My first job in high school was at Blue Bayou Waterpark in Baton Rouge, LA. I made a paltry $3.50/hr working in one of the concession stands serving personal pizzas, flame-broiled hamburgers, and rotisserie hot dogs. Because it was a seasonal business (only open during the summer), they were exempt from paying employees minimum wage, which was $5.25/hr at the time. I worked 3 to 4 days a week and my check every 2 weeks was somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 after taxes. I know. Major band alert, right? Recently, I did the math to figure out how much money I made that summer. I don’t know what I did with that money, but I’m sure most of it went to CD’s and video games. I do, however, remember that $39.99 + tax of it went to this Nike shirt that I’d been eyeing. At the time, that was the most expensive shirt I’d ever purchased and the only time I’d ever bought something that wasn’t on the sale rack. The mannequin was wearing this shirt! But what about all of my jobs since then? How much did I make there and where did that money go? Let’s get a little help from the government to help answer that question.
You’ll be taken to a page with a table that shows, by year, how much you earned, going all the way back to your first job. Note that this will only show income that was reported to the IRS so those jobs where you were paid cash under the table won’t show up here. Unfortunately, the site doesn’t include a link to download the data so the easiest way to get a total is to highlight and copy the table and then paste it into Google Sheets or Excel. There, you can add a SUM function to calculate your total lifetime earnings. Use the higher of the two columns, “Taxed Social Security Earnings” or “Taxed Medicare Earnings”.
And there it is. All the taxable income you’ve ever earned. Is the number what you expected? Any surprises? How much of that total have you been able to save? What can you do to save more of it going forward? Consider automating your savings. How can you earn more? Maybe starting a(nother) side hustle or looking for ways to earn some passive income. If you need more ideas, check the TMWG archives.
