💡 The Top Ways to Earn $250k (According To 10,000 Redditors)

What’s on the Menu 🍴

Our goal is to help you earn, keep, and grow your dough.

So in today’s newsletter we’re showing you the top ways people are earning six-figures, tips for avoiding losses, and insights from a massive trade.

Let’s chow down!

• The Top Ways to Earn $250k (According to 10,000 Redditors) 💡

• BIG Portfolio Mistakes of DIY Investors 🛑

• Dumb Money & The GOAT Short Squeeze 🐐

• Putin's Anti-Dollar Strategy Backfires 💥

Today’s newsletter is a 5 minute read.

The Top Ways to Earn $250k 💡

The coveted six-figure income is the white whale of the job world, but when you dive into the deep Reddit waters, you'll find that elusive beast isn't so rare after all.

A recent Reddit thread peeled back the curtain on professions that have people raking in $250k or more a year.

And we analyzed nearly 10,000 comments to find out which professions and entrepreneurial paths lead to a $250k a year income.

We wanted to look outside of the usual suspects working a 9-5 job…

And since entrepreneurs are the driving force of our economy, they can earn the highest net incomes over time.

Here are the most common freelance or business owner roles:

• Software/IT consulting - Multiple mentions of independent consultants earning over $200k helping companies with software development, system implementation, cybersecurity, etc.

• Professional services - Lawyers, accountants, architects, designers running their own firms or doing freelance work. Allows setting own rates.

• Medical - Owning healthcare clinics, medical spas, private practices (ex. dentistry, optometry). Leverages specialized medical skills.

• Real estate - Agents, brokers, investors, flippers, property management. Requires upfront capital but scalable.

• Finance - Trading, investment advisors, tax consulting. High rates for specialized expertise.

• Contracting/skilled trades - Electricians, builders, plumbers, welders. Charge premium rates with no overhead of full staff.

• Transportation - Owning trucking and logistics businesses. Takes advantage of shipping demand.

• Retail/e-commerce - Reselling merchandise, dropshipping, online stores. Leverages marketing skills.

• Media production - Videographers, photographers, graphic designers. Freelance creative services.

The common thread is businesses leveraging high-value specialized skills and knowledge, with the entrepreneur having direct control over their rates and workload.

The low overhead of being solo helps maximize earnings potential in these fields. Industries with expensive barriers to entry like healthcare and financial services are especially lucrative.

Advice From Commenters

Among the thousands of responses are gold nuggets of wisdom and advice. Here are some of our favorites:

• "Sales is where it’s at. Good salesmen (especially in the right industries) make LOTS of money."

• "Tech startups are a good way to get rich if you join early and get lucky on equity."

• "Having multiple income streams (side businesses, real estate etc.) is key for me to earn over $200k per year."

• "I write romance novels. I cleared a little over $200k last year and have had 2 other years where I was > $150k but not quite $200k!"

• "I manage a team at a FAANG company. $250k base, $300k total compensation with equity grants on top."

• "I'm a woodworker. I have relationships with high end interior designers in NYC but don’t live there. My work appears regularly in magazines and galleries."

Join The Top 3% of Earners

Even though only about 3% of Americans earn over $250k, the golden quarter-mil isn't as elusive as you might've thought.

Whether you're a techie writing code, or a healthcare guru with more degrees than a summer day, there's room at the top.

What's their secret sauce?

Specialized skills! Couple that with some strategic hustle, and you've got yourself a treasure map to Fat City.

Bottom line? If you've got the chops and you're willing to play the long game, that $250k salary is more attainable than you think.

So, what's your game plan to join the high-rollers?

BIG Portfolio Mistakes of DIY Investors 🛑

Do-it-yourself investors are unique.

We like to take money matters into our own hands and trust ourselves over anyone else.

But this can come at a cost.

Many DIY investors are self-taught, and they may not have ALL of the details on how to best manage a portfolio.

But at the Daily Dough, our goal is to equip you with everything you need to build your wealth better.

Here are some of the biggest mistakes DIY investors make, and how to fix them:

1. Focusing on short-term trading before securing long-term investing

   
   Trying to earn an income from the markets is tough because market conditions change quickly…

   
   And sometimes you’ll be able to pull out large profits, and other times are dry. So if you force trades, you could actually end up losing money during slow market conditions.
   
   A better approach is to grow a portfolio of high-quality stocks or ETF’s for the long-term first, then, focus on short-term trading.

2. Buying stocks based on gut instinct vs. research
   
   When I ask investors why they bought a stock, they usually say things like:

   
   “I just don’t see how this company can go away anytime soon”, or “The stock price is down and it has to go back up”. 
   
   These are not good reasons to buy stocks.
   
   A stock can have a great story and terrible financials (aka fundamentals), making the company a big risk in your portfolio.
   
   We teach how to analyze stocks in our Wealth Building Community. Learn the basics before buying stocks blindly.

3. Not investing for your own risk-tolerance
   
   Is risk often an afterthought for you?
   
   Think about this in the context of a volatile cryptocurrency like Bitcoin.
   
   People get excited about buying Bitcoin when it’s hot, but don’t think about the risk, so they ended up selling when it crashes.
   
   If you don’t build your portfolio around your risk tolerance, you will have a hard time staying the course when times get tough (and tough times are unavoidable in investing).
   
   This is where learning about asset allocation is important (an educational class on asset allocation is available for Wealth Building Community members).

Take a second look at your investing strategy so you don’t make any of these mistakes.

The goal is:

1. To “front load” your long-term investing portfolio so you can have more risk capacity for short-term trading when the time is right…
   

2. While being able to invest CONFIDENTLY in stocks backed by data and research over emotions…
   

3. And doing it while building a portfolio that fits your risk tolerance so you can stay the course and not panic sell during the hard times.

Looking for a community of DIY investors and expert professionals to guide you? Join our Wealth Building Community for access to our 24/7 chatroom, analysis and educational resources.

Dumb Money & The GOAT Short Squeeze 🐐

Hollywood’s telling of the great Gamestop short squeeze, “Dumb Money”, comes to theaters this weekend.

We’re exited to see it, but also a little wary of how Hollywood will twist the facts surrounding the GME saga to spin a narrative.

You see, we lived it in real time.

In fact, we correctly identified GME as a potential short squeeze about six months prior to it exploding higher and making front page news headlines:

We made some money, though we weren’t as aggressively positioned as Keith Gill (aka “Roaring Kitty”), and we probably left a lot of gains on the table.

Nonetheless, we always learn from situations like these, and we keep honing our investing craft for future opportunities.

Case in point? We caught the bulk of a major short squeeze in CVNA this year, making multiples of our original investment.

How do we identify powerful short squeezes like these early?

Here are a few criteria that we often look for in a stock that give it potential to squeeze:

• High short interest (as a % of shares outstanding)

• Company with a well known product / brand

• Recent insider buying

• Activist involvement

• Low valuation relative to history

• Low per share stock price

• Company in midst of turnaround effort

This is not an exhaustive list, and many stocks that meet these criteria never end up with a meaningful short squeeze.

Every major short squeeze is a little unique and surprising in some way.

But this list is at least a starting point for screening for squeeze candidates.

Strangely enough, we recently noticed a stock that met many of these criteria…

The stock? Gamestop (GME)!

GME’s short interest is nowhere near the heights of 2020, and it’s fallen this year, but it’s still relatively high at 17%.

In addition, two members of the Board at GME bought stock this week. Activist investor Ryan Cohen also remains involved and bought more stock back in June.

GME is down 40% in the last year and down 85% from the 2021 peak.

The fundamentals of the business haven’t gotten significantly better, but they haven’t gotten much worse either.

Could the “Dumb Money” movie release itself be a catalyst to push the stock up?

It wouldn’t surprise us to see a move up, even if it ends up being short lived.

As Elon Musk once said, “the most entertaining outcome is the most likely”. 🍿

Putin's Anti-Dollar Strategy Backfires 💥

The Rundown: Russia's attempts to pivot away from U.S. dollars in international trade face a setback as billions in oil sale profits get stuck in Indian banks.

Russia's strategy to lessen its reliance on the U.S. dollar for trading commodities like oil has hit a snag in India, which has far-reaching implications for global currency dynamics and geopolitics.

Key Developments:

• Russia's inability to transfer and convert rupees due to Reserve Bank of India restrictions leaves up to $1 billion each month inaccessible.

• Recent attempts to bypass the U.S. dollar by conducting bilateral trade with India in rupees have backfired on Russia.

• China, too, has been pushing to weaken the U.S. dollar's global grip, amplifying concerns about shifts in global currency power dynamics.

Expert's Take: "Economically, this just reaffirms the dollar is king," says Timothy Ash, economist at British think tank Chatham House. "There's no quick fix for Russia; globally, it's still a case of 'in the U.S. dollar we trust.'"

• The Reserve Bank of India's rules impede the free conversion of the rupee, thwarting Russia's plans.

• Russia is one of India's top suppliers, especially in oil and military hardware, but India exports little to Russia, exacerbating the issue of stuck funds.

The Bottom Line: Russia's ambitious goal to dethrone the U.S. dollar from its pedestal in global trade suffers a setback, underlining the challenges nations face when attempting to upset established financial norms.

Question To Ponder: Will the de-dollarization of the globe continue, or will governments bend the knee to Uncle Sam’s influence?

Delicious Bites 😋

• The price of eggs has fallen over 50%

• The US will build the MOST apartments ever this year

• Roblox is about to onboard over 200M people to AI

• Housing Price Boom in Rural Hotspots Sparks Resentment

• Top 50 Universities Around The World

Food For Thought 🧠

DISCLAIMER: We are not investment advisors, and this content is for educational purposes only. We don’t offer financial, legal, or tax advice. Nothing we say is a recommendation to buy or sell any assets. Trading and investing are extremely risky, so please be careful and do your own research.