<prompt> Human: Howdy, Im just curious on how much people actually make in a year. Im a sophomore in college, really no idea what I plan to do, but Im here on a full ride, which is awesome. I have no debt at all, and intend to keep it that way, and I have a reliable vehicle and the skill to maintain it though my hobby is modifying it and putting it through possibly damaging situations, so I really should buy a cheap beater just in case I break something I cant easily fix. All in all, Im doing okay financially. But I grew up in a fairly lower middle class world. I lived with my mother my whole life, and she never made more than 30k. Same with my grandparents and all the rest of my family. In my world, 1,000 is an absolutely insane sum of money which makes rent here extremely painful to pay. From what Ive looked up in my search for what I may want to do, 30-50k a year is pretty standard. So when Im here reading about investments and how to become financially independent, which is my goal, and I see redditors suggesting you save 40-60k a year, Im understandably shocked - thats more money than Ive ever considered even making in a year. I dont know if thats my upbringing leading me to think incomes are substantially lower in the real world than they are or if these redditors are all doctors or something that make crazy money and can save crazy money. So, since its extremely awkward to ask people IRL how much they make, Reddit, what do you do and how much do you make doing it, and how much would you save to become financially independent?EDIT: For a bit more background, Im from rural Michigan, in a very low income area with a very low cost of living. Im currently living in Dallas, where everything costs more than Ive ever imagined it could, especially food and rent. And supposedly Dallas is cheap compared to other places. Seems to be a good reason to never live anywhere near a city, but thats beside the point.  <response>: Recognize that the internet it is not representative of most people, or in somemost cases just blatantly false. If I had a dollar for every person in rpersonalfinance talking about saving 50kyear or guy in rfitness who went from squatting 135 to 365 in 6 months I would have enough money to to go on rpersonalfinance and brag about saving 50k a year. I would use glassdoor.com to get a feel for what people make in whatever field you are hoping to get into after college. Make sure to factor in area and experience. Also, recognize that some areas have much much higher costs-of-living: 80K in your area of rural Michigan could likely be much more spending money than 150K in San Francisco. 