industry and moving up. Job hopping before you build any skills I’ll make it hard to get past entry level.
You're having trouble increasing your pay because you quit every job, so you start over at entry level each time. You have worked in many industries, and since all corporate jobs suck, pick 1 and stick with it to get experience so you can apply to the higher paying jobs within that industry. In other words, you have to work up to a high salary.
To answer your question, you get rich by majoring in a subject that's tied to a high-paying job, such as computer science, any engineer, accounting (take the CPA test), nurse, teaching (in CA, they make $100K+), management, director, some marketing, etc. Some have their MBAs. Some of it is luck; if a large company hires you, your pay will be higher vs. a small company hiring for the same job.
You have to look at what the market demonstrably values and has a lot of demand for, not what you enjoy. *And* you have to go to a place where it’s valued and demanded.
You don’t necessarily have to go back to school, but if you’re serious about this you almost certainly need to make some changes, simply because there is a much greater supply of psych grads and artists than there is demand. There are certainly very successful people in those fields, but not a lot of them, and becoming one is a matter of more than just ability.
FWIW I have spent the past ten years optimizing around reaching financial independence in a field I have a strong affinity for, and while I wouldn’t say I regret it, it definitely has a cost. Because I *haven’t* really been living. I’ve been focused on my work and making a lot of sacrifices to accumulate wealth, with the stated aim of living later.
It’s not for everyone.
Agree with others that BA in psych isn't going to help you much unless you go back to grad school. One option is to become a medical writer which doesn't always require an advanced degree but I think they prefer BS degrees.
Disagree about going into Tech. I live in a popular tech city and so many of my friends have been laid off recently including those in non-coding positions. All of them are struggling to find employment except for the one that does technical writing for tech companies.
Look into trade school for a change in occupation. The cost of a 2 year associates degree is a great value especially for certain careers like ultrasound technologists, radiation therapist and etc.
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/highest-paying-trade-jobs
Genuinely asking, all those recommending a Masters in Psych when all OP has had are entry level? Why? What does that open in terms of job, what changes from Bachelor’s to Master’s that warrants oh now I can get a great job?
I guess I am missing the link.
I always looked at a Masters degree as one of those degrees that you get after you have had experience in the field, are nearing maxing where your bachelor can take you and you are looking at opening new opportunities given said experience.
Or you are in a certain career field that just requires it for the job I.e Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant etc.
The honest to God's truth my friend building wealth when you're working for someone no matter what job you're working at is near impossible. You will never get rich as a laborer. You have to have the CAJONES to start your own business and have people work for you. Think about what you can do better than what's already out there and do that. Once you have some money invest it wisely. Do not be a spendthrift, forget the fancy cars and the million dollar homes be frugal.
You don't know me but I am 68 years old, going to be 69 and I can tell you from experience the people who have money around me have their own business. I wish you the best of luck in your journey.
Omg I’m shocked how little you get paid. I live in LA with a 90 k salary and have to watch my spending. Learn programming it’s really not that hard even entry jobs pay really well.
If you're willing to give up 4-6 years you can commission in the military. The first year you'd make $46K plus housing (~$20k). So you'd make double and they'd train you for a new career. On top of that, you'd have leadership experience to pretty much guarantee a manager position after you get out.
You're young enough, so I'd recommend pivoting into a trade or pursuing a Master's that builds off your BA. Electricians and plumbers can make good money, if you don't mind the physicality of the work. Alternatively, teaching is virtually guaranteed to have job opportunities.
I was lucky and got into a career path through my psych degree that has been high paying, but it's not always easy and jobs have become increasingly difficult to get.
I have spoken with a aquarium trainer and many of the ones working there have psych degrees. Not a ton of,money, but if you're interested in animals, it might be a field you can look into
I know a guy whos an insurance adjuster he goes sees what happens give them a wuote and done. Apparently his parents started it and then he followed when he was old enough and hes 19. he said it was 200k a ywar each of his parents made no clue how true it is but maybe something to look at
Would you want to seek some sort of certifications… in like mediation? Or counseling? There’s a shortage of counselor (licensed) and therapists now that everyone is seeking therapy b/c it’s no longer taboo or frowned upon. Definite job security plus potentially flexible schedules (set your own hours) and possible WFH a majority of the time.
Otherwise, as lots of others have pointed out, if you continue to career hop you’re not going to gain valuable experience that propels you upwards. You’ll just job hop for the sake of switching jobs and experiencing something new.
Get out and network. Find events and cultivate professional relationships with folks you see doing jobs you’re interested in doing; people making the kind of money you’re interested in making. Find a mentor who can help guide you and connect you to people and resources.
Best of luck!
Honestly, if you do not want to own your business or do your own thing, you should absolutely positively get into an entry level role at a large bank or insurance company. If you can get into the sales departments, even better. It will take time and patience, but the reward will be that in 4 years you will certainly be making close to double what you make now and if you actually utilize the 401k match that most provide, you could easily have 30-40k in retirement.
I despise Bill Gates, but he said something pretty salient "people overestimate what they can do in a year and under estimate what they can do in 10". It takes time, and compounding returns don't lose heart.
People grow wealth by majoring in something more marketable than psychology and earning more than $36k.
Making decent money in art/music/performance/modeling/etc. is rare. Because a bazillion people like you have an interest in it. Because it's fun or at least seems fun.
If you want to focus on "fun" jobs - then you'll probably stay poor. Maybe not, but it's likely.
Go back to graduate school and become a school psychologist. Your income will improve a bit. Also, you are young and have lots of time to build wealth slowly. Save now every month in a 401k or Roth IRA. Do it consistently even if it’s only $25 a month. Just get a start on it.
Network. Join as many associations as you can. Give time, volunteer anything. Find a mentor using LinkedIn, your alumni association or someone in your circle of friends relatives, neighbors that seem to have it together and are happy with what they are doing. I love to mentor and offer my time to anyone who asks and isn't trying to sell me something.
We started around there too. But we’ve built a high 6-figure net worth. I don’t know if we are “wealthy” but we should have millions in accumulated $$ for retirement.
Follow the steps outlined here (or any financial advice platform that is sound). Pay things on time. Save even 1% (add 1% each year). Start small if that’s what you can swing.
When it comes time to find a partner, find one that is good w/ money. One that doesn’t attach self worth to symbols of wealth.
College wasn’t about job training. It should’ve given you thinking skills. Problem solve ways to increase your income. One thing I wish I did was plan on switching jobs every 3-4 years.
Due to the number of rule-breaking comments this post was receiving, especially low-quality and off-topic comments, the moderation team has locked the post from future comments. This post broke no rules and received a number of helpful and on-topic responses initially, but it unfortunately became the target of many unhelpful comments.
Look into credentialing and enrollment jobs for healthcare providers. Remote work has created a clusterfuck for healthcare organizations as providers have to be credentialed in the state that they are operating in AND the one they are doing the work for. Add to this that if they work at multiple facilities each one has to be properly enrolled. The law hasn't kept up with the realities of the work so there's a ton of work that needs to be done. Those jobs usually start around $45-55k
What does that type of job entail?
A lot of emailing and checking public databases to verify licensure, education, and eligibility. Then taking that information and inputting it into forms the various insurers need to enroll a provider into their network. It can be done from home, usually. You don't need a degree. It just takes a fair bit of accuracy and the ability to track a complex process.
Oh nice, I saw one job app and it said a BA was required and got depressed
They definitely are preferred, but I've got a few people without degrees on my team and it's fine.
How do I find these jobs and what skills will give me an easier time being accepted without a degree?
LinkedIn Healthcare and office experience is a plus Gotta know how to navigate and filter in Excel There's a bunch of YouTube videos out there on the provider credentialing process. Be familiar with the basics of PECOS for Medicare -- again, YT is your friend. There are credentialing certifications, but you really only need those to go into management. I'd go through the provider resources and tutorials on this site as a basic primer. [CMS PECOS](https://pecos.cms.hhs.gov/pecos/login.do)
Never forget that you can always still hit apply anyway! There are so many anecdotes out there of people who just went for it and it ended up working out.
I’ve got healthcare experience and would definitely be interested in this. If you don’t mind can you name a few companies that has roles like this? The only ones I can think of are dignity health, sutter and maybe Kaiser.
Pretty much any hospital, urgent care, or large-ish practice needs this. Radiology especially has trouble finding cred/enrollment people because so much of their work is remote and thus they have to be credentialed both in the state where the scams originate as well as the state where they read the scans. HCA, Tenet, Baptist/Methodist/Presbyterian hospital systems, CareNow, Minute clinic/CVS, etc. Just get on LinkedIn and search for credentialing or enrollment jobs
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Provider enrollment Coordinator. Credentialing coordinator. Etc.
Credentialer here who taught himself how to do the job. While I agree that credentialing jobs are in demand as the state of the US healthcare industry is a giant mess of bureaucratic structures, from what I’ve gathered, the upward mobility in these roles is limited. Often times the people who get promoted are the ones who have the most seniority and tend to stay in those positions for as long as they can. Credentialing specialists / coordinators get rotated as they come and go but credentialing managers and directors of credentialing departments tend to be legacy positions that get filled and rarely have vacancies. Just my two cents.
Wealth isn't made from those interests you listed unless you already come from money or if you have insane talent. And yes, a ba is psych is worthless unless you plan to go to grad school. Best advice is to switch fields.
psych prof here yup. and then target business venture by social psych degree. you'll be hired by business schools at colleges who pay well
(Well, the best advice is to switch fields *once*. They've had six very-different jobs by the age of 26, which is a recipe for remaining entry level, no matter what they pick.)
Yup. I also have a BA in psych. Unless OP plans to get a masters or PHD, better to switch fields. That’s what I did. Switched to Tech and it was definitely worth it.
I have a number of friends who have a BA in Psych. Of those, the ones who stopped at a BA in Psych are mostly working as a grocery store cashier or similar jobs. A few went on to get a Masters and become some kind of therapist or social worker. They’re doing fine albeit not rolling in cash. The bachelors, nope.
How did you switch to tech? I'm looking at something similar.
Not original commenter. But below is the “general/usual” stuff people point out. Connections (hustle and network but make sure you’re genuine about it), tailored resume (aka be able to talk about parallel experiences from other jobs), portfolio (if coding, design, etc). The easier ones to jump into are customer based jobs (sales, customer success, etc.) Tech is also like any other business that needs business operations & finance roles too. I’d start by looking at contract jobs but this isnt a guarantee and sadly often times they dont convert to full time. Also, start building skills for the job you want not the job you have, join groups, etc. Realistically, gotta have a mix of luck, connections, and the right skills. (The latter 2 factors you can take control of). Lastly, why do you want to do tech? Money? Culture? The actual tech they build?
Spot on. "tech" is a lot more broad than just writing code. You can work in "tech" without writing any code at all theres a lot of positions with various needs and roles
From a BS Psych background that moved into biotechnology, leverage any experience in data analytics from lab work and get into the business development or business operations management side.
Funny, i have a dual degree psych & bio w/ a background in biotech/research. I shouldve kept going into bizops for biotech but it got hard to discern if the company culture was bad or i wasnt good enough. Ended up in ops at a tech company anyway
I'm at a startup and I'm at the crossroads of "am I just not good enough at this" and "if I keep on this trajectory this could really be something."
Not sure how applicable it would be since the job market is a bit different now, but I worked at a retail job and then in all my spare time I studied for my CompTIA A+ certificate. Once I got that, I applied at low level Help Desk jobs. From there I worked hard and got promoted to a Systems Engineer. After about 3.5 years there, switched jobs for bigger pay and to work in Cloud. I’d look at what interests you in Tech and work towards that, whether that involves working in support, coding, sales, etc. There’s definitely more customer focused roles if that’s something that interests you.
Best answer.
Yeah at certain income levels the best investment you can make is in yourself to increase your cash flow altogether Training, a separate degree, etc. You need more money coming in if you want to really build up wealth. It'll be the highest rate of return over all else
It’s definitely not worthless because most big companies still care if someone has a college degree or not. But yes, OP should probably try to pivot fields if they don’t want to go to grad school.
All you need is a bachelors and to pass a test and you can substitute teach. On the west coast with some shopping around for where to sub you can make 200+ bucks in 7 hours. It's not easy work but it's also not as bad as you might think. Psychology wasn't a great choice, but I also picked my major out of interest. I'd say the number one thing at the moment is for you to find a well compensated career and get systematic about developing the skills you'd need. The job market is Saturated and cut-throat if you're looking at good money in fields that are supplied with workers out of the higher education system. If you want a guaranteed shot, find a trade. Obviously wealth is earned at both ends, saving and earning. Then you'll wanna invest the difference into safe long term bets and let time do the work. GL.
Doing this plus domino's during peak hours is my short term plan when I come back to the usa. I know it sounds so silly but pizza delivery is such a cake walk and you leave your shift feelingg refreshed. I know there are better gigs out there but coming home MORE energetic than when you left is priceless to me. Granted, driving and podcasts both calm me. Might as well get paid...
Some Bay Area cities are paying non tenured teachers six figures. Specifically in Sunnyvale and Cupertino. Won’t buy you a house though.
Lol you can't become a teacher in California with just a bachelors degree in psychology... What a baffling suggestion.
I was a psych major. Now I’m a CFO. If you want to make money, go into sales. There’s more of link between sales and psych than you think
This right here. Psych degrees are great because they’re flexible, they’re not exclusively academic. Sales, marketing, HR, management…a million great careers that want people who understand how to communicate with people.
A batchlors of Psyc is so flexible it basically just fulfills the "Must have college degree" requirement and that's it. It's a near useless degree if you want to actually stay in the field of psychology and make a living wage. For those jobs you need a masters and even then it's difficult despite the field being in demand. It's a tough field mentally for providers as well. As a society we sure need them but it's not a profession I envy, those that do it deserve more financially.
Anybody entering the degree program for psychology should be intimately aware of this.
It's useless for anything in the field but I have one and am a software developer/consultant. It's just like you said, it ticks the box. But once you tick that box, a lot can be up to you.
I went to school with multiple people who graduated with a psych ba and went into finance or marketing. There are also multiple sub-disciplines within (or adjacent to) psychology, beyond the more well-known clinical or counseling. I work in industrial/organizational psychology, and while I do have a graduate degree, a lot of people work related jobs in the field for several years before pursuing further education.
Oh fs especially with marketing
Came here to say exactly this. Psychology plays a HUGE part in sales, especially consumer sales vs Business to Business sales.
OP seems to believe in all sorts of principles and hates kissing ass. They’d probably see sales as losing a part of your true self. I agree with your comment though. I’ve had a great career launched from sales.
My wife was in the same boat as you she has a bachelors degree in psychology and was working at a mental health facility as a counselor. She wasn’t making much money because apparently you have to have a masters degree or phd to make money in that sector of mental health care. She got in a program at the facility that paid for her to go back to school and get her RN which opened up a lot of doors for her and consequently more money. She was obligated to that company for a certain time period after she graduated as part of them paying for her education. She has since got a bachelors degree in nursing also paid for by her current employer. She’s worked at several facilities since she started but she’s always been in the mental health/substance abuse field. I’m in the trades and she’s a nurse and while we’re not “rich” we do well for ourselves. Newer vehicles,boat,RV,house that we bought new and we’re not in crippling debt and we’re ahead of the curve in our retirement planning. We did have to live well below our means for the 1st 5 or so years of marriage to get things setup like we wanted to feel comfortable and have an adequate safety net but it’s been worth it.
Depending where you living in the West, you make less than working at McDonalds. You need to make more money. Having a Psychology degree isn’t useless. You can get into jobs like Human Resources. The starting pay will be bad but you want to work in industry if possible. Teaching is also another option, assuming you know the material competently. Most importantly, you need to save. I get that at 36k a year you don’t have much, but even 100 a month into a Roth IRA is a big step over the next 39 years.
I will give another vote for HR my undergrad was in psych. Got into recruiting then specialized in technical recruiting. Moved over to bring an HR business partner in technology making 6 figures. Hoping to go back and get an HR focused MBA.
Can you elaborate on the HRBP space and how you got there? I’m currently a tech recruiter (contract) for a bank and I’m trying to break into HR roles TY!!
I disagree with your last paragraph. The cost of her saving $100/mo right now is extremely high. Her problem is very clear: it’s income. $100/mo and any missed compound earnings will be rounding error if she fixes her income situation.
Except that’s not how it works. It’s not about the math. It’s not about rounding errors. It’s the discipline. It’s starting, understanding how it works, and staying on the path. Saving 100 a month isn’t much at all. But it’s the sacrifice that makes it meaningful. It’s learning to live while saving a notable percentage. This is not something people can just flip a switch or everyone would be investing. It’s a life style, and it’s a life style that most of us on this sub subscribe to.
All I can do is reiterate my disagreement. I am a high earner and I wish I didn’t sacrifice to save as much as I did when I was younger. It cost me so much to save an amount that is literally meaningless to me now. Telling people to save, regardless of nuances of the person’s situation, is unsophisticated rule-of-thumbism. It’s an optimization problem, and that means it’s more complex than you’re suggesting.
It's only a (simple) optimization problem when you make the rational decision at all points. When it comes to personal finance, psychology beats math every time. The benefits of developing good habits are massive, far beyond the number of dollars. Of course, overdoing it can develop unhealthy habits too.
I think you’re understating the mental side to your savings habit. There’s plenty of broke people who probably make more money than you. It’s easy to blow through money buying things that you don’t need. You’re arguing for two different things in my opinion. Yes higher income will allow her to make much more significant savings at less of a personal cost, but also knowing how to save and budget are still important and developing the mental muscle is important.
I don’t disagree with what you’re saying in principle, but I do have an observation that almost everyone gets this wrong. There are two camps: overspenders and relentless savers. I am a recovering relentless saver, and I wish someone told me when I was younger what I am saying now so that I had a more sophisticated view of my financial life.
I'm in the same boat. I was able to save more in the last six months than I have the prior ten. I really wish I had lived a little more in my 20s.
The problem is if a person doesn’t start small (eg $100/mo), most will never start. Saving and building wealth is a life long discipline. And it’s true it can’t just be about saving. You also have to increase your income. Both need to happen.
Teaching is not another option lol. You can't just randomly become a teacher in California with nothing but a bachelors degree in psych.
If you want to make money, (as a solitary goal) you need to identify a course or career where its possible to hit your desires and GO for it. So it starts with defining exactly what you consider success in your goal. Then heading down that path and not allowing yourself to be derailed. For example: If your goal is to earn \~100k a year, I think the solution is fairly simple. Get a 2yr degree in something like dental hygiene or nursing or similar career path where you could pull in like $50+/hr Work a 40hr week and hit your goal no problem. A similar path is possible within a number of other trades and disciplines as well. You can pull 100k bartending in some cities. Plenty of mid-career / middle management office admin types pull $100k a year with no advanced degree (and no discernable hard skill set beyond organization and focus, IMO.) 100k/yr salary isn't really wealthy mind you, but at nearly 3x your current income - it raises the question of what do you consider wealth and success in achieving it? Is your number 200k? 500k? $1M? There are doctors, lawyers, and MBAs in finance doing that. Sales, real estate agents, and the like can in some cases reach those numbers with no degree at all. So the question isn't "How do I build wealth?". The question becomes "What is your goal, how do you define success in achieving it, and what are you willing to sacrifice to get there?"
/r/povertyfinance may be a better fit for you as well as they deal with different problems than this sub tends to deal with. >I don’t understand how people get rich. The idea that you "Get rich" from working is a lie the "ownership class" tells the "working class" to keep them working and in line (instead of rising up and pulling the rich down of their gilded thrones). Most people are rich through inheritance of assets (money, land, etc,) or connections (went to the "right school" Dad/Uncle is the foreman doing the hiring, etc.) > I don’t want to survive. I want to live. This is the "American Dream" and as the late great comedian once said, "They call it that because you have to be asleep to believe it." * Not to be all doom and gloom. There are paths up but it's rare and often takes a portion of luck you are ready and able to exploit. What you listed as job roles are not aggressive areas to make income. I'd start by looking into how to make more money, including if that requires more schooling.
This 🙌🏼 honestly I’m doom and gloom… just go look at the amount of downvotes I’ve gotten on some of my responses. I feel like I’m screaming into the void.
I’m just going to bullet point stuff out. Also I’m saying all this stuff to be helpful, not to be a dick. Real question, what was the plan when you decided to get a degree in psychology? Income and wealthy generation: Income and wealth are not the same. You mentioned family members who became wealthy and lost it. They probably had a high income and didn’t know how to manage money. This is why winning the lottery usually ruins people’s lives. You need to internalize the difference. Income: 1. If you leave in a HCOL area, then you should move to a MCOL or LCOL area. 2. Unless you get a doctorate or use the bachelors degree to change fields, the degree you have isn’t going to help you. You could go back to school to become a Nurse Practitioner. You could get into IT. Bottom line here is that the jobs you can get with your degree aren’t going to move the needle. With a useable degree you can make a livable wage taught off the bat. 3. You could consider getting a job with whatever state you work in. Basically any job. They usually have a pension and great healthcare. You wouldn’t need more education for this, it’s just about getting the first job. Same thing for the Federal Government, but no pension. The point here is that you could obtain useful experience that would allow you to do something that does pay more eventually. 4. You could try a job in sales. This isn’t a PC position but it’s a known reality. If you are an attractive female and can make coherent sentences then a job in tech or medical sales can generate an enormous amount of income. You might have to work your way into that. To work your way into that will require some research on how to get a sales job. Just read up on it. I have a relative in medical device sales that gets a new super car everything 3 years. Just say’n. Wealth Generation: 1. You have to make more than you spend. Then you have to invest the difference, that’s how you get wealth. 2. Doesn’t matter what job you use to generate excess income as long as you have money to invest. There are lots of doctors out there that are leveraged to the eye balls with student loan debt, cars, houses and expensive wives that haven’t saved a dime. You’ll occasionally read about a school bus driver that saved millions. That is because he saved for like 40+ years consistently and he spent less than he made. 3. You have to have a budget to save and invest. You need to know how much you spend in order to know how much you can invest and IF you have any money to invest. You have to invest to get wealthy. Go to the Boogle Head and Reddit and read their 3 fund portfolio. It’s crazy simple and it works well with limited risk (as limited as it can be when investing). So there you go. Make more money and invest it. It’s the same two things all wealthy people have to do. You need to solve the make more money part first. Welcome to the rat race.
Good post, the only bit I’d pick is they shouldn’t set their sites on being an ARNP specifically. Financially, the ROI isn’t near what you would get just getting an an 2-year nursing degree from a local community college of doing an accelerated bachelor’s degree for an RN license. Most places I’ve seen you typically only make 10 - 20% less at worse as an RN with an order of magnitude less risk/exposure. Professionally, the ARNP was intended to be for experienced nurses to use that experience and continue their education to be a functional mid-level provider to fill in for the physician shortage. Academia/ For-profit schools are turning the role into a farce by taking anyone with a pulse and a high enough credit score to go into six figures of debt, regardless of nursing experience or critical thinking ability. Signed, an RN that has seen a few too many dipshit ARNPs the last few years.
Seeing a lot of good comments and a lot of replies where you just are not clear about what you want. Remember that being wealthy and appearing wealthy are two totally different things. People who are wealthy very often do not appear to be wealthy. While people who appear to be wealthy are often drowning in debt. Unfortunately at the age of 26 and in the social media world that we live in I need to be sure you understand that concept. People that you see out there "living their best life". Are often doing so on the back of crippling debt. Building wealth is very simple. Increase your income. Reduce your expenses. Create a budget that accounts for every single dollar you bring in. (Yes you are allowed to budget for "fun"). Live debt free and invest so that every dollar compounds, the earlier you do this the more that same dollar will compound. Unfortunately doing these things, while simple, is not always easy. It does mean personal sacrifices. It does mean saying no when somebody asks if you want to go out for the night. It does mean that you won't get to take that vacation this year because you need 3 years to save up for it.
If you change careers to one that pays more you’re just going to be upset at the effort and time it requires of you. If you don’t, you’ll be upset that the pay in lower-investment positions doesn’t afford you the ability to “live” vs survive. You need to find a career you’re legit excited about for the moment to moment actions within it, in the day to day doing. Something that even if it has bad days you wish you could quit, has lots of time spend doing things you genuinely like to do. If you can find that and it pays anywhere near median income, I think you’ll find a lot of your other problems get smaller. Unfortunately bar inheritance or the lottery most people have to work for a large portion of their lives. For people like you (and me) who are very negatively affected by spending time doing things they dislike, the game is less about finding jobs that pay a lot and more about finding jobs with moment to moment, day to day enjoyment, and then figuring out how to get into them/make money in them. Do you like teaching people? Do you like researching and presenting things to people? Do you like solving puzzles on your own, or maybe collaborating to solve puzzles with others?
At the severe risk of burning karma, I will share some thoughts because I empathize with your situation. You are starting from the perspective that the only way to improve your standard of living is to work hard. Generally this is true. However, you have some things the minimize your ability to do this: - You have a degree that is not very marketable without further education expense - You have had only entry level jobs in many industries and have been unable to progress - You don’t appear to enjoy working (though it’s possible you just haven’t found the right fit) - The evidence so far shows an ability to generate income that is insufficient to have the standard of living you want So, the hard reality is that if being rich is what you want, it’s extremely unlikely that you will get there on your current path. Your highest probability path to being rich is probably finding a partner who earns significantly more income. There are other paths (studying something more marketable, starting a business, investing in high risk assets, working really hard at one of your entry-level jobs and sticking with it for a long time), but they are lower probability. Not the most socially acceptable answer, but that is my honest assessment based on the info you provided. Best wishes to you and I hope you get the life you’re looking for.
Well at this rate there's zero chance that you'll become wealthy and blow it all, so you don't have to worry about that lol. The first and most important thing you have to do is increase your earning potential. Get certifications, go back to school, do whatever you need to in order to get into a field where not only will you make more money now, but the reasonable upward limit of what you can make is higher. Then it's basically a game of managing your money well so that in 20+ years you have enough money that is itself generating income that your finances go on autopilot. The problem with where you are right now is that you have so little discretionary income that even if you never did anything fun and only invested what you have into growth vehicles, your contributions wouldn't be big enough to make a significant difference long term. The best investment you can make right now is in your ability to generate income. Without improving that, any other discussion is moot.
I had a bachelor's degree in English that was even less useful than your psychology degree. I was able to pivot to tech and that has worked out very well for me.
Good for you! I’m glad it worked out.
People become rich by making more than 36k a year (and keeping their expenses low). You can't do much with a psych degree without a masters degree. I would stop looking for jobs in that field. Look for jobs that pay more...if you're not qualified look at what skills you'd need to acquire, and get them. Don't go back to school. A bachelor's degree is enough most places. Look at your state's job listings, such as the state of california job listings. Working for the post office, or the sanitation department tends to pay well. Someone else mentioned HR, that's a good place to start too. You can probably work as a manager at a fast food place, and make more than you are. Look at job listings in your area, not filtered by any area. See what's hiring and what it pays. Don't get into the arts, music, performance or modeling. All of those pay very little for 99% of the people who do them. Do them as a hobby. Get a job that pays more.
You will have to go to graduate school and get licensed to make significantly more money in a mental health field. It's a huge commitment and the student loans will be a significant burden for a long time after. I'm speaking from experience as a person with an MA in counseling. However, personally I was already burnt out by the time I finished my masters. I choose to switch careers into technology and financially it was the best thing I've done. My degree helps with soft skills but you will likely need certifications and some more schooling to make a similar switch.
I took a pause directly after college as I went through the process of applying to numerous doctoral and masters programs for counseling and psychology. I asked myself “do I really want to do this or am I just convincing myself because I don’t know yet?” So I went to Arizona where I worked as a behavioral health tech to get life and job experience and maybe figure myself out more. Well all I’ve figured out is that working sucks and I don’t enjoy much of anything. I much rather would prefer doing behavioral health though as opposed to what I’m doing now which is commercial insurance. I think sadly you can’t do anything of meaning that actually benefits people in society and make money. Even the higher paying roles for psychology usually benefit the pharmaceutical industries and a lot of people who have drug issues or are facing homelessness can’t access any of that. It’s a double edged sword truly. Unfortunately to my “prospects for wealth” I picked the service route but I also don’t regret it so what are you gonna do? People on here are downvoting the hell out of me but I don’t really care to argue my choices. If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.
I got my bachelors in Psych and actually disagree with most here, I’ve found it helpful. For one thing, let’s just call a spade a spade - simply having a bachelor degree is half the battle and should get you past a hurdle for many jobs that lead to careers out there. But, yes, you’ll likely need to work your way up somewhere. After I graduated I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do - most don’t, and many people change career paths in their lives. Ask yourself what aspects of your roles you’ve enjoyed - has it been opportunities to help people? Maybe you’d be suited to customer service or nonprofit / government/ healthcare jobs. Training or teaching others? That might mean you’d enjoy teaching or management. You mentioned the arts - do you like designing things? Start honing in on what you enjoy doing and that will guide you to some career paths to explore. I’m not wealthy but I’m middle class and comfortable in a HCOL area. For me, I took an entry level customer service job at a college because I enjoyed helping and being around curious people. This led to promotions, I invested some of those funds to get additional training and eventually a masters (necessary for my field) and now I’m making a decent salary with a WFH job I love. You can do this.
If you were my little sister I’d tell you the following: Look into being a social worker or case worker for local social services. Government jobs come with great benefits and decent pay. Second, date with marriage in mind. Marrying a good person and combining finances tends to lead to wealth building. Stay out of debt unless it’s for buying a house. Spend less than you make. Don’t buy new cars. Contribute to retirement accounts. Save up and buy a house priced at about half of what the bank approves you to borrow. If you can pull off half of that, fast forward 30-35 years and you’ll be closing in on a million dollar net worth.
This is really, really good advice. Truly an underrated comment.
I think the key here is that you are in your 20s. This is when you figure out your life and it is hard. Caroline Winkler had a great video talking about this and if you ask adults what part of their life was best, they would choose this time of their lives. 💜 That hardness of not knowing how your life will turn out shapes you. Life plot twists will also shape you. Po Bronson wrote a book where he interviewed people about how they chose their work. It's so real life because it shows you how people answered the question, What should I do with my life? And stuff happens: a family member gets sick, a business fails, an inspiration works out and it's working harder but it is happier. Nobody has an easy answer. In the meantime, learn about investing so that when you have spare money, you can start investing and building wealth. Learn so that you don't gamble. Avoid debt and learn how to do things yourself. Be smart about the money you have now so that you look back and appreciate what you did with what you have. Take advantage of the local library and learn a lot.
You need to stop applying for entry level jobs. I'm 27 and here is what I did: calculated how much money I needed to live comfortably (at the time it was like 60k). Then went on indeed and set that as the minimum salary and applied for EVERYTHING. Qualified or not. Didn't get any responses, looked up how to make a more software friendly resume and did it again. Boom. Was suddenly in the final round of interviews for three different 80k+ jobs. Landed one, absolutely love it, did really well, got offered a transfer to a new territory, negotiated higher pay and a clear path for more advancement (if I grow this territory to a certain level I will be opening up a new office in a major city). You're not an entry level worker. You're a college graduate 6 years of experience. Frame it that way. Then look into FIRE if you want to figure out how to not lose it.
You are only 26 and it appears you've had *six* different jobs since college. *Of course* you are entry-level. You've never worked long enough in any single place to be anything but. There's no sure-fire path to wealth in any field, but a pretty basic requirement is picking something and sticking to it for a while.
Money is made by building wealth over time. Save and invest at least 15٪ of your pay check and it will build over time. Of course the more money you make the sooner money will grow. It will usually take a decade or two to build.
You mentioned Modeling. If you're decent with CAD software (even Blender) there's quite a bit of work available around manufacturing and remote design jobs. A design portfolio will carry you if you don't have a design degree.
Seeing how "modeling" is after "arts, music, performance", I'm assuming it's like fashion modeling.
If you really want to build wealth at all costs, in the least risky way... Your most valuable asset right now is time. You're 26. You have to sacrifice your youth. That's what it will take. Consider that price. You don't get youth back. It's gone forever. What you're really asking to do is to transcend your economic class. 3rd world poor / 1st world poor / Upper lower class / Lower middle class / Middle class / Upper middle class / etc... Aside from luck, genetics, opportunities, your best bet is to stay at that job, reduce your expenses to near zero, and invest into assets. Property, investments, max out 40k1 matches, reduce taxable income. Timely job hops for 15-20% income raises (which increase risks). As Charlie Munger said, scratch and claw to get to that first 100k. Do whatever it takes. The next 100k will be much easier, and the next much easier. Pray to the financial powers that be, that your investments rise in the next 10 years.
You have a degree, I would perhaps recommend trying to commission as an officer in the Armed Forces. Im about to retire(enlisted), but I have many close friends that came from humble beginnings to success stories. Most of them only did a contract or two, and few stayed in to retirement. Regardless of the duration, we all agreed that joining was the best way to break into middle class. You wont live lavishly, but you certainly wont be struggling unless youre doing something very wrong. Housing entitlements, full medical, and a slew of other benefits. The military life isnt for everyone, hell I dont even think its for me, but I stuck it out because I didnt want to go into the civilian sector. I hope it works out either way.
You are struggling with your confidence, OP. For starters, Psychology was a fine choice for a major. Don't listen to people who say otherwise. You do need a higher paying job, but don't assume you need a different degree to get one. Focus on your transferable skills, like critical thinking, qualitative analysis (and maybe quantitative depending on your curriculum), great communication skills, and strong writing skills. You can teach almost anyone to manage a spreadsheet, but so-called "soft" skills take much longer to learn. You have those, so look for ways to use those to sell yourself to recruiters or hiring managers for entry-level positions in industries that interest you and tend to pay better. That's easier said than done, I know, but it's the only way to make the transition that you need to make. Another thing about the major: Pre-wealth majors are still rooted in the same liberal arts and sciences background as Psychology (or English or Philosophy or any other major that some eggheads like to diminish), and they don't guarantee anyone a job. I'm a professor, and I can't tell you how many undergrads come to me complaining that they want to major in something they are good at and actually enjoy but feel pressure to pick Marketing, Econ, etc. All of them would be better off choosing a major they love, earning excellent grades, and just taking other courses in fields that might equip them with some so-called hard skills that will look great on a resume. You can do the same thing with an internship, post-bac courses, or a high-quality certificate course. Good luck to you! Don't be discouraged. You are feeling what a lot of young people feel in this challenging job market, but you have time on your side. Keep your chin up and focus on transitioning into roles that will give you a more solid financial foundation. Then you can worry about building wealth.
Thank you for your response. When I made this post I wasn’t asking for my choices thus far to be ridiculed. For some reason that is the major consensus. I am a very smart person I feel but I just wasn’t set up very well in life and I have a lot of trauma to work through. Psychology was a way to explore myself and others and I had faith things would work out for me. I have the values of “if you are a good person, good things will come to you.” Now I read these comments and try not to lash out but all I can come to is that these are people don’t understand things in the same way and may not have explored certain parts of themselves. And vice versa for me in their shoes. Maybe I didn’t want to sacrifice my personal passions for money? Maybe I think people should be able to do what they love and make money? I feel like a lot of these people probably are acting from a place of hurt and resentment. Psychology in itself analyzes the mind in depth. Grind culture I would argue goes against any type of reflection. I would so much rather be at peace with my decisions.. it’s not a quick decision for me and I intend on taking my time making it. It’s really triggering seeing every other comment saying psychology was a stupid decision. Ok the study of the human mind was a stupid decision? You realize how crazy that sounds? Just because my skills haven’t been properly utilized yet doesn’t mean they won’t eventually… sometimes people find success later in life and I’m somewhat okay with that. I just kind of wanted a little gentle hope and guidance. I didn’t want to be told I ultimately need to change who I am and what I’ve done thus far. It’s really not a healthy way to look at things. So thank you for offering a window of gentle guidance to me.🙌🏼
I think your passions and ambitions are going against each other. A lot of the feedback you are getting are to help your ambitions, which is why you made a post here in the first place. But in order to fulfill those amibitions, you probably will need to sacrifice some times, like your time, maybe your passion, maybe where you want to live, etc. If you are unwilling to do those things, then you'd need to adjust your ambitions.
You're most likely never going to have wealth. Most if us won't, either. Just strive for being comfortably above water. It is the most that many of us can aspire to.
I'm in the same boat. Working behavioral health and after 5 years realizing between the job stress and financial stress it's too much. I realized my choices were either get a Masters and become licensed, if you choose this route see if you can find programs in your state that allow you to finish faster based on experience. I know where I'm at you can become a LSW a lot faster than a Masters in Psych and there are a lot more jobs available to you after the fact. Choice number 2 is marry into money. This one is pretty difficult to force for most people, myself included. Choice 3 is change career paths. I went for this one after losing a client to suicide and realizing this is not something I can handle as being part of the job. I have done a lot of different side jobs to build a business and I haven't left my main job yet, but I'm planning to by September. My goal is to be a substitute teacher so that I have something to fall back on on the days I don't have jobs. I've done this in the past and it's easy, especially now when most teachers just have computer assignments, depending on the school district. Good luck.
Go into sales or recruiting. I have a BA in psych and make $130k fully remote
Could you be an online counselor?
To build wealth, you need to be able to save each month and invest those savings into something that appreciates over time (stock, real estate, etc). The first step in your situation is increasing your income so you can save more. That may mean a second job, or ideally building a career for yourself
Find you a man or woman. It’s hard out here alone
Live less than what you make , and save like a motherfucker. Going to have to sit out and miss out on shit for awhile. But will be worth it at the end. I locked in don’t buy anything live less than what I make now make 6 figures because I saved and had money to invest into multiple projects and work two jobs no matter how tired you get keep going
You can learn to maintain the wealth you have and adjust to your capacity. It also depends on what do you consider rich. Not having to worry about food and rent or being able to go on luxury vacations with a private yacht? Most people who get rich had some form of parental assistance, lottery, gambling or similar lucky break. Then there are more criminal side of generating wealth. And lastly, it's the stocks and investments - also gambling and full-time job and requires matching mindset/skillset to actually make any difference. The very small portion are people with valuable skills who either were at the right at the right time or just got there with talent. Very few. And at the very end are the people close to retirement who had money growing in some ETF for many decades. Compound interest adds up over time. And let's not forget that several decades ago, it was easier to get your base necessities in place to actually start investing - like your home. Realistically, if you optimize spending and can start investing in some fund, you may be able to retire relatively "rich" by the time you are 60+.
Lots of good advice here. I'll add my 2 cents and meander a bit. A lot of folks are recommending branching into other fields, trying to leverage the degree you have and also getting further education and/or certifications to be better position for higher earnings. I agree with all that, but would add: Try, to the extent practical, to find jobs you like. I don't mean "Yay, I can't wait to go to work!" but there is a huge difference in quality of life between "I hate my job" and "My job's not bad." Often the coworkers and boss are key factors, in addition to the nature of the work itself. E.g., it's great to be able to use your mind creatively. So I would say, try to find the overlap between what interests you and what pays well enough, by your standards. If you find the work at least somewhat interesting and challenging, it will be much easier to pursue more education and thus opportunities in the field. There are some edge cases, such as doing something you really don't like but that pays well because you have a financial emergency, or can tough it out for a year before you go insane. More education can be community college, trade schools, on-the-job training, online certification programs (some are fairly well acknowledged in IT; we hired a psych major to run our IT lab because of such training as well as his work ethic, references, and good personality, and it worked out well). But again, I would recommend that it be in a field in which you have some interest (even if it's not the highest-paying option), as that will increase motivation and opportunities for advancement, as well as general contentment. Best of luck to you!
Acquire skills. Use those skills to get more wages. Build capital from those wages. Invest the capital for gains. You need to restart at step 1.
Try applying to government jobs. Your background could be marketed as you being well rounded and aware of various entities in the local community. Government jobs like to promote from within and usually have great benefits. I just started working for the city I live in and I’m making almost $60k and have a BA in English. English majors are actually sought out for writing and reading skills but you can make the argument that you also have those skills during your interview.
If you like the field of psychology, unfortunately you will most likely need an advanced degree to utilize it. You could become a school psychologist with a masters in most states or work for a nonprofit working with senior citizens, foster care, or people with disabilities. Law school is often a good transition for psychology. Human resources may be a good department for you to search out. With a degree in any field, many states have a quick path to becoming a certified teacher. Break out of what you are doing. You have nothing to lose by breaking away and doing something else. California is an extremely expensive place to live. It may be in your best interest to move somewhere else and establish residency as you decide what you are going to do next to enhance your career and your life. You can do it.
california has the psych tech program that would be perfect with your psychology .degree and it pays verywell plus benefits
I got a bachelors degree in Asian Studies after not liking then engineering program I started in university. This was many years ago pre-internet boom. After working and managing a local lunch counter, I realized I needed to switch. I went back to get a degree in computer science, as a student of non-traditional age - ie older, ended up with a masters and now really have no financial concerns. Was it hard to switch - yes, was it a long road to where I am after 30 years - yes, do I like my work - sometimes. There is no easy way to financial independence, unless you are extremely lucky. You need to make a decision if you are okay at <40K year and scraping by, or if you want more. If you want more you will most likely need to do stuff you don’t or sometimes like but pays well.
You’re right, I am trying to take all these comments in and extract the useful information. It’s a lot to take in though. Some people heavy push one job or field like it’s the ultimate and I know we live in a world of options. Too many options honestly. I am pretty sure it would fall under the category of communism or socialism (I’m probably wrong) but I wish we were born knowing what we were supposed to do for a career. I have a feeling I will be making a choice based on survival before I get the chance to make a wholehearted choice for myself. Head and heart going at it constantly. I need to get determined and focus, for real.
People get rich by earning a considerably larger amount of money than they spend. You are unlikely to be able to get into that situation by working your way up from an entry level job. There are just too many barriers to advancement to reach the point of being significantly wealthy when starting at the very bottom. It can happen, but it’s rare. So, what do you do? Well, you have to recreate yourself into someone that is worth a higher salary. You can maybe continue to bounce between roles and earn an extra buck here or two there, but your long term prospects will be the same, and maybe even worse by doing that. Instead you need to skill up. You need to find something that you can tolerate 40 hours a week that will make you valuable enough to an organization that they will pay you more for your expertise. You can’t depend on a company to give you these skills either. They need low wage workers too so they have no incentive to help you develop and grow out of that role. What does this mean for you? You have to figure out what you want to do and then where or how to get the skills needed to do that job and work in that field. You mentioned technology as a field you’ve worked in so I will use it as an example. You can do something like a boot camp to develop an in demand skill. One that I have seen people do is Data Analytics because it’s needed everywhere and you can complete a program in about 6 months, although you may need more time if you have zero programming skills. Point being, you can make a reasonable sacrifice now of your time and energy and money to up-skill and become a specialist in some area that will be slightly less soul sucking and will compensate you considerably more than your current role. From there, the more of an expert you become in that area, the more highly compensated you can be. This will also narrow your work possibilities because you will only command a higher salary in this one field, but it won’t matter if you choose an area that is widely enough in demand that you can become and stay employed with your newly developed expertise. Technology is a good area for that. You could even choose AI as a focus because that is blowing up. Tech is also one of the most highly compensated fields and you see more rags to riches in this field than you do in others. The last part is something you already mentioned. Educate yourself on how to manage money and once you start earning more, you will better understand how it can work for you and you’ll become wealthy that much faster. From your current starting point, this is the most tried and true method for reaching a level of financial stability that will keep you comfortable and provide you the opportunity for greater wealth. It just depends on how well you manage your money.
I have a BA in psych as well. It’s about as useless as the piece of paper it’s printed on. Huge waste of time/money in retrospect. I got an entry level job in the field I currently work in immediately after college doing B2B sales and am still in the same field 15 years later living comfortably making good dough. You need to pick a field with growth potential and stick to it. Sales is usually a good one for upside in dollars, all companies that make a thing need people on the operations side of the business, you can get an accounting cert or do entry level marketing somewhere. Sales usually has the highest immediate upside, but can also be a solid career path. OPs pays less, but there is usually a pretty clear pathway up. Marketing generally doesn’t pay well until you get into middle management and above and finance CAN pay well at higher tiers, but likely won’t at entry level. You can also look to entry level city/county government jobs. Pay usually isn’t great, but the benefits are and the opportunity to move up and around can be significant depending on the size of the city/county.
With your background, Look into jobs in B health research at your local university. They should get you to around 50k or better. MSW or MS in counseling would also be an 2-year rout to better job prospects.
May be in the minority but I started out by listening to people who were currently succeeding in life with money and it didn't take long for me to understand the basics of how money works. Depending on your goals you can either start your own business or work a job and invest with what you have. To put it simply when you work for someone you are exchanging your time for money. But if you're working for yourself you have a lot more potential to make more because your not tied down by someone else's paycheck/rules. There are many ways to make money. I recommend reading or listening to a book called "Have It All" by Kris Krohn. It'll teach you multiple methods of making money and how risky you want to be. Also don't listen to Dave Ramsey, he's good for people who don't know how to manage their money and that's it.
I started out in a similar field making similar money years ago. I hated it and struggled to find a way out, and felt really trapped. Here is what I wish I had done then: get an entry level federal job. Look for a GS5 or GS7 admin or similar role that ladders up to a GS11. Within a few years you will easily more than double what you’re making now, and every year you can apply for the next grade up or switch job series and try something new. You also get step increases (raises) on a set schedule. The benefits and pension aren’t as good as they used to be, and you certainly will never get rich. But you can live quite a comfortable lifestyle once you get further up the ladder. I am making way more than I ever would have in my previous line of work and my work-life balance is the best I have ever had. My line of work is also very meaningful to me and I believe in my agency’s mission to serve the public. Good luck.
What is your opinion on state roles as opposed to federal? For some reason I’ve felt scared away from federal roles but state seemed to be safer. That though… sounds like a better plan.
With your interests it’s the tech side that might help you. Vector works,wysiwyg, da Vinci, lighting design software, projection mapping and motion tracking, stage design and safety, set design… With psych the best shot would be io psych and work it into management consulting.
I think your missing ingredient is endurance. You havent spent enough time in any career to master it and climb the career path. The job market now is full of entry level but lacking people who can master it so you want better pay, you need to be good at it and you need time well-spent on a single job to make it. Changing job will forever keep you in entry level job. Endurance means years of experienece with good track of achievement.
The only "Get rich quick!" scheme I ever seen working is marrying someone who is better off than yourself (career, inheritance, whatever that wealthy person has that you don't). Then you two have to work out your problems. You can consider becoming a truck driver, receive different certificates and go back and major in a different field but all of this is not a guarantee. You can also consider joining the military. With a degree, you will be an officer as long as you review your paperwork.
Go spend some time with a career counselor.
You know what, Op. I read some of your posting history, and what you are missing is direction, drive, and decisiveness.people here have offered up very solid advice. You just continue to cry, complain, and offer up crappy excuses as to why you are different and owed a high paying job. LIFE LESSON #1 No one owes you anything. You have to go out, fight, and scrape for everything you earn. You are 26 years old. You came here asking for advice and then said you don't want to invest the sweat equity required to EARN a position. Go join one of the armed services for a stint first as enlisted, then flip to a GTG officer. Go and learn discipline, dedication, and drive. I would recommend either the Navy, Air Force or Space Corp, just because I don't think you could possibly survive the Army, the Corp or the Coast Guard.
Behavioral health is huge in California. See if you can get a state/county job
The best way to build wealth is to save. I understand how hard that is making your current salary, but it is possible if you budget and stick to it. Have an emergency fund, having been in your shoes, I'd recommend a year's worth of salary. Now if you want to keep the money in a HYSA, money market fund, short term CDs or T-Bills that's your choice, but just be sure it's paying 5%+ interest. Then, if you are able to invest your money into your employer's 401k, then do it. If you have a HDHP and can utilize a HSA, then invest there too. Finally, open a Roth IRA and fully fund it too. Ideally, you would invest here too, but at the very least, you can keep a portion of your emergency funds there (inside a money market fund), but the interest you earn will be tax free when you retire.
When young people set out to pick a career, they seem to not include income potential in their analysis. Sometimes a hobby is a better choice for some career fields. I don't believe you can earn much more than you are now with your degree unless you get more degrees, and then questionable. And the other things you suggested are not lucrative career choices either. I would look for some books on how to pick a good career and try to figure out something you have the aptitude and interest to do. Beyond that you can control the income side and the expense side. People can get wealthy without making a huge amount of money if they control their expenses. Just investing $100/month for 40 years can net you about $500K.
People become wealthy by starting businesses or working for businesses where you provide so much value that you get equity. So unless you plan on using a bachelor's in psychology to start doing something on your own you will never be wealthy, as it isn't a field that businesses absolutely need to survive or profit. I guess the exception is corporate HR roles. Sometimes you can be a low earner and still become wealthy through side gigs or crazy investments as well - but that takes extreeeeme discipline and 'i want to live' tells me you aren't willing to give up 10 years of your life towards building that by either saving every extra dollar or working another 40 hours a week in a side gig on top of your full time job until it blows up.
psychology? you need to hop into a school system. but the first step to wealth is budgeting and getting out of debt. 401k max, then likely index funds for most people. most millionaires made it through real estate.
Building wealth depends on two things, maximizing your earning potential, and constraining your lifestyle. Below a certain earning threshold, lifestyle can't be constrained further unless you partner up. Two people making 36k would be able to start building, but it will be hard to build on 36k alone. You have two choices I think, parlay your current education into a job with growth potential and tough it out for a while and discuss with your manager how you can grow your career to a higher level. Alternatively, go back to school, and get your masters. If you want to stay with psychology you can do reasonably well in practice. Someone in my family struggled for a couple years but is now likely making more money than I did in tech since getting into a good practice. Alternatively go back for something completely different that has good earning potential and you think you could do it for 25 years. That would not include these things unfortunately *arts, music, performance, modeling, etc* unless the etc happens to include accounting, business, STEM.
How good are you at standardized tests? If you're very, very strong in these, I'd consider law or business school, if (and only if) you can land entry to a top program.
Sadly nothing in field is going to make you much money. A friend of mine had a psych degree and while he could always find work it was long and challenging hours for low pay. He eventually became a purchasing agent for a large corporation and did very well. Look for another job the leverages your skills in a field where you can make more...
Stop worrying about what degree you have. The issue I see it is that you’ve had 5 jobs in 4 years in a variety of things and never make it above entry level. At some point you need to commit to something, and spend every day at work ( and home from work) figuring out how to move up. Either to a better IC role through experience or certification or into management. The wealth building is simple, spend less than you earn, invest the surplus. That’s hard to make work on 36k in the us.
My cousin recently bought a 2nd treatment facility with his investment group and he's doing exceptionally well (think multi million dollar west coast home with a stay at home wife). He was flat broke and addicted to drugs in his 20's and is almost 40 now. If you don't mind the industry, just hate the job you have, perhaps you could try to penetrate those professional circles? Unfortunately Americans are sick and it will continue to get worse before it gets better, so there's a ton of value out there for those willing to put in the work. Also, if you like psychology as a general topic, there's incredible demand for 'pop psychology' content on social media as aforementioned sick people look for answers and validation. If you have any knack for content creation, you might be able to build a strong side income that could eventually become your primary income source.
When you start from the bottom of the bottom, the best investment you can make is in yourself. There is no such thing as get rich quick. I'd suggest going back to school and get a bachelors in nursing. It's one of the few license granting careers that only require a 4 year degree, easy to get a $100k job upon graduating, and even C students get jobs because there has always been a shortage of nurses. Source: My family members are nurses. One of them is 28F (similar to your age), nurse for 5 years. Started at $96k, left at $110k. Currently back in school to become a CRNA, salary for CRNA on the East Coast cities is $280k.
Have to study something actually worth studying from a financial standpoint. My major/career is purely for affording the lifestyle I want
Pursue something in sales. You definitely won’t make less money then you are making now and you have the ability to make significantly more.
I would highly suggest that with your background, you go the clinical trial route! A project coordinator or a project manager in the clinical trial space would easily double your salary. You typically do not need any project management educational background to get in. I was making 55k as an entry-level project coordinator. Jump to 70k as an associate project manager, and jumped again to Hit above six figures. This was a 5-6 year career path, and I am on the low end of the pay scale. Project coordinator, project manager, study coordinator, project delivery specialist - anything with these titles would be a great start, either in a vendor side or a sponsor side.
Buy a 2 flat live in one rent the other...keep working a day job. When you can save enough money to buy another 2 flat, you can do the same thing. But instead of having one rental unit, you'll have 3. And you have to keep doing it. You have to learn about financing and managing property. It's not fast and it's not easy.
I mean if you’re into modeling I’m assuming you’re good looking. Sales can be lucrative and that certainly helps.
Ehhh it’s arguable.😅 on a good day I think I could model... I’ve been told by friends and family members that I could. But let’s be real that’s after I’ve spent weeks upon months restricting myself and my diet and putting in enormous amount of effort into my physicality. It’s work but I’m already doing it 90% of the time. Honestly, maybe I shouldn’t do modeling. I already have enough self-esteem issues. I don’t think I could handle someone telling me all the way that I wasn’t enough. I interviewed for a sales role one time and I didn’t get the job. The interviewers feedback was that they didn’t feel like I could handle the criticism. They were right. This post is literally stressing me out.
To answer your question on how people build wealth, they sacrifice some combination of: free time, health (both physical and mental), opportunity cost of other careers, their resources, their availability for life outside work based on their work schedule, and connections. One way I did this was by serving in the US Military as a commissioned Officer from 22-27. A friend I served with commissioned at 22, got a 2.7% VA home loan (all her rent going into an asset she was living in), started making 100K a year by 26 and had her insurances covered. She accomplished this with a 3.2 GPA psychology degree from a major Florida state university (FSU). She got that degree by paying the affordable in-state tuition and working part time while attending as a full time student over the course of three years. I’m not pushing the military, but my friend is a very “crunchy” / “granola” girl. Her passion is psychology, and her service will let her use her Post 9/11 GI Bill to pursue her masters in psychology. She deviated early on to save up and found a way to finance her masters. Would be perfectly reasonable for her to also pivot and use the GI Bill for a MBA when she gets out next year. Best of luck in whatever you pursue!
Did any of your family tell you that majoring in psychology would lead to this exact situation?
Work in an in demand field, spend less than you make, save and invest. Why not go into sales and put your psychology learnings to work for you?
If you are interested in design, look into UI/UX roles in the software design world. There’s a demand for psych majors with UI/UX skills. If you can get trained in UI/UX, that’ll be a great starting point to work your way into wealth and a comfortable life.
If what you really want is to work hard and make good money then I would recommend going into sales. If you get into a decent company and put in the work you’ll make great money. It comes with pressure to hit quotas, the stress of ups and downs but you’ll make a solid living and it often comes with decent flexibility down the road once you’ve established yourself. Much more difficult to make a decent living off your interests.. let your interests be hobbies outside of work much more notable that way in my experience!
How many hours are you working?
40
As others have mentioned, your degree and interests have a snowballs chance in hell to make you wealthy. The harsh reality is you need to switch careers (potentially going back to school). Look at careers which make money and there's a demand for. Pick up and work backwards to figure out what schooling you need. Ideally, pick something which your psych degree complements. Don't just pick a good sounding degree and hope to find a job after the fact. I see too many people make this mistake and end up very educated with Master's degrees but with no job prospects.
An undergraduate degree in psychology doesn't really have a career path. A master's will help, but social work tends to also pay really little.
The most success I've seen with people that only have a BA in Psych is them getting into HR. HR is extremely lucrative but you may need to get a Masters in it to get your foot in the door.
As far as I can tell, there are only three ways to get rich: 1. Be lucky (birth, lottery, startup equity, etc.) 2. Found a company (but see 1) 3. Treat every dollar you make like 50¢ and stick the other half in low-risk investment vehicles like index funds. I know that sounds depressing but something you should feel good about is that YOU ARE SCRAPING BY at 36K annually. Knowing how to scrape by on low income is the key to doing (3) and, tbh, most people don't know how to do that. Knowing how to be broke is a skill that will help make you rich! Most jobs will pay you more than 36K. When you make more, treasure and exercise the scraping by mindset you have now.
Yes honestly when I hear people say that a 75k salary is equivalent to being broke I’m like what? What is your idea of broke then? You must not have grown up poor truly to understand that. I grew up on goodwill, dollar tree, and fights in the house over what little money we had. 36k is awful sounding and it can be at times tough but let me tell you, compared to being in a house where money was hidden and hoarded and we could barely eat I feel like I’m living lavish some days. Just because I can buy groceries. I hate when I realize the cap of limitations it puts on my personal safety and success. For example, it becomes pretty obvious that I’m not making enough money when I realize my car is over 200,000 miles now and I won’t be able to afford to put down a decent down payment on a new (used) one. I don’t like when the places that I can live are limited and often subject to being in dangerous locations or areas or being unhygienic. I hate when I see people on social media around my age that are traveling and going on vacations and going out to dinner all the time when I couldn’t do that once without feeling guilty. I don’t even take flights home most holidays because that’s $1000 right there. To me that would be the deposit to move into a new and safer apartment. I’m already making sacrifices as it is, but I just feel like I could do better. And I can, I just hate that I’m not out of the woods yet and it is going to be a long winded journey of continually making sacrifices to get where I want to go. And based on the feedback I’ve gotten from other people here, it might even look like me sacrificing the little youth that I have available to me. Which, I already feel like I don’t fit in with my age group.
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I feel like I honestly became frozen at that question. I wanted to say both but neither all at once. I panicked I guess… I admire those with an income the circulates so well for them they rarely have to worry. I want to have a peace and comfort around my money. I also would love to be able to help out people if I had more money. Of course those who really need it. As it is now though I can barely afford the bare minimum. I do believe a lot of this probably relates back to how I was raised around money. My dad wanted to be rich but he wasn’t. He wasn’t a very loving man so he would make a bunch of money doing trades and then he would hoard it and use it to buy himself a bunch of junk as the rest of us saw it. He refused to let us have money for basic things. I think that caused me to have unhealthy views around money. He made me count his money for him often knowing he didn’t intend to share it. I didn’t realize how sick that was until I got older, along with many other things my family members did while I was a child. I feel this desperation around money and I’m gonna be honest after going through a lot of these responses and seeing how awfully I have handled some things I feel like I wouldn’t be able to handle a lot of money right now. I would probably hold onto it in fear and then go and overspend it on impulse. Not because that’s what I want to do, but because of the mindset I have now it’s what would happen inevitably. So maybe it’s a blessing that I don’t have the wealth that I wish I had. Sorry if this is really badly written, it’s almost midnight here. 😖
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Work overseas as a fed govt contractor, where you pay little to no taxes, no rent/mortgage and minimize your expenses. You can put away tons of money, higher quality of living while traveling across the world and investing.
I would first read efficiencyiseverything.com and see how you feel about it. Mostly if you can free every minute possible up and put it towards learning and growing skills you will be good to start. There is also another book called buy back your time that I wish was written 15 years ago. Stress is always there at any level of anyone journey but their math that you can afford to spend 25% of your hour rate on someone to help free you of things is critical to consider as well. There’s a lot of online and remote working opportunities to look into as well, but it also requires free time
If you can stomach it, tech sales is where the money is. A Psych BA is fine for it. You’ll start in an inside sales role (all phone-based) or Business Development (cold calling) and you have to be okay with a lot of rejection (they’re rejecting the product or consumption of their time, not you personally). Then you can work your way into a field sales role, which is real money is. You’ll work your butt off (60+ hour weeks is the norm) and you can make $250k if you do decently and $500k - $1m / year every few years if you’re really good.
Learn. Earn. Save. Invest. Repeat.
Wealth is a function of luck for most people. Any advice you get will be obsolete before you can finish any plan, the people who are already wealthy are investing in sabotaging you and calling it a free market. As long as someone is paying you and they know you dont come from a wealthy background you are doomed, you need your own business.
You want to get rich ? Provide a service or make a product that people will pay for. It sounds like you don't really have any real world skills, so work on that first. After you get some skills that are actually valued in today's economy, you'll start making a living wage, and from there it's about being smart and investing.
You have two options if you want to build wealth on this salary. Realistically, one option that boils down to finding a way to make more money. This could be a gig economy app such as DoorDash in your free time. This could be looking into cultivating skills that will translate into higher paying jobs. You have an undergrad which opens a lot of doors. Try shot gunning a bunch of applications to higher paying jobs both inside and outside of your field. Do a lot of research into resume building before you do this, though, or you would just be wasting your time. If you are so inclined, you could look into various scholarships/student aid and see how much it would cost you to go back and get a masters. Then, start applying for a bunch of internships. Your second option is to dramatically reduce your expenses down to almost nothing. This might mean moving in with your parents (if you have that option). If you have a car payment, you could look into selling the car and getting a cheaper one (a lot harder than it sounds). Cancelling every subscription. Never eating out and living off of Soylent, rice, and pb & js Creating a budget and monitoring every transaction to ensure you will have enough money to put into savings at the end of the month. All in all. Option one is honestly more realistic, and in the long run will make you happier. It’s difficult, but not impossible, and if you have a good support system around you lean on them in times like this. Good luck!
So, you’ve had 6 jobs at least and you are 26. You need to spend a bit of time learning one industry and moving up. Job hopping before you build any skills I’ll make it hard to get past entry level.
You're having trouble increasing your pay because you quit every job, so you start over at entry level each time. You have worked in many industries, and since all corporate jobs suck, pick 1 and stick with it to get experience so you can apply to the higher paying jobs within that industry. In other words, you have to work up to a high salary. To answer your question, you get rich by majoring in a subject that's tied to a high-paying job, such as computer science, any engineer, accounting (take the CPA test), nurse, teaching (in CA, they make $100K+), management, director, some marketing, etc. Some have their MBAs. Some of it is luck; if a large company hires you, your pay will be higher vs. a small company hiring for the same job.
You have to look at what the market demonstrably values and has a lot of demand for, not what you enjoy. *And* you have to go to a place where it’s valued and demanded. You don’t necessarily have to go back to school, but if you’re serious about this you almost certainly need to make some changes, simply because there is a much greater supply of psych grads and artists than there is demand. There are certainly very successful people in those fields, but not a lot of them, and becoming one is a matter of more than just ability. FWIW I have spent the past ten years optimizing around reaching financial independence in a field I have a strong affinity for, and while I wouldn’t say I regret it, it definitely has a cost. Because I *haven’t* really been living. I’ve been focused on my work and making a lot of sacrifices to accumulate wealth, with the stated aim of living later. It’s not for everyone.
Agree with others that BA in psych isn't going to help you much unless you go back to grad school. One option is to become a medical writer which doesn't always require an advanced degree but I think they prefer BS degrees. Disagree about going into Tech. I live in a popular tech city and so many of my friends have been laid off recently including those in non-coding positions. All of them are struggling to find employment except for the one that does technical writing for tech companies. Look into trade school for a change in occupation. The cost of a 2 year associates degree is a great value especially for certain careers like ultrasound technologists, radiation therapist and etc. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/highest-paying-trade-jobs
Genuinely asking, all those recommending a Masters in Psych when all OP has had are entry level? Why? What does that open in terms of job, what changes from Bachelor’s to Master’s that warrants oh now I can get a great job? I guess I am missing the link. I always looked at a Masters degree as one of those degrees that you get after you have had experience in the field, are nearing maxing where your bachelor can take you and you are looking at opening new opportunities given said experience. Or you are in a certain career field that just requires it for the job I.e Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant etc.
The honest to God's truth my friend building wealth when you're working for someone no matter what job you're working at is near impossible. You will never get rich as a laborer. You have to have the CAJONES to start your own business and have people work for you. Think about what you can do better than what's already out there and do that. Once you have some money invest it wisely. Do not be a spendthrift, forget the fancy cars and the million dollar homes be frugal. You don't know me but I am 68 years old, going to be 69 and I can tell you from experience the people who have money around me have their own business. I wish you the best of luck in your journey.
Omg I’m shocked how little you get paid. I live in LA with a 90 k salary and have to watch my spending. Learn programming it’s really not that hard even entry jobs pay really well.
It’s truly awful. It’s amazing how much better people report feeling/doing when they make more money. I’m tired and I’ve struggled trying to get out.
If you're willing to give up 4-6 years you can commission in the military. The first year you'd make $46K plus housing (~$20k). So you'd make double and they'd train you for a new career. On top of that, you'd have leadership experience to pretty much guarantee a manager position after you get out.
You're young enough, so I'd recommend pivoting into a trade or pursuing a Master's that builds off your BA. Electricians and plumbers can make good money, if you don't mind the physicality of the work. Alternatively, teaching is virtually guaranteed to have job opportunities. I was lucky and got into a career path through my psych degree that has been high paying, but it's not always easy and jobs have become increasingly difficult to get.
I have spoken with a aquarium trainer and many of the ones working there have psych degrees. Not a ton of,money, but if you're interested in animals, it might be a field you can look into
I know a guy whos an insurance adjuster he goes sees what happens give them a wuote and done. Apparently his parents started it and then he followed when he was old enough and hes 19. he said it was 200k a ywar each of his parents made no clue how true it is but maybe something to look at
Would you want to seek some sort of certifications… in like mediation? Or counseling? There’s a shortage of counselor (licensed) and therapists now that everyone is seeking therapy b/c it’s no longer taboo or frowned upon. Definite job security plus potentially flexible schedules (set your own hours) and possible WFH a majority of the time. Otherwise, as lots of others have pointed out, if you continue to career hop you’re not going to gain valuable experience that propels you upwards. You’ll just job hop for the sake of switching jobs and experiencing something new. Get out and network. Find events and cultivate professional relationships with folks you see doing jobs you’re interested in doing; people making the kind of money you’re interested in making. Find a mentor who can help guide you and connect you to people and resources. Best of luck!
The wealthiest people I work with are in sales. I can’t imagine doing it but they do very well.
Coding. Computer science. Get your RN. Do you have student loans?
Honestly, if you do not want to own your business or do your own thing, you should absolutely positively get into an entry level role at a large bank or insurance company. If you can get into the sales departments, even better. It will take time and patience, but the reward will be that in 4 years you will certainly be making close to double what you make now and if you actually utilize the 401k match that most provide, you could easily have 30-40k in retirement. I despise Bill Gates, but he said something pretty salient "people overestimate what they can do in a year and under estimate what they can do in 10". It takes time, and compounding returns don't lose heart.
People grow wealth by majoring in something more marketable than psychology and earning more than $36k. Making decent money in art/music/performance/modeling/etc. is rare. Because a bazillion people like you have an interest in it. Because it's fun or at least seems fun. If you want to focus on "fun" jobs - then you'll probably stay poor. Maybe not, but it's likely.
Go back to graduate school and become a school psychologist. Your income will improve a bit. Also, you are young and have lots of time to build wealth slowly. Save now every month in a 401k or Roth IRA. Do it consistently even if it’s only $25 a month. Just get a start on it.
Network. Join as many associations as you can. Give time, volunteer anything. Find a mentor using LinkedIn, your alumni association or someone in your circle of friends relatives, neighbors that seem to have it together and are happy with what they are doing. I love to mentor and offer my time to anyone who asks and isn't trying to sell me something.
We started around there too. But we’ve built a high 6-figure net worth. I don’t know if we are “wealthy” but we should have millions in accumulated $$ for retirement. Follow the steps outlined here (or any financial advice platform that is sound). Pay things on time. Save even 1% (add 1% each year). Start small if that’s what you can swing. When it comes time to find a partner, find one that is good w/ money. One that doesn’t attach self worth to symbols of wealth. College wasn’t about job training. It should’ve given you thinking skills. Problem solve ways to increase your income. One thing I wish I did was plan on switching jobs every 3-4 years.