My friend just got a 10 dollar an hour raise as a contractor.
I remember when I was making less than 10 dollars an hour working in a fast food chicken shack.
Heck, I was making eight bucks an hour doing tech support for a cheap webhosting company.
It started as a dialup internet company, and the dialup people treated us like trash.
Until webhosting took off and dialup went away.
These days, anything beyond my basic expenses goes into the 401k, and anything above that goes into investments.
And, no, I don’t eat fast food chicken. Or use dialup.