How commenters used it: Most of these teachers arrive at $500 a day by dividing a full salary across a 180-to-195-day school-year contract rather than logging that sum in any single day, and where they land in that range tracks tenure, a master's degree, and state cost of living far more than the job title itself.

What readers reported: NY Teacher here - based off of my salary and 185 working days - I clear $650 a day

Limit: A ninth-year WA teacher warns the average hides heavy unpaid overtime that makes the school year 'basically a full time year-round job,' and NYC teachers who clear the number the same way note none of them skip nights, weekends, or holidays either.

How commenters used it: One Canadian wildland crew member's $500 day was a fluke of holiday-pay stacking — a Canada Day shift already at double-time, then an end-of-shift callout that bumped the rate to time-and-a-half of double-time — while a US Forest Service commenter says a similarly loaded overtime-plus-hazard-pay day nearly doubles that figure.

What readers reported: On an all overtime day+hazard pay+IRPP I make about 950 bucks a day.

Limit: That particular $500 day required a rare stack of circumstances — mandatory holiday duty plus a last-minute callout — and commenters note entering the field at all means completing provincial wildfire training and, for non-citizens, securing a work visa.

How commenters used it: Officers describe base patrol pay landing right around the $500 mark on paper, but say the number only becomes real money once assignment pay, shift differential, and off-duty security gigs are stacked on top of it.

What readers reported: My base pay rate is $51.02/hr. I earn an extra 8% for assignment pay and 6% on top for shift differential.

Limit: A ten-year detective in the same thread pushes back hard on the takeaway, calling the job 'not worth it' and adding, 'could honestly not recommend anyone to do this job now.'

How commenters used it: Firefighters keep undercutting their own $500-a-day claim with the same punchline — that figure covers a full 24-hour shift, not an 8-hour day, so the headline number is real but the hourly math is much less dramatic.

What readers reported: I am a firefighter, I make over $500/day.

Limit: Multiple commenters flag the same catch — the payout covers a 24-hour shift rather than a standard workday, so the headline figure overstates the actual hourly rate.

How commenters used it: Senior enlisted troops and officers trace this figure less to base salary than to stacking untaxed housing and subsistence allowances with pension income or a follow-on federal job after retirement, and one notes it took years of rank progression before the math actually worked.

What readers reported: Military pension plus follow on federal job. Well over $500 a day.

Limit: One 16-year servicemember notes it took six years just to clear $50k annually before pay climbed into six figures, underscoring that this rate reflects a long career arc, not an entry-level one.

How commenters used it: Tenured professors describe two separate paths to the number — averaging a nine-month teaching salary over a full year, or layering outside consulting work, paid at its own day rate, on top of a base salary — and both commenters are careful to note it took decades of rank and a doctorate to get there.

What readers reported: My day rate for consulting is $600 plus any expenses.

Limit: The same thread stresses this isn't an entry-level number — one professor notes flatly that 'entry level professors don't make that much,' with the figure only appearing after 20 years of experience and a doctorate.

How commenters used it: Two commenters here simply identify as a federal employee and note that civil-service pay runs strong, without the salary breakdown or hourly math that more detailed public-sector replies in this thread supply.

What readers reported: Civil service pays very well

How commenters used it: This entry rests on a single two-word reply — "Teach guitar." — that offers no pay figure, schedule, or context beyond the occupation itself, making it one of the thinnest data points in the category.

What readers reported: Teach guitar.

How commenters used it: A single Australian government employee's regular pay isn't the story here — it's the Emergency Duty shift on top of it that pushes earnings well past $500, to roughly $1,400 for 12 hours once meal allowances and travel time are folded in.

What readers reported: if I get an Emergency Duty shift that'll go up to about $1400 for a 12 hour shift plus meal allowances and travel time.

Limit: That $1,400 figure depends on landing an Emergency Duty shift specifically — it isn't described as the pay for a standard workday.

How commenters used it: This entry is a bare two-word title — "School social worker" — with no pay figure, hours, or other supporting detail given in the source comment.

How commenters used it: This whole record is federal pay-scale shorthand, GS-14 with overtime, letting the government grade stand in for a fuller explanation.

What readers reported: Apparently GS-14 overtime.

How commenters used it: The headmaster notes the figure applied specifically last year, a small qualifier that leaves open whether it's a stable ongoing rate or a one-off.

What readers reported: I was making this last year as a Headmaster in a Private School.

How commenters used it: Academic librarian is the one title in this category where a second commenter flatly contradicts the first — one clears $70 an hour before deductions, while another librarian says they'll never see that kind of money in the field.

What readers reported: Academic librarian. I make about $70/hour.

Limit: I work in libraries. I'll never see that kind of money in my lifetime.

How commenters used it: Across dozens of one-line replies (stripper, escort, sugar baby, OnlyFans, selling feet pics) the specific dollar figures range from $700 a night to $1,000 per encounter, and one commenter warns against multiplying an hourly rate by 40, since most of the work is unpaid admin rather than time with clients.

What readers reported: Most of it is admin work, and the smallest part is time spent with clients.

Limit: I've left in the negative and also left 1.8k in profit depending on the day.

How commenters used it: Shooting days swing from $0 to $4,000 depending on the client and season, while assisting or "teching" equipment pays less per day but reads as steadier work, though several commenters flag that AI is already cutting into the editorial and catalog jobs that used to keep freelancers busy.

What readers reported: Freelance photographer at commercial studios. 550-650/day... My job is only to take photos, no editing or anything else... At this point it's really easy and I'm pretty busy.

Limit: Editorial and on figure no longer have the budgets they used to have, and AI is slowly stripping those jobs.

How commenters used it: On-set pay here runs on day rates built around a 10-to-12-hour baseline, with time-and-a-half and double-time kicking in after set hours, and multiple commenters describe breaking in through film school and years of PA work rather than one lucky gig.

What readers reported: $540/10 hours. After 10 hours I get time and a half and after 14 hours I get double time.

Limit: Union is good but I just don't want to work that much more and the money isn't really better.

How commenters used it: Tattooers here describe strong per-session pay, $400 to $2,000 in a day, but temper it by noting they rarely work five days straight and that drawing, admin, and social-media time never shows up in that number at all.

What readers reported: I easily can make $500-2000 in a day but i dont work every day.

Limit: this does not include the significant unbilled labor that goes into it (drawing, admin, social media)

How commenters used it: Musicians in this thread frame a $500 day as an occasional high point rather than a baseline, a single corporate gig or a couple of private events, and one commenter admits it took fifteen years of earning almost nothing before the money started coming in.

What readers reported: Not every day is a $500+ day but as a musician, I do have them... if you're willing to play covers and know what you're doing, there is decent money to be made.

Limit: first 15 years of my journey i was making basically nothing.

How commenters used it: Freelance and contract day rates for designers cluster tightly in the $650-$1,000 range across the US, UK, and Australia, but the most senior in-house voice here points out that climbing the ladder trades hands-on design time for managing a team's output instead.

What readers reported: I make about 900 a day pre-tax, although my company makes $2400 a day billing me out.

Limit: The more I move up the less I actually "design".

How commenters used it: OnlyFans and content-selling replies split into two camps: one describes clearing $500 daily "rain or shine" as a steady baseline, while another says hitting that number happened only three times, each tied to an unusual one-off gig rather than routine content sales.

What readers reported: OnlyFans.. over $500 a day every day 365 days a year rain or shine, "working" or not.

Limit: I've made that a day only three times

How commenters used it: Two artists here describe genuine feast-or-famine income, thousand-dollar commission days followed by nothing at all, or weekend caricature bookings that have to stretch to cover the whole week, and one flatly blames the gaps on needing better representation rather than more talent.

What readers reported: there have been commissions where I've made a few thousand dollars per day but also many days where I make nothing … which has me suspect i need more agents not more skill.

Limit: But usually I'd be booked for a Saturday and a Sunday, so that money had to last for the week!

How commenters used it: The only detailed account here traces a full boom-bust arc: meme-page monetization once generated $25,000 a month with a best single day just over $1,000, then fell to $5,000 a month within about a year as corporate copycat pages flooded in, and has since slid further to where even a spectacular month now tops out around $1,000.

What readers reported: when Facebook first monetized and meme pages became elligible, mine was making about $25,000 a month. I think my top individual day was a bit over $1,000.

Limit: today you'll be lucky to hit $1,000 in a spectacular month. An average month will be maybe $200.

How commenters used it: This entry drew a bare job title and nothing else; the only response was a joke about clowning around, so there's no real detail here to weigh against the $500 claim.

How commenters used it: One reply just names the job; the other adds a single clue, working independently in a very niche market, but neither ever puts a number on what that niche actually pays.

What readers reported: Independent jeweler who specializes in a very niche market.

How commenters used it: The games-industry claim itself arrives as two bare words with no elaboration, while the companion reply grouped here drifts into film and TV, warning that cheaper AI and CGI are already squeezing screen-based creative work generally.

Limit: Film and tv which is going great but imperiled by AI... probably doomed

How commenters used it: This songwriter describes a two-track career, spending years placing music in TV shows, ads, and trailers for other productions before adding their own releases as a second income stream.

What readers reported: I've made songs in big TV shows, ads, and trailers for many years, and now I put out my own music as well.

How commenters used it: The single reply for this role states a flat $150-an-hour rate and stops there, leaving how many hours are billed or how steady the bookings are entirely unanswered.

What readers reported: $150/hr Entertainment marketing producer

How commenters used it: An Australian vehicle producer pegs the job to a fixed $1,800 day built on an 8-hour block that resets rather than extends if filming runs long, with a recent UK job paying the same nominal rate in pounds instead.

What readers reported: Vehicle producer for film and television. $1800 a day (day description is 8 hrs, so if shoot goes longer it resets).

How commenters used it: The lone comment behind this entry just says "Tshirt designer," so the $500 claim rests on a job title alone with nothing on hours, clients, or rate.

How commenters used it: Reduced to a job title with no numbers attached, this entry's single supporting comment confirms someone in commercial VFX exists but says nothing about how they reach $500 a day.

How commenters used it: Whoever answered here typed two words, "Instructional designer," and moved on, leaving this entry as a title claim rather than a documented rate.

How commenters used it: This entry's one comment locates the job inside a broadcast TV station in a major market, tying the pay to institutional TV budgets rather than freelance commercial work, but offers no figure to go with it.

What readers reported: Motion graphic artist for a broadcast TV station in a major market.

How commenters used it: An eighteen-month-old muralist and window-artist practice, only two months of it full-time, already peaks at $900 a day and clears $500 often, suggesting a genuinely fast ramp for a niche visual-arts business.

What readers reported: Most I've made in a day was $900. I make around $500 a day often.

How commenters used it: Travel writing shows up as a one-line answer with no rate, client, or word-count detail to back up how the money actually gets to $500 a day.

How commenters used it: The animation-art-director thread is really one long mentorship exchange: a director who spent roughly a dozen years climbing from prop designer to Cartoon Network art director to Simpsons movie layout artist credits the union wage floor, not any single lucky break, for the pay level. A separate technical animator warns the same money comes bundled with brutal holiday-season hours and a divorce rate high enough to mention unprompted.

What readers reported: current union *minimum* for any journeyman character designer at any signatory studio within LA jurisdiction is $2597/wk!

Limit: Hours are terrible during the summer for holiday releases... Not a walk in the park to get into. And even harder to maintain momentum... Divorce rates are very high.

How commenters used it: Day rates for camera crew here cluster between $500 and $875, with a steadicam operator/cinematographer noting the number depends on gear, danger, and shoot length, and a non-union TV camera operator itemizing $650-875 plus a guaranteed meal every six hours. That same TV operator names the real threat to the work: AI and TikTok-style content creation shrinking the pool of paid crew jobs.

What readers reported: Television camera operator (non union)- 650-875 a day plus they have to provide you a meal every 6 hours.

Limit: the industry is shrinking because of the heavy shift to TikTok and content creators also AI.

How commenters used it: A video-focused creative director breaks their own $1500-2500 daily rate down by task -- concepting and scripting pay at the low end, physically being on set pushes it to the top -- while a second respondent's route through the role (art director to creative director to a SaaS stint) shows it as one stop on a longer, less stable arc.

What readers reported: 1500 - 2500/day as a Creative Director... the rate is usually on the lower end for concepting and scripting, and then the higher end when I'm physically on set.

Limit: went to a SaaS company for half a decade, golden redundancy, started my own agency.

How commenters used it: Answers filed under this label barely resemble one job: a dog-boarding kennel owner picking up brand deals, an 18-year-old posting TikTok Shop hauls, someone openly admitting to posting 'AI slop,' and a meme-page operator, so the $500 figure looks like whatever online presence happens to convert to sponsor money that week.

What readers reported: I make $500 a day and just turned 18, posting TikTok shop videos, it's hard work and drains you but the sky is the limit

Limit: it's hard work and drains you

How commenters used it: The Paris stylist in this pair is unusually precise about both the ceiling and the catch: up to $2,000 a day is real, but that top rate is reserved for commercial jobs after fifteen years in the business, while the more available e-commerce work pays a third to a half of that.

What readers reported: Usual rate is $300-800 for e-commerce and $1000-2000 for commercials

Limit: can earn up to $2000 a day but sadly not everyday, after 15 years of experience

How commenters used it: The web-content editor spells out the annualized math behind the daily figure — $500 times five days times 52 weeks comes to $130,000 — and says the job leans more on clear writing than deep technical skill despite needing some HTML and JavaScript.

What readers reported: $500 × 5 (days per week) × 52 (weeks per year) = $130,000 I earn a bit more than that.

How commenters used it: Live-event audio pay is feast or famine by design: a small live-audio business owner says a single qualifying shift can clear $500-$800 'with the snap of a finger,' but by their own account might land only one of those days in a month before gear costs are paid off, while a UK arena's light-and-sound engineer separately reports $450-$600 a shift depending on an hours threshold.

What readers reported: I earn between £300-450 ($450-600) per shift depending on if I pass a time threshold... light and sound engineer for a well known UK music arena.

Limit: The consistency of work where I live is the tricky part- I sometimes only get 1 of those days a month... I haven't hit ROI on my gear yet.

How commenters used it: Both background-acting answers end up talking mostly about a different job entirely — one now works in finance and mentions acting only as a childhood memory, and the other walks through agency cuts, taxes, and unpaid casting time that eat most of what's actually earned.

What readers reported: I've earned that much doing small roles on TV, and more in commercials.

Limit: Agency's take ~20%, taxes in my country are 30-40% since I have another job, and there's a lot of unpaid labor in doing castings and building the connections to get these jobs.

How commenters used it: This entry is less a single job than an argument: over a dozen replies debate whether a $130k salary is actually 'rare' using income-percentile math, while the underlying jobs span corporate finance, hedge funds, wealth management, M&A, and a central bank economist who worked out their own daily rate down to the euro.

What readers reported: European central bank economist. Making around 500€ net per actual day worked. Ie if you take my annual net salary and divide it by the 220 days of actual work.

Limit: The clearest downside comes from a VC-fund analyst, who says the money is great and 'well beyond' what they need, but the trade-off was working such long hours that they had essentially no social life for their first few years on the job.

How commenters used it: Options and day traders here span a wide range, from a Staff Sergeant running trades on the side to someone clearing $52,000 a day after twelve years of near-continuous 100-hour weeks, but just as many replies volunteer a losing day as a winning one.

What readers reported: 0 DTE SPX options, I can make 500 in about a minute or if I hold my position a little longer I can see 1000 plus... I do this everyday Monday through Friday from the comfort of my home.

Limit: Several traders admit their downside as readily as their upside, describing days '-500 one hour in' or noting they've gone long stretches without trading at all and lived off savings instead.

How commenters used it: Most of the passive-income stories are retirees describing decades of saving rather than a job at all, living off dividends, rental income, or pensions; the exceptions are a Roth IRA and index-fund tip for getting there and one holder whose dividend income flipped into daily losses.

What readers reported: i get about 16K/month - retired - living off investments & savings. Sure beats workin!

Limit: One investor who'd been clearing 'thousands a day' in dividends from silver says the position reversed months ago and is now losing money daily, though they'd already sold most of it near the peak.

How commenters used it: Bare confirmations like 'CPA' and 'Accounting' dominate this entry, but the few replies that elaborate describe a fairly standard climb -- five to ten years to reach six figures -- alongside a separate claim that CPAs and attorneys can clear over $500 an hour.

What readers reported: Accounting. Doesn't take that long to get to 130k a year. 5 to 10 years depending on where you live in the US.

How commenters used it: The two replies naming this role split between a direct hit and a vague catch-all: one simply confirms 'Accounting/controller,' while the other buries the title inside a broader combo answer spanning accounting, management, and IT without saying which part pays what.

What readers reported: Accounting, management, and IT.

How commenters used it: The sole actuary in this set offers a bare self-identification with no detail on pay, hours, or path attached to it.

How commenters used it: This bank regulatory accountant frames the figure as a salary converted to a daily rate rather than literal day-to-day pay, and notes the total shifts with the size of the yearly bonus.

What readers reported: I'm salaried, but it comes to around 750 each work day depending on yearly bonus. I work for a bank in a regulatory / accounting role.

How commenters used it: The lone oil-and-gas commodities marketer answers with unusual precision, converting a salary into an exact per-day figure down to the cent instead of a rounded guess.

What readers reported: Commodities marketer for oil and gas industry, $769.23 per day to be exact, salary employee

How commenters used it: This entry rests on a single one-word reply -- 'Bitcoin' -- with no holdings, timeline, or method behind the daily figure ever specified.

How commenters used it: Unlike most accounting replies in this category, this SEC-reporting accountant actually describes the daily work -- building tables, writing, and carefully reviewing their own and others' output.

What readers reported: Primarily it consists of putting together a bunch of tables, writing, and doing a lot of very careful reading and review of my own and others work.

Limit: The trade-off they name isn't workload but churn: SEC requirements keep changing, so staying current is a standing job requirement rather than a box checked once.

How commenters used it: This portfolio manager entry is a single line with no elaboration: an assistant-level role inside a bank, with no pay, tenure, or the math behind any daily figure ever given.

What readers reported: Assistant portfolio manager at a bank

How commenters used it: This internal audit consultant entry is nothing more than the title itself, with no pay, employer, or client detail volunteered in the single reply behind it.

How commenters used it: This asset-management executive entry rests on nothing more than the bare title -- "global head of asset management" -- with no pay figure, employer, or career path ever described, similar to several single-line self-identifications elsewhere among this set's traders and accountants.

How commenters used it: Lawyer pay in this thread ranges from about $500 a business day up to a summer clerk's cited $600-$1,000-an-hour partner rate, but even the commenters who name the biggest numbers pair them with a caveat -- debt, stress, or a flat "do not recommend" -- rather than treating the title as a clean win. One retired criminal defense trial lawyer says they now live on social security instead of continuing to practice.

What readers reported: Some of the partners range from $600–$1000+ an hour depending on the practice area and client.

Limit: Lawyer. Do not recommend.

How commenters used it: This title turns up in four unrelated settings here -- a retirement community, a food manufacturer, a Michelin restaurant, and a hospital -- and the one commenter who names a figure, a senior director at a high-end retirement community, puts it at $250k after bonus. The spread implies the pay ceiling tracks the size of the institution more than any prestige attached to food service itself.

What readers reported: Senior food and beverage director at a high end retirement community. 250k after bonus

How commenters used it: All three people who answered with this title gave nothing but the two words themselves -- no dollar figure, no context, no elaboration -- as if the day-rate math at that seniority level didn't need justifying.

How commenters used it: The one civil-defense attorney in this set describes a practice that's anything but narrow -- commercial disputes at a regional firm, plus maritime, Native American, and environmental matters -- undercutting the idea that a niche specialty title maps to a single narrow specialty.

What readers reported: I primarily handle commercial disputes, but also some other practice areas like maritime, Native American, and environmental.

How commenters used it: This is the rare entry where the respondent argues against their own former pay: well over $70 an hour as a defense-contractor director, versus roughly $80 a day now growing food on 4-hour workdays, and they say plainly they prefer the lower-paid life.

What readers reported: I was a director at a defense contractor. Well over $70 an hour.

Limit: Now I'm a voluntary peasant with almost no bills... Today I make like, $80 a day and I prefer this life.

How commenters used it: As with several other single-source entries here, the only information volunteered is the title and the fact that the employer is a multinational, with no salary figure attached to either.

How commenters used it: This figure is reported in the past tense by a spouse: neither person currently works, and the $800-a-day national customer-service director pay describes a job at a large food company she has since left, not a current one.

What readers reported: my wife used to make about $800 a day. She was a national customer service director for a big food company.

Limit: Neither of us work anymore.

How commenters used it: Contract emergency-management pay here isn't a fixed number but a range that the respondent says moves with however many hours they end up working on a given contract.

What readers reported: Contract emergency management. Fluctuates between 400-650 a day depending on my hours.

Limit: the rate is contract-based and fluctuates rather than holding at a set day rate.

How commenters used it: Notably, this C-suite telecom respondent specifies their employer is mid-sized and privately held rather than a public giant, implying the bar clears at a lower rung of the industry than the title alone might suggest.

How commenters used it: Of every entry in this category, this one carries the least information: a single respondent supplies the bare title with no sector, pay figure, or context attached at all.

How commenters used it: An engineer who moved into business strategy and development calls the switch a comfortable, low-pressure trade, even while describing the job as heavily client-facing and tied to performance metrics.

What readers reported: It's a pretty comfortable gig considering how low-pressure of a setting it is.

Limit: It's a lot of client-facing work and performance driven metrics.

How commenters used it: The turnaround-manager comment is careful to frame $500 a day as a future payoff, not current pay -- it depends on first grinding through long days to fix a failing business before any profit share arrives.

What readers reported: I get a significant cut of the profits so once I get it all fixed up I could be earning $500/day passively.

Limit: 12+ hour days turning around a failing business... comes first.

How commenters used it: A bare executive self-identification, engineering firm, no figures, no context, closes out this one-record entry.

How commenters used it: Reported RN pay swings by roughly a factor of three by geography alone: Bay Area and Northern California grads cite $70-111 an hour straight out of school, while commenters in the South and rural Midwest describe base rates in the $24-32 range, and most people who actually cleared $500 in a day were working a 12-hour shift plus night, weekend, or overtime differential rather than a flat 8-hour rate.

What readers reported: I'm a night shift RN in Washington with 7 years of experience and make about $800 a shift, x3 a week. Shout out unions.

Limit: Pretax nurse income Ontario, Canada with 7 years of experience as a part time nurse is $753/12 hr shift, but after taxes and deductions it's a measly $450. For the amount of shit you have to do, not really worth it.

How commenters used it: Commenters in this thread stress that $500 is a peak, not a floor: a private-practice therapist ties it to two high-volume client days a week, while a prison-based clinical social worker and a remote BCBA supervising 13 patients describe hitting comparable or higher numbers far more reliably because the setting itself pays a structural premium.

What readers reported: I'm a BCBA with an hourly rate of $100/hr. I have 13 patients with 1:1 staff that I need to supervise 5 hours each week. Cancelations stink but I love what I do. Also doesn't stink that I'm 100% remote so never have to leave my house

Limit: I don't always make 500/day, but on my high Client-volume days (2/wk right now) I do.

How commenters used it: Nearly every pharmacist in this thread just named the job, but the one who quantified it runs a hospital oncology infusion center doing over a million dollars a day in revenue and still only clears $600 of that personally, a mismatch they flagged themselves as feeling too small given the responsibility.

What readers reported: Pharmacist - either hospital or retail or niche (consulting) will get you minimum more than that per day

Limit: We do over a million a day in revenue. If you divide my salary out by 52 and then 5, I make $600/day. Doesn't seem like enough when you consider that.

How commenters used it: The self-employed massage therapists in this group describe $500 as simple per-session math, four to six clients at $100-150 a session, but the one commenter working reduced hours at a spa shows the same math collapses to under half that once the day is four hours instead of fully booked.

What readers reported: I charge $100 for an hour massage and $150 for 90 minutes, $200 for 2 hours. I usually average 4 clients a day, so I can easily make $500 if I'm booked

Limit: Right now I only work about 4 hours a day and come home with 240 from wage and I occasionally get tips.

How commenters used it: Dental hygienists here converge on a tight $450-600 daily range even while working reduced schedules of three to four days a week, mostly concentrated in higher-cost areas like Southern California and Virginia, though one commenter reaches those numbers through temp assignments rather than a permanent post.

What readers reported: ~$550 a day but I only choose to work 3-4 days a week. Dental hygienist in Southern California apparently others in my area are making closer to $600 a day

Limit: Dental Hygienist doing temp jobs

How commenters used it: Hospital-based PTs describe base pay alone falling short of $500 in a standard 8-hour day unless they've put in a decade or moved into administration, while a SNF-setting therapist with only four years in says overtime, which their employer readily allows, pushes the same shift past $1,000.

What readers reported: NorCal 8 hours/day, 5x/week. SNF setting with 4 years experience. That is my base pay. If I work overtime (which my company very much allows) I can make up to $1000 in a day.

Limit: Needs to have worked at least 10 years or be in some form of admin. I heard home health can rake it in though.

How commenters used it: A trauma-center respiratory therapist clears just over $580 a shift on straight pay and says overtime nearly doubles it, while a night-shift colleague describes leaning on that same overtime and differential just to get by, admitting the trade-off is real exhaustion.

What readers reported: as a Respiratory therapist in a trauma center I make a little over $580 a shift. OT almost doubles that rate, I guarantee doctors are making much more than I am.

Limit: NOC shift RT checking in. I pick up OT shifts weekly. Night diff and OT are how I survive. But damn if I'm not really tired.

How commenters used it: NP pay here reads as a multi-year climb rather than a starting number: one commenter began at $90k four years ago and is now past $135k with bonus, while newly board-certified grads are reportedly landing pain-management offers near $120k, but the same veteran commenter is still carrying student loans she expects to pay off for another decade.

What readers reported: I'm up to $120k base + monthly bonus that easily pushes me over the $135k. It's comfortable income as single female no kids

Limit: However, I also have student loans out the wazoo that I'll be paying for 10 more years….

How commenters used it: Most replies in this thread just name healthcare administration without detail, but the one dollar figure offered, an executive clearing $1,250 a day, suggests it's the seniority of the administrative role, not the healthcare label itself, doing the work here.

What readers reported: $1250/day healthcare exec

How commenters used it: An OR nurse with 12 years in clears $494 in a technical 8-hour day but works 12s and clears it easily, adding that any on-call callback pushes a shift past $1,000, while a peer with two fewer years notes that matching similar pay elsewhere required an agency contract because the local hospital rate alone wasn't competitive.

What readers reported: If I am on call and get called in for even 30 minutes on top of my shift I will clear $1000 in a day.

Limit: I have 2 years less experience than you and had to take an agency job to get that. Otherwise, the local rate is 38 an hour at best.

How commenters used it: The paramedic replies here skew toward how to become one rather than what it pays, with a Canadian paramedic laying out the community-college and bachelor's-degree training routes into the role, including advanced and critical-care tracks, and noting the path itself isn't standardized.

Limit: It will be different in every area.

How commenters used it: Both lab-science replies describe steady clinical or biotech employment rather than one-off gig pay, and the Silicon Valley lab manager is upfront that the salary reflects the region's cost of living as much as the field's earning power.

What readers reported: CLS/ lab manager! I work in biotech, granted I also work in Silicon Valley lol so salaries are higher, but great industry with so much demand right now!!

How commenters used it: This entry is a single bare job title with no elaboration on pay, schedule, or path; unlike nearly everything else in this category, there's nothing in the source comment to synthesize beyond the label itself.

How commenters used it: This commenter frames patient and market-access work in pharma as more meaningful than their prior clinical role and says the pay is excellent, but is equally direct that spending the day fighting insurers on behalf of patients and clinics takes a real toll.

What readers reported: I find this role way more impactful to patients than what I was doing in clinic. And pay is excellent.

Limit: Helping patients and clinics fight insurance all day long can be stressful though.

How commenters used it: This entry offers only a title, speech therapist with SLPA supervision duties, without any detail on pay or caseload to build a synthesis from.

How commenters used it: This clerical hospital role stands out because the commenter attributes its pay specifically to being union-represented, calling out a good union rather than the job title alone.

What readers reported: Ward clerk at a hospital with a good union

How commenters used it: This entry describes an adversarial patient-advocacy role — fighting insurance companies to get chemotherapy authorized and paid for — framed entirely around the conflict of the work rather than any dollar figure.

How commenters used it: Psychologists and therapists in this set price by the session rather than the hour, but how many sessions they'll take is a personal choice more than an industry ceiling: one explicitly caps at five clients a day despite having more demand, while another's practitioner-relative sees at least seven clients daily at a flat per-session rate.

What readers reported: I average about $100 per hour session.

Limit: If I dont work I dont make anything so I have to plan ahead quite a bit.

How commenters used it: This entry describes someone else's pay, not the commenter's own, reporting that mental health therapists clear $100-150 an hour depending on insurance payouts while the commenter identifies as their biller and credentialer.

What readers reported: every mental health therapist makes roughly $100-150/hour depending on insurance payouts

How commenters used it: The traveling sleep technologist nets $700 a day after taxes, but flags that the travel-assignment structure means paying out of pocket for a second residence while on the road.

What readers reported: I make about $700/day after taxes

Limit: it's a 12 hour shift and I have to pay for a second room.

How commenters used it: The sober companion describes clientele as mostly wealthy families pushing for change before the person in recovery is themselves ready, and credits motivational interviewing as the core skill that makes that gap workable.

What readers reported: Ive been sober for a while now and am a licensed alcohol and drug counselor (LADC II), and absolutely love what I do

Limit: Meeting people where they are can be difficult.

How commenters used it: Every firefighter-paramedic answer here reaches the figure through the 24-hour shift structure itself, with differentials and overtime stacking on top of a base pay that's often under $40 an hour.

What readers reported: Paramedic, base pay $35/hr, and I work weekends mostly so I get a shift differential of $5/hr and an evening differential of $2/hr. I also work a lot of overtime, so my time and a half pay is $53 an hour.

How commenters used it: Industrial rescue and medic work appears here only as a job description, with no pay figure or working context given.

How commenters used it: Physician commenters converge on the $500-a-day mark from wildly different vantage points — hospital doctors billing $150 an hour, subspecialists clearing near $550 an hour, and a rural Australian locum quoting roughly $3,000 to cover a single shift — but debt loads of $400,000 to $700,000 and years of burnout are the recurring counterweight.

What readers reported: I make about $550 an hour. Worked about 2200 hours last year. Subspecialist physician.

Limit: I'm a physician. I spent my entire youth studying and working 100 hours/week and am now dead inside. And had $700k in student loans when I finished... The pay compared to the life sacrifice really isn't worth it.

How commenters used it: Dentists here trace a climb from a modest $550-a-day starting rate to $1,500–2,500 a day after building or buying into a practice, trading a compressed four-day week against tuition that one commenter put above $100,000 a year.

What readers reported: $1500-2500 a day. Dentist

Limit: Tuition alone is over $100k/year in a lot of schools now.

How commenters used it: Radiology and CT technologists in this cluster show how a two-year degree plus night, weekend, and per-diem differentials can push pay well past $500 a shift, with veteran techs and cath-lab specialists clearing far more than newer entrants.

What readers reported: CT tech started at $24/hr in 2004 now making $99.33/hr

Limit: Pathologists Assistant... I'm entry level and at a smaller hospital so I'm making a little less- literally just finished school and making ~$410 a day.

How commenters used it: Pediatric anesthesiologists explain that their extra fellowship year mainly affects hire-ability rather than the paycheck itself, landing subspecialty pay roughly on par with general anesthesiology once institution and market are factored in.

What readers reported: It's more specialized than a general anesthesiologist. In the US, we do an additional year of training, called a fellowship, making our total medical education 9 years, versus 8.

Limit: Pediatric specialties do tend to make less overall, but in surgical subspecialties (anesthesia, surgery) the pay is more or less equal, and is institution/location and market dependent.

How commenters used it: Nurse anesthetists here spend as much energy correcting their job title — flagging a shift toward 'Nurse Anesthesiologist' alongside a new doctoral-degree requirement — as stating a rate, with the one concrete figure landing near $1,000 a day for a cardiovascular specialist.

What readers reported: Wife is Cardiovascular CRNA, makes about 1k a day.

Limit: the national association is changing to Nurse Anesthesiologist due to instituting a doctoral degree requirement

How commenters used it: This entry barely clears a title: an oncology PA names the role, then a reply dryly undercuts it by defining a PA as simply 'an assistant, to a physician,' with no rate or context offered either way.

How commenters used it: The lone account for this specialty trades pay specifics for a cost report: rotating overnight shifts and burnout are, in this physician's own words, visibly aging them faster than the calendar would suggest.

Limit: The hours, flip-flopping sleep schedule, and stress/burnout are taking years off of my life… but what are you gonna do.

How commenters used it: This entry is little more than a job title — cardiothoracic surgeon — dropped into the thread with no figure, hours, or context attached to weigh against the day-rate claim.

How commenters used it: Detail here comes secondhand: a commenter describes their dosimetrist father's arrangement — a $178,000 salary earned mostly from home after two decades of tenure that buys him the latitude to leave early for golf on slow afternoons.

What readers reported: is salaried making 178k per year. I've seen him leave multiple times at noon during the week because he had nothing to do and go golf or be outside by the pool reading a book while he's working.

Limit: He says that's not really allowed but he's worked there so long they let him.

How commenters used it: A psychiatric-corrections technician reaches the $500 mark specifically through holiday differentials, working a double shift at roughly $160 an hour whenever a holiday lands on the schedule.

What readers reported: Holiday pay is like $160 an hour so I just do a double every holiday

How commenters used it: Optometrist is another bare-title answer here, with no rate, hours, or context supplied beyond the job name.

How commenters used it: This podiatrist entry is reported secondhand, with the commenter describing a spouse's job rather than claiming the pay for themselves.

How commenters used it: One commenter manages capital-project schedules across the pharmaceutical industry, and a second, working as a biotech project manager, admits that despite liking the higher pay overall, they sometimes miss the lower stress of their old $40k research-coordinator job.

Limit: It is an incredibly demanding job. While I enjoy it overall, there are definitely some days I miss the stress levels of working as a research coordinator making $40k a year.

How commenters used it: Several commenters treat proposal writing as a freelance path rather than a single-employer job, with one saying a strong portfolio matters more than references and another warning that breaking in depends on having a reputation inside a specific vertical like construction, defense, or import/export.

What readers reported: It is very doable depending on industry and if you have a reliable network and reputation in whatever area of expertise.

Limit: there is definite hustle required

How commenters used it: HR respondents span hotel, executive, and director titles, and one director actually shows the math: $500 a day works out to roughly $130k a year, a threshold multiple people here cleared while noting it demanded a long work schedule.

What readers reported: I'm an HR director making closer to 800 a day, but I get a close up view of a lot of different salaries for a lot of different occupations.

Limit: Lotta stuff will get you there if you don't mind a long work schedule.

How commenters used it: Titles in this set range from product manager and industrial designer up to director and VP, spanning industrial equipment manufacturing and software product roles, and the VP respondent goes furthest by converting $285k in total cash comp into a per-worked-day rate after subtracting weekends, holidays, and PTO.

What readers reported: VP Software Product Management. About $1,295 per day worked. $285k total cash comp.

How commenters used it: One commenter credits their staying power in drafting and estimating to learning every job in the front office so the company couldn't easily replace them, while a second — whose 9-to-5 is now piping design — describes freelancing on weekends for a local builder, warning that self-employed tradespeople either do very well or wash out entirely.

What readers reported: I learned how to do every job in the front office of the company and made myself hard to replace.

Limit: Self employed plumbers either make excellent money or fail and have to work somewhere for $35-$45/hr. Both are correct.

How commenters used it: Both supporting comments here are one-line job-title drops, facilities manager and house manager, with neither commenter elaborating on pay, hours, or what the role actually involves.

How commenters used it: Beyond a bare large-format store manager title, the second commenter frames Sam's Club GM work as a second career, noting they arrived there medically retired from the Army National Guard as a 100% disabled veteran.

What readers reported: I'm a general manager at Sam's club, I'm medically retired from the army national guard and I'm a 100% disabled veteran.

How commenters used it: The single comment backing this entry does nothing more than name the job, supermarket store manager, leaving pay, hours, and store type entirely unstated.

How commenters used it: This entry rests entirely on a two-word title drop, strip club manager, with no commenter offering pay figures or context about the venue or hours involved.

How commenters used it: A 22-year veteran of adult health and wellness retail frames the appeal less around the paycheck and more around steady demand plus enjoying the work, describing the niche as recession-proof rather than a quick payday.

What readers reported: It never goes out of style and is always in high demand.

How commenters used it: The supporting comment is a compact title claim, GM of a bulk commodity handling facility, without any detail on scale, pay, or how the role was reached.

How commenters used it: Here the commenter specifies a public-sector setting, coordinating custodial services for a school district, distinguishing it from the private-facility custodial and housekeeping work found elsewhere in this category.

What readers reported: Coordinator of Custodial Services for a school district.

How commenters used it: This entry's one comment names an upper-management role in custom commercial millwork, a specialty woodworking niche, without any further discussion of compensation or the path into the field.

How commenters used it: The commenter emphasizes scale over title, describing themselves as running a large big-box grocery store rather than a smaller independent one.

What readers reported: I manage a large big box grocery store.

How commenters used it: By phrasing it as managing housekeeping for hospitals in the plural, this commenter implies oversight spanning more than one facility rather than a single-site role.

What readers reported: Manage housekeeping for hospitals

How commenters used it: The regional HSE manager here expresses genuine surprise at reaching this pay level only this year, framing it as a recent milestone given where they started rather than a long-established rate.

What readers reported: I had to do the math and it appears that this year just stepping into this level which is hard to believe given where I come from.

How commenters used it: This respondent describes a genuinely unusual niche, a company producing fine art from natural stone, and a hybrid role blending project management with engineering duties.

What readers reported: I work at a company that makes fine art from natural stone. Hybrid PM/engineering role.

How commenters used it: The single comment here is a brief title claim, tour manager for artists, offering no rate, tour type, or path detail to weigh against the touring stage manager entry elsewhere in this category.

How commenters used it: Middle- and upper-management commenters, from public-sector supervisors to a corporate director, converge on roughly the same daily number but describe getting there through meetings, politics, and performance metrics rather than any hands-on output.

What readers reported: $500 a day is $130k per year. Thats middle management income.

Limit: The stress is unreal and I fucking hate corporate America. Would 1,000,000,000% work as a park ranger in the woods... if I could afford it.

How commenters used it: The single specific claim volunteered here is jurisdictional, one data-entry worker reports that a city police department pays better for the identical role than a county department does.

What readers reported: Data entry for a police dept (city's pay better than county's).

How commenters used it: The single respondent here barely mentions a number at all, framing the appeal of shipboard hotel-director work almost entirely around what's covered for free rather than around the day rate itself.

What readers reported: Hotel Director on a ship. And food and accommodation and travelling all paid for.

How commenters used it: The sole facilities-services respondent skips pay entirely and describes the job instead by its texture: running facilities for a Fortune 500 company means, in their own words, being always on call.

Limit: Never a dull moment and always, always on call.

How commenters used it: The one qualifier this talent-management leader adds beyond the bare title is ten years of experience, suggesting tenure rather than a single big break is what got them to this pay level.

How commenters used it: Most of these accounting replies are just job titles - financial controller, accountant, accounting - spread across manufacturing and hospitality employers, but the fullest one admits the trade-off directly: good pay, mind-numbingly boring work.

What readers reported: My wife is the director of finance for a luxury hotel brand and makes about this give or take.

Limit: Private accountant. Good money. Mind-numbingly boring. I hate it.

How commenters used it: Financial advisers here quote rates well past the $500 mark, with one describing an effective $100-an-hour, round-the-clock rate and another breaking total comp down to a $2,500 daily rate on the days actually worked.

What readers reported: Financial advisor. $100/hour 24/7.

Limit: Total comp puts daily rate closer to $1800 but that’s 5 days a week and I don’t work that anymore.

How commenters used it: The lone detailed CFO account frames the number as a payoff for a long, nonlinear run - 14-plus years in accounting stacked on a decade of small-business management, two degrees, and more failures than successes along the way.

What readers reported: Like someone else said, I do email and excel.

Limit: But didn’t make over $500/day until 14+ years experience in accounting. That on top of 10+ years small business experience (management) before that.

How commenters used it: One planner puts the day rate at $1,000 to $1,500, while another CFP describes stacking planning work with side ventures building compliance software and a personal app rather than financial planning alone.

What readers reported: Financial planning! About $1000-$1500 a day

How commenters used it: The single account here credits the payoff to scarcity - commercial aerospace negotiating is described as extremely niche, and that scarcity is what put two companies into a bidding war for this person's services.

What readers reported: I had two companies ready to get into a bidding war for me last year.

Limit: Commercial is extremely niche

How commenters used it: This entry rests on a bare job-title reply with no detail on pay, hours, or path - it's counted here on job title alone rather than any elaboration.

How commenters used it: This entry offers nothing beyond the single word 'procurement' - no rate, no context, no story - making it the thinnest record in this category.

How commenters used it: This leader is unusually candid about doubting the arrangement itself, questioning aloud whether overseeing a nationwide team of field auditors is even worth the money after an incident that made them want tighter control.

Limit: It might not be worth the money.

How commenters used it: This entry rests on a single bare comment naming medical-device marketing as the job, with no pay figure, hours, or context offered against the $500-a-day benchmark.

How commenters used it: This account reads like a boom-and-bust story: clearing around $600 a day running Facebook campaigns for small e-commerce brands back in 2019, then watching margins collapse once Apple's tracking changes hit and the business shifted toward TikTok Shop.

What readers reported: i used to clear around 600 daily running facebook ad campaigns for small e-commerce brands back in 2019

Limit: the whole industry feels like a pyramid scheme where youre always one algorithm update away from broke

How commenters used it: This commenter's path runs through a high-school dropout start and years in customer service before landing a marketing project manager title, a nontraditional route rather than a marketing-degree pipeline.

What readers reported: Dropped out of highschool, worked my way up in customer service. Now I'm a project manager in marketing.

How commenters used it: Notably this marketing systems manager role sits inside a nonprofit, cutting against the assumption that nonprofit marketing work tops out well below this pay bracket.

What readers reported: non profit marketing systems manager!

How commenters used it: Marketing answers in this set lean heavily on tenure and title — most cite ten-plus years or a director or CMO-level role — and the commenter who breaks down the mechanics says the money comes from scaling a handful of retainer clients through optimization, not from working more hours.

What readers reported: Once you can consistently get a client's account profitable, it scales well since the work is mostly optimization and creative iteration, not linear hours, and a handful of solid retainer clients gets you past that number without needing to add headcount right away.

How commenters used it: Startup-marketing comments frame the payoff as a long climb rather than a fast track, with one salary going from $45k to $200k only after years moving from agency work into an in-house role.

What readers reported: My first salary was $45k. That was 2015 in SF. Now I'm at $200k.

How commenters used it: The PR answers read almost entirely as satire of corporate vagueness, describing the job as tracking other people's work and reporting it upward under a euphemistic label rather than anything resembling media relations.

How commenters used it: Defense-marketing here is just a department name with no elaboration on pay, workload, or day-to-day duties.

How commenters used it: The one wealth-management marketer in this set undercuts the industry's seriousness with a shrug, describing the job as getting paid to 'make pretty pictures all day.'

What readers reported: I get paid to make pretty pictures all day, it rocks.

How commenters used it: A decade into running paid-search campaigns for clients, one commenter clears $800 a day but admits the job still triggers a jolt of dread every morning before opening the ad dashboard.

What readers reported: Run Google Ads campaigns for a living. Clear $800/day.

Limit: 10 years in and I still get a small heart attack every time I open the dashboard in the morning.

How commenters used it: Two commenters who explicitly hold this title describe pay in different registers: one did their own day-rate math and was surprised at how ordinary the number looked, while an associate marketing director in consumer goods -- married to another director-level earner at a hedge fund -- says the real lesson after two decades has been that high household comp in a high-cost city gets eaten fast by rent and a full-time nanny.

What readers reported: Associate Marketing Director for consumer goods…While we make high comp, it would surprise many how quickly we spend it living in a HCOL area.

Limit: it is not so much about what you make, but what you are able to save.

How commenters used it: The only detail this media VP offers beyond the title is tenure -- almost twenty years running a department inside one advertising agency -- implying pay reflects seniority accumulated in place rather than a single high-profile jump.

What readers reported: Media VP. I run a department in an advertising agency. Been doing this for almost 20 years.

How commenters used it: Across two dozen trucking comments, pay for the identical job title varies by a factor of ten depending on one detail commenters keep repeating: whether you own the truck, drive a fixed local route, or haul long-distance for someone else's company.

What readers reported: You can easily clear $500 a day as a truck driver. You can also easily not clear $500 in a week. Literally the only thing that matters is whose name is on the side of the truck.

Limit: The money is great but if you think you will have a social life and do this, think again.

How commenters used it: A husband-and-wife trucking-company thread traces the jump from driving trucks to running a small fleet, where nearly every dollar coming in goes straight back out to payroll, fuel, and insurance while they juggle dispatching drivers alongside a 40-goat farm.

What readers reported: We are making a lot of money... but we are able to pay our bills, and things are getting better as we pay everything down.

Limit: It is awful. Truly... there are still days I want to burn it all for the insurance money.

How commenters used it: Cleaning-business income here scales with how many services get bundled together, from a solo house cleaner whose $600 days show up only a few times a month to a multi-service operator layering carpet, window, and water-mitigation work into $7,000-plus days.

What readers reported: $7,000-$10,000/day. My company provides carpet cleaning, window cleaning, pressure washing, water mitigation, air duct cleaning, etc.

Limit: Not every single day but definitely a few days out of the month, I can make around $600 a day.

How commenters used it: Day-rate video editors land consistently in the $500-1,000 range, but almost every comment pairs that number with a warning that total yearly income swings wildly because the work arrives project by project with no fixed schedule.

What readers reported: I started at almost zero in LA, grew to $500/day, raised my rates from there and moved back home: $650-750/day working remote.

Limit: Video Editor. $900-$1k+ per day. Although burnout and a lot of job fluidity come with it.

How commenters used it: Landscaping shows the most literal path to $500 a day in this category - stack enough $100 mowing jobs or hire a crew - though the owner who takes the crew approach is careful to note their figure is revenue, not take-home.

What readers reported: You can pretty easily make $500 a day cutting grass for people... Mow a lawn for $100. Do 10 a day.

Limit: I do about 600 a day revenue on average and pay staff 250. I dont do the work myself.

How commenters used it: Video producers and videographers describe rates stretching from a steady $500 livestreaming funerals up to $2,800 for a single marathon shoot, with the spread explained mostly by how much of their own gear they bring and whose budget they bill against.

What readers reported: I live stream funerals everyday. That's $500 per day. Then film weddings on weekends that can be $2000+ day.

Limit: Videographer. My rates vary... but there are also plenty of days I don't have any work at all.

How commenters used it: The one detailed daycare comment describes clearing about $4,000 a day across two locations, which drew a string of replies asking about startup capital rather than any further specifics on how that figure gets reached.

What readers reported: Own 2 day cares we clear about $4000 a day.

How commenters used it: One esthetics owner's own arithmetic shows $160 an hour times 8 hours works out to about $1,280 in a single day; multiplying that by the three days a week they work is what produces the $3,840 figure they cite, and multiplying again by four weeks produces the $15,360 monthly figure - so $3,840 is a three-day weekly total, not a single day's pay, and the real daily figure their own math supports is closer to $1,280.

What readers reported: Brazilians average $70 for 30 minutes so approx. $160 an hour including tip... x4 comes out to $15,360 a month.

Limit: It's given me loads of freedom, but I won't say it's easy. My husband is in international sales and earns more than I do.

How commenters used it: Freelance design rates split sharply by client tier in this batch, from a part-timer earning a comfortable $4,000 a month off just two six-hour days to a creative director billing $2,500 for a single day's work.

What readers reported: Graphic designer / Creative Director - $2,500 per day.

How commenters used it: The top-earning makeup artist here clears $1,500-3,000 a day in fashion and celebrity work, but they're explicit that their agent takes a 20% cut and that staying booked requires unpaid promotional shoots several days a month.

What readers reported: I earn $1500-3000 a day on average, occasionally up to $4500 for a really juicy job.

Limit: My agent takes 20% and I do have to do unpaid shoots for magazines and occasional other free promo work to keep my profile up.

How commenters used it: Two commenters reduce event planning to a throwaway "balloons and event planning" tag, while a winery event manager lays out a more layered pay structure - a modest hourly base topped up with tip share and sales commission, with more certifications planned to push it further.

What readers reported: I'm salaried at roughly 22 an hour, get 20 percent tips off of large wine tastings, and make commission off of sales.

Limit: So hopefully goes up after that.

How commenters used it: None of the three pool-service comments go beyond a bare job description, and the closest thing to an explanation - calling it a "niche market" - never gets backed up with an actual number.

How commenters used it: Both food-business examples here are secondhand rather than the commenter's own work - a radio segment about an empanada seller clearing $3,000 a day, and a reply pointing to hot dog carts in busy East Coast cities as another route to six figures.

What readers reported: Hot dog stands in places like NY and FL are also notorious for bringing in 6 figure salaries. Just get premium ingredients and walk around the busiest areas.

Limit: Both figures are passed along secondhand rather than reported by someone running the business themselves.

How commenters used it: The two local-service comments describe a grab-bag of home-repair offerings - cleaning, door and window installs, driveway sealing - and a plain "blue collar business owner" label, neither attaching a rate to the work described.

How commenters used it: One logistics owner ties their daily numbers to a single structural fact: hauling frac sand for drill sites that operate 24/7, which they frame as a built-in reason their trucks rarely sit idle.

What readers reported: Own trucking business that delivers frac sand to drill sites. They drill 24/7 so trucks run all day long.

How commenters used it: One marketing-business comment reports a swing from $800 to $3,500 within the same operation, with nothing said about what separates a slow day from a big one.

What readers reported: I own a marketing business. Some days I've seen $800, some days I've seen $3,500.

How commenters used it: This app-and-web-design owner treats the day-rate almost as an afterthought, mentioning roughly $3,000 a day only alongside the $100k-a-month recurring revenue that seems to be the number they actually care about.

What readers reported: Close to 3k/day - 100k MRR - design apps and sites and shit.

How commenters used it: The aquarium-maintenance answer reads like a recurring-route business rather than one-off jobs: a fixed roster of 25 customers, three visited a day, four days a week, landing at roughly $650 a day.

What readers reported: Fish tank maintenance company, 3 customers a day 4 days a week I make about 650 a day 25 customers.

How commenters used it: This interior-repair owner's income rides almost entirely on one dealership client sending batches of six cars at a time, and they're upfront that their $550 average papers over real days as low as $300 and as high as $1,300.

What readers reported: My largest client is Carvana. They give me on average six cars to do at a time and I typically charge around $100 per car.

Limit: I average about $550 per day but I do have $300 days and the occasional $1,300 day.

How commenters used it: Boat rentals sit among the more seasonal, weather-dependent businesses named in this category, though the comment behind it gives nothing beyond the two-word label to say how the owner actually gets to $500 a day.

How commenters used it: This burrito seller treats $500 as a ceiling rather than a baseline, noting in the same breath that plenty of days land at a $100 loss instead.

What readers reported: $500 a day take home is a great day though.

Limit: Sometimes it's -$100.

How commenters used it: An owner's-representative on commercial construction projects confirms in passing that $500 a day matches their actual salary, offered as a one-line aside rather than any real breakdown.

What readers reported: That's my exact salary lol. Owners Rep for commercial construction projects.

How commenters used it: Communications and media is broad enough to cover anything from PR to podcast production, and this commenter picks the vaguest possible framing rather than naming which of those the business actually does.

How commenters used it: Concrete construction joins landscaping and commercial construction as one of several trades in this category where owning equipment and crews is the presumed path to the money, though this particular comment doesn't spell out either.

How commenters used it: Electronics repair sits alongside automotive-interior and small-engine repair as a third fix-it business in this category, though unlike those two this commenter doesn't share a single number.

How commenters used it: This PA-and-lighting owner earns well past the category baseline - $1,000-3,000 most days, nearly $10,000 in one standout week - by owning the gear themselves, though they pay for it in 20-to-24-hour wedding days where the tech absolutely cannot fail.

What readers reported: I typically make anywhere from $1-3k per day 2 or 3 days per week year long. Last week I made nearly $10k.

Limit: These are luxury events and weddings; so lots of pressure and tech cannot fail... 20-24 hour days with driving and set up.

How commenters used it: A "CEO of a fiber infrastructure business" is a title, not a number, and this comment leans on the weight of that title rather than sharing any figure to justify the pay claim it's grouped under.

How commenters used it: This film-industry service owner is candid that their everyday rate actually falls under this category's own threshold at $400, and only clears $500 when overtime on set pushes it up to $700.

What readers reported: If I work OT on set it could be as high as 700.

Limit: Normally its 400 a day.

How commenters used it: A freelance gaffer's real income here comes less from the $850 day-rate for labor than from renting out their own lighting equipment to the same productions, which alone adds another $1,500-2,500 a day.

What readers reported: Paid $850/10 hour day for labor, plus roughly $1,500-2,500/day in rental fees for my personally owned lighting equipment.

How commenters used it: A game store is the only traditional storefront-retail answer in this batch besides the retail-shop and laundromat entries, and like them it arrives with no sense of margin or foot traffic behind the ownership claim.

How commenters used it: Gutter cleaning shows up here as a volume model - two homes serviced a day - though the comment never states the per-house price that would confirm whether that pace actually clears $500.

What readers reported: Gutter cleaning business, do 2 homes a day.

How commenters used it: Knife sharpening is one of the most specific single-service niches named anywhere in this category, which makes it more notable that the comment stops at the business name and never says what a job or a full day of them pays.

How commenters used it: A couple who spent years teaching English for other employers in China describe opening their own school as simply cutting out the middleman, not a leap into unfamiliar work.

What readers reported: After years of working for others we now just do it ourselves.

How commenters used it: Laundromat ownership is often cited elsewhere as a classic passive-income business, but this commenter doesn't lean on that reputation at all - just a flat two-word self-identification with nothing about machine count or daily turns.

How commenters used it: "Successful" is the only qualifier attached to this permaculture business, and it's doing a lot of work standing in for any actual figure, client count, or acreage that might back it up.

How commenters used it: Servicing pool tables is framed here as a full standalone company rather than a side gig, which raises the question of what a single service call costs - a question this comment leaves open.

How commenters used it: This publisher's current $6,000-7,500 gross day is presented as the payoff for a described decade of near-total sacrifice - no partying, no vices, no games, long days through their early twenties - that has since shrunk to just 5-10 hours of upkeep a month.

What readers reported: It hit big, and I've been able to get by working maybe 5-10 hours a month on it to keep it going.

Limit: Had to give up a LOT of those "fun" early years to do it... Zero vices... Was a hermit.

How commenters used it: Restaurant ownership is probably the most universally recognized small-business path in this whole category, which makes the three-word comment behind it - "Own a restaurant" - the thinnest entry paired with the most familiar job type.

How commenters used it: A couple running a retail shop in a tourist town frame the business less as a windfall than a trade-off, calling it exhausting and sometimes not worth it even as it's funded a stable life for their son.

What readers reported: We've set up a good life for ourselves and our son.

Limit: It's exhausting and sometimes doesn't feel worth it.

How commenters used it: This route owner only reaches $500 on strong sales days, and says so directly - plenty of days fall short, and the whole route is worked just two days a week.

What readers reported: I make that in a day, on high sales days.

Limit: I make less than that some days.

How commenters used it: The senior-care figure here comes secondhand, from someone describing a parent's $60,000-a-month income across a day center and a nursing home in Korea, without explaining how that splits between the two properties.

What readers reported: My dad makes $60k a month and he owns a senior daycare centre & a nursing home in korea.

Limit: The account is secondhand and doesn't break down how the income divides between the two facilities.

How commenters used it: A small-engine repair owner is explicit that $500 days cluster around peak periods rather than holding steady, so the figure describes a seasonal high point more than a routine rate.

What readers reported: During peak periods it regularly is [a $500+ day].

Limit: Not everyday is a $500+ day.

How commenters used it: This Bangkok-based commenter stacks a wellness business with day trading and coding, so the $500-a-day claim can't really be pinned on the wellness work alone.

What readers reported: I have a wellness business in Bangkok and I'm a day trader and i code too.

How commenters used it: Window tinting reports here run well above the category floor, with $1,200-1,500 described as the regular range and occasional $3,000 days on top.

What readers reported: I've had $3000 days. Regularly $1200-$1500 days.

How commenters used it: One self-employed commenter lays out a compounding ladder of ownership: insurance-agency profits funded rental properties, and the rental income in turn financed a document-preparation business run alongside the other two.

What readers reported: Started an insurance agency, used profits to buy rentals, used rental profits to start a document preparation business.

How commenters used it: Here credit repair is framed explicitly as a side hustle layered on top of a conventional 9-to-5, not as a standalone career choice.

What readers reported: Credit Repair and my 9-5.

How commenters used it: This IT support owner in Australia doubles the headline day rate simply by having their wife bill hours alongside them, with an explicit after-hours premium stacked on top of that.

What readers reported: Make just over $1k USD a day running a small IT support business in Australia. My wife works with me so double that for both of us.

How commenters used it: This special-needs day-program owner reports a genuinely high income, half a million dollars a year, attached to an explicitly mission-driven description of the work itself - teaching prevocational skills to adults with special needs - rather than any explanation of margins, staffing, or billing that would show how running the program actually produces that figure.

What readers reported: I run a community based day program for adults with special needs helping them learn prevocational skills for employment.

How commenters used it: This entry runs almost entirely on the joke of legally selling drugs rather than substance; when one commenter asked directly what the role involves and how the pay works, nobody in the thread actually answered.

What readers reported: Sell drugs… Legally!

How commenters used it: Two commenters here simply name their job — general medical sales and capital medical-equipment sales — without a single dollar figure, schedule detail, or story to back the $500-a-day premise.

How commenters used it: The one-word "Sales" answers vastly outnumber the detailed ones, but wherever commenters spell out their pay, the shape repeats: straight commission or percentage-of-revenue income that can swing from a $0 day to a $2,000-plus day within the same week, often only after years of building a client base.

What readers reported: Base pay = $520 per workday. With commission = $1,337 per workday. Five years ago I was making $120/ day working at a thrift store.

Limit: commissioned sales sometimes its 500 sometimes 2000 sometimes 0

How commenters used it: Insurance agents in this set frame pay as something they can dial up through sheer hustle — extra cold calls ahead of a planned trip — landing average days near $500 with spikes to $2,000, though one commenter admits they resent the work even while cashing the checks.

What readers reported: Can clear $2k a day some days easily. The average day is around $500 a day

Limit: Insurance sales, yeah. I hate me too. But the money is damn good.

How commenters used it: Freight brokerage shows up at every scale here, from a solo 1099 agent clearing roughly $100 an hour on commission alone to an owner who folds a multi-state aggregate/freight brokerage into one leg of a three-business portfolio (alongside a landscaping company and a federal contracting business), drawing a separate weekly salary from each.

How commenters used it: The mattress-sales claim itself is almost beside the point — one commenter's assertion that no-degree sellers can clear $150k a year touches off a meta-argument about whether Reddit's culture of performing poverty punishes anyone who admits to doing well.

What readers reported: I know people who sell mattresses in stores and at events that make over $150k a year and don't have a college degree. They can just sell.

Limit: People always upvote these "I'm so poor" comments and downvote people who say anything otherwise.

How commenters used it: Three commenters converge on advertising sales without a single pay figure between them — one selling ads on Reddit, one at an unnamed large company — leaving this the thinnest entry in the category.

How commenters used it: One door-to-door seller claims roughly $350k a year, and the very next reply — "Tf u sell? Gold?" — captures how implausible that number sounded to at least one reader in the thread.

What readers reported: D2D sales. I earn about $350k a year.

Limit: Tf u sell? Gold?

How commenters used it: A longer comment here pitches enterprise tech sales as an on-ramp for outgoing people without a defined skill set, pointing to a 27-year-old peer clearing $200k with little college behind him, while separately flagging that AI is closing in on entry-level cold outreach, not senior roles.

What readers reported: I make more than my friends who legit just became doctors and they got debt... I know a guy in sales at 27 at a semi known company... they make like 200k a year

Limit: I don't see AI replacing non entry level roles soon either, but that timeline is approaching for basic cold email stuff.

How commenters used it: Both responses under this title amount to little more than a job label, giving no sense of pay, hours, or how demanding the work actually is.

How commenters used it: One pest-control seller describes the physical side of the job — spraying ants and roaches outdoors, occasionally treating the inside of a home — for close to $90,000 a year before tax, entirely on commission.

What readers reported: I spray for ants and roaches and various pests... 90,000$ a year b4 tax All commission work.

How commenters used it: This entry rests on a secondhand story rather than a firsthand paycheck: the commenter recalls a network-marketing team leader clearing $150,000 a month and spending freely on things like piano lessons and a motor home.

What readers reported: He made $150,000 a MONTH. Dude didn't have a college degree but whatever he wanted he could pay for, whether it was piano lessons or a very expensive motor home.

Limit: The figure is recounted secondhand, about someone the commenter once knew, not their own income.

How commenters used it: A single commenter selling credit card processing and merchant accounts reports daily pay closer to $2,000, comfortably clearing the $500 benchmark the whole thread is built around.

What readers reported: Sell credit card processing/merchant accounts. Making closer to 2k per day

How commenters used it: This entry reads more like a jab at the trade than an earnings report, framing the job as pushing marked-up Sherwin-Williams paint onto contractors rather than describing pay or hours.

How commenters used it: Nothing beyond a dealership management title survives in this single-comment entry — no pay figure, no hours, no sense of what the day-to-day involves.

How commenters used it: This technician describes a straight percentage-of-revenue arrangement, taking home 13 percent of whatever work they complete and noting that a single job can easily run $5,000 to $7,000 in a day.

What readers reported: I make 13 percent of whatever revenue I complete. I can easily do a 5,000 - 7,000$ job in a day.

How commenters used it: Rather than answering directly, this commenter first checks the math on the question itself — noting that $500 every workday only totals $100k a year — before naming their actual job in high-end facility-management sales, mostly cleaning-services contracts.

How commenters used it: This entry's sole comment names the product — flooring — and stops there, offering nothing on pay, hours, or how the work is structured.

How commenters used it: A golf-cart seller working four days a week reports about $550 in commission per cart, but volume swings hard from day to day — sometimes zero carts sell, other times five do.

What readers reported: Every cart I sell I make about $550.

Limit: Some days I sell zero, some days I sell 5. It's all over the place.

How commenters used it: A now-retired industrial chemical salesperson looks back on consistently clearing more than $500 a day selling heavy chemicals business-to-business, offered as a memory of a finished career rather than a current claim.

What readers reported: Before I retired, I sold heavy industrial chemicals b2b. Made more than $500 daily.

How commenters used it: This commenter pairs the job — industrial HVAC sales — with a pointed note that no college degree was needed to get into it, treating the missing credential as worth mentioning on its own.

How commenters used it: The single comment attached to this meat-sales title supplies a job description and stops — no pay figure, no employer type, no sales volume mentioned.

How commenters used it: One tech worker on the post-sales enablement side admits they earn slightly under the $500-a-day mark, but frames it as a trade worth making for an "amazing work life balance" and benefits they call well above average.

What readers reported: I have an amazing work life balance and love my job! Tech typically pays very well and has great benefits.

Limit: I make slightly less than this

How commenters used it: A European headhunter lays out two distinct income streams — around $600 a day working RPO contracts renting themselves out to companies, versus placement fees that average $10,000-plus each but land far less predictably.

What readers reported: I either work as an RPO and companies rent me for 600ish per day, or I can work placements... a singular one is an average of 10K+

Limit: that's more volatile

How commenters used it: This roofing seller skips pay figures entirely and instead explains the pitch behind the job: demand never really dries up because, in their words, everybody needs a roof.

What readers reported: Roofing sales. Everybody needs a roof.

How commenters used it: Rather than carrying a personal quota, this commenter trains incoming sales reps for a Fortune 50 company, describing a coaching role one step removed from direct commission work.

How commenters used it: The single line here, describing the commenter as a "1980s shoe salesmen," reads as a throwback joke rather than a literal current-day income claim, one of the more tongue-in-cheek entries in this category.

How commenters used it: Real-estate answers span a wide range from career agents to passive landlords — several describe managing commercial properties or estates for high-net-worth families rather than selling homes, and one person only qualifies through a rental property bought on the side of an Army career.

What readers reported: I sell real estate to investors. Not gonna lie I make them tons of $

How commenters used it: The detailed real-estate-appraiser answer shows how much the daily figure depends on how you slice hours — they cleared over $400,000 in their biggest year but say they've since scaled back because they don't want to work that hard anymore.

What readers reported: my biggest year was over $400,000.

Limit: Last year was closer to $200,000. I don't want to work that hard anymore.

How commenters used it: This entry is genuinely thin: a bare self-identification followed only by an unanswered question about what kind of development it is, with no detail on how the pay is actually earned.

How commenters used it: A dealership finance employee reports that clearing $500 a day is unremarkable on their sales floor, since most salespeople, every manager, and some technicians and advisors do it routinely, and adds that the sheer scale of money in the car business surprised them when they started fifteen years ago.

What readers reported: Most sales people at the dealership I do finance at, make more than this. All managers make more than this.

Limit: the claim describes coworkers' pay rather than the commenter's own paycheck, so it reads as secondhand rather than a personal day-rate.

How commenters used it: The one SaaS account manager here states the function plainly, without volunteering pay, tenure, or what the accounts actually involve.

How commenters used it: One fundraising director admits the title undersells the work -- these days it's running a team of fundraisers in an agency model, more management than fundraising -- while the other pairs the job with real estate on the side.

What readers reported: Fundraising (reality: run a large team of fundraisers in an agency type model so more mgmt than anything these days)

How commenters used it: This strategic account manager works the daily-rate math out loud, landing on $500 from a $130k salary over a standard five-day week while managing a single global account worth more than $50 million in annual sales.

What readers reported: I make 130k not including bonus. Which mathematically works out to $500/day if you consider a work week... We do more than $50m a year in sales.

Limit: The 'if you consider a work week' framing hides the catch: they routinely work more than 40 hours to handle a global customer's demands across time zones.

How commenters used it: A biotech sales director puts their own pay at about $1500 per working day, and a second commenter selling reagents and solutions to academic, government, and startup labs points to that same corner of the industry -- research and healthcare sales -- as where the real money sits.

What readers reported: Sales director in biotech. Making about $1500/working day

How commenters used it: Bench-science roles inside major pharmaceutical companies put daily pay well past the target, with one commenter working out a $1,100/day equivalent, but the same person is the one who volunteers that the stress and burnout in pharma make that figure feel barely worth it.

What readers reported: Salary works out to $1100/day.

Limit: I work in pharma and the stress and burnout are almost not worth it.

How commenters used it: This entry sweeps in far more than technologists proper: two commenters do use that exact title, but most of its twenty-one records are one-word science jobs (chemist, physicist, food scientist, astronomer), with the real texture coming from an analytical chemist who rode $21/hr up to $66/hr over seven years and a senior PhD researcher clearing over $800 a day.

What readers reported: Started at $21/hr right out of college, got up to $34/hr at that job. Started at a new job making mid $40/hr, got promoted into a more supervisory role and I'm now making $66/hr ($528/day).

Limit: A gage lab technician in the same bucket says they only reach that rate because their employer is "a serial offender in under-titling," so they end up covering duties well beyond their job title's usual scope.

How commenters used it: Five of six geologist replies stop at the job title itself, but the sixth lays out oil-and-gas contract work paying $1,500 a day on a 14-on/14-off rotation, with the commenter crossing $500 a day just three years out of grad school.

What readers reported: Oil geo, contract. 1500/day 14 days on/14 off. 12 hr shifts. 8th year out of grad school this August. Broke 500 a day by year 3 just after Covid.

Limit: That rate comes bundled with 12-hour shifts stacked into two-week-on/two-week-off rotations away from home.

How commenters used it: Two commenters confirm sonography and echocardiography specifically, while the third reply isn't a pay claim at all — it's a peer asking whether the schooling was worth it given multi-month waitlists to even start a program.

Limit: "I heard that the schools for this are backlogged for months to get in. Was it worth the schooling?" — a peer question about the field's real entry barrier that goes unanswered in the data.

How commenters used it: Neither of the two records tied to this specialty goes past naming it — "Cardiac perfusionist" and "Cardiovascular Perfusionist" arrive with no dollar figure or path attached, so the entry rests purely on two people independently claiming the same title.

How commenters used it: A senior economist frames the job as translating dense analysis into decisions ordinary people can use, then punctures their own field's credibility by likening most economic prediction to horoscopes, while a second respondent chose the academic track as an econ professor instead.

What readers reported: I make complicated concepts understandable for (mostly) smart people who aren't economists so that they can make informed decisions.

Limit: "I think most ecconomic prediction is horoscope-levels of BS" — the commenter's own assessment of the field's forecasting credibility.

How commenters used it: The lone record here is just "Analytical Chemist" with no elaboration — notably, the detailed analytical-chemistry income story elsewhere in this dataset actually got filed under the lab-technologist entry, leaving this one to stand as a bare title confirmation.

How commenters used it: A single reply of "Biostatistician." is all this entry has to go on — a hybrid data-and-health credential named once, without a rate, timeline, or any surrounding context.

How commenters used it: Named more precisely than most single-record entries in this category, "EP/Cardiac mapping specialist" points to electrophysiology work specifically, though the commenter stops at the title and offers nothing on pay or how they got there.

How commenters used it: Of every entry in this category, this is the thinnest: one commenter wrote only "Interferometry," naming a measurement technique rather than a job title, with no employer, pay, or context to anchor it.

How commenters used it: Rather than a title, this commenter described the actual work — "Neurophysiology during surgery" — which reads as intraoperative monitoring, giving slightly more shape to the entry than a bare job name even though it's still a single unelaborated line.

How commenters used it: This entry leans entirely on one reply reusing the standard clinical credential, "Registered Dietitian," with no commentary on caseload, setting, or how that title translates into the $500-a-day threshold.

How commenters used it: This comment spends its whole space explaining what the job even is, a traveling role running heart and lung bypass machines typically staffed by a nurse, respiratory therapist, or perfusionist, rather than quoting a rate.

How commenters used it: This is a lab-specialty title only, flow cytometry analysis and cell sorting for a pharmaceutical company, with no pay detail given at all.

How commenters used it: Wildlife biologist here is paired with an unexpected employer, a power company rather than a government agency or university, with no pay detail given.

How commenters used it: The ecologist entry is a title and seniority level only, senior ecologist at a consulting firm, with nothing about pay or working conditions attached.

How commenters used it: Both private investigators here answer with almost nothing beyond the title, though one adds a dry 'a lot…' as if the caseload itself were the point.

What readers reported: I investigate. A lot…

How commenters used it: A former armed bodyguard and diamond courier reports $100-150 an hour when jobs were actually available, but immediately qualifies it as feast-or-famine work that dried up outside a handful of major US cities, and says they're now out of the industry entirely.

What readers reported: when I did armed bodyguard or diamond courier, about $100-150/hr. Money was great when the gigs were there

Limit: it was a feast or famine type of work without living in the ultra well known cities in US.

How commenters used it: Like several other single-comment entries in this set, this one is just the job title with no supporting detail about pay, hours, or setting to work from.

How commenters used it: Claims adjusters describe the job as boom-or-bust: one commenter banked $750 for a 20-minute roof inspection, while an independent adjuster running three claims a day put the real average closer to $400 once base-pay claims are factored in, with volume rising and falling by storm season.

What readers reported: Just spent 20 minutes on a roof and made $750

Limit: Independent adjusters also note unpaid driving time behind the number (5-9 hours a day without charging mileage) and that being 'busy enough' depended on storm activity the last two summers.

How commenters used it: Safety roles in this batch span a supervisor who mostly polices rule compliance from an office to a 25-year HVAC quality-and-safety executive clearing roughly $900 a day, with an OSHA compliance trainer reporting $800-1500 daily rates that only materialize when contract work is actually booked.

What readers reported: if I'm at work I'm between 800 to 1500 a day

Limit: It's contract work and not always steady.

How commenters used it: Pressure-vessel and weld inspectors in this set report day rates from $650 (US) to AU$900 — that Australian-dollar figure isn't directly comparable to the US-dollar ones — while a separate API 510-certified inspector describes the job instead as a $55-an-hour starting wage stretched across 10-12 hour field days rather than a flat day rate.

What readers reported: Pressure vessel inspection, make around AU$900 a day.

Limit: Starting wage is $55/hr, but it is long hours when out in the field. 10-12 hour days.

How commenters used it: Correctional officers reach the $500-a-day mark almost entirely through overtime, with base rates from $40 to $68 an hour ballooning further on OT (one reports $102 on top of a $68 base), available in near-unlimited supply because, as one commenter puts it, no one wants to work corrections.

What readers reported: Im at 68 an hour my OT rate is 102. 12 hour shifts and unlimited available OT because no one wants to work corrections

Limit: On the other hand I have to be a Corrections Deputy.

How commenters used it: Pipeline and transmission-line QA inspectors report a wide day-rate spread, from $660 on a transmission line to $800 average on petrochemical pipeline work and $1200 on another pipeline job, all quoted as per-day-worked figures, with one inspector noting overtime adds a further 1.5x on top of the base day rate.

What readers reported: Pipeline inspection, 1200/day

How commenters used it: Town planning shows up here as a government city-planner role sitting right at the $500-a-day line, prompting one reader to admit they'd never considered the career until looking it up in the thread.

What readers reported: I'm just at 500 a day, I'm a town planner for a city

How commenters used it: A Secret Service special agent reports a base rate of $720 a day before overtime, night differential, and holiday pay stack on top, prompting a reader's tongue-in-cheek jab that the salary itself should probably stay classified.

What readers reported: 720 a day before overtime, night differential, holiday pay....etc

How commenters used it: Corporate security appears in the thread as a bare-bones self-report, just the job title, with no pay figure, schedule, or context volunteered by the commenter.

How commenters used it: Building official is another one-line entry, just the title itself, offering no specifics on pay, hours, or how the commenter got there.

How commenters used it: The concrete-industry entry names a specific niche, quality control management for a ready-mix concrete company, without volunteering a dollar figure to back up the claim.

How commenters used it: A federal Customs and Border Protection officer stationed in Alaska cites a $75-an-hour rate, which clears $500 in well under a full shift.

What readers reported: $75/hour in Alaska as a federal CBP Officer.

How commenters used it: The probation officer in this batch is unusually candid that their pay isn't representative: a high-cost-of-living posting, union membership, and what they call outright luck combine to put them well above the typical probation-officer salary.

Limit: This salary is NOT the norm, which is typically less than half of what I make.

How commenters used it: This entry is a life-sciences quality-management and customer-service-manager hybrid role, named without any pay detail to substantiate the $500-a-day figure.

How commenters used it: The road-safety auditor is the most self-skeptical entry in the category, describing feast-or-famine bookings, a dozen jobs some weeks and none for weeks at a stretch, and admitting that hitting $500 in a day has happened only a handful of times in years on the job.

What readers reported: when I do get the jobs necessary, I can easily make 500 in a day, probably even just an afternoon

Limit: rarely do I make 500 or more in a day... in years of doing this job I can count on one hand the number of days I made more than 500 in one go

How commenters used it: The independent security-systems integrator describes designing and installing network video systems for businesses, a technical, project-based niche with no day-rate figure attached.

How commenters used it: The steel quality inspector's day-to-day is watching galvanized steel roll past while logging defects, and by their own account the $500 mark only gets crossed on weekend or overtime night shifts.

Limit: I only surpass $500/day on weekend night shifts or overtime shifts.

How commenters used it: The security-guard entry only clears $500 by stacking two jobs, a day security gig plus night bouncing at a club, with the wry aside that both let you sleep standing up.

What readers reported: I make more than $500 from two jobs. Day job, I am security guard. Night job, I am bouncer for a night club.

How commenters used it: Compliance pay in this set comes from senior or specialized titles — an AVP attorney role, health-system director and manager positions — and the one plainly dissatisfied comment notes that the work stays entirely screen-based despite the demanding title.

What readers reported: AVP Corporate Compliance & Global GxP Attorney for one of the large, well-known Pharma/Device companies.

Limit: Went to college for a long ass time Work a demanding mid upper management job in compliance Go home not feeling like I accomplished anything bc my work is mostly on computer

How commenters used it: This entry is actually a mentoring exchange rather than a first-person pay claim: one commenter advises staying in QC because "managers/directors make way more," and a second recommends industrial engineering as a lower-math on-ramp into that same QC/QM leadership track.

What readers reported: I would stay in QC, QC managers/directors make way more

Limit: The advice is secondhand -- nobody in this exchange states their own current salary.

How commenters used it: The jail-supervisor entry only specifies the setting, a maximum-security facility in Canada, without any figure on pay or hours.

How commenters used it: The most detailed voice here is a Vegas operator who runs several distinct tour lines — walking tours, bar crawls, an experimental coffee crawl, an occasional Italian food tour — built around a city that pulls 35 million visitors a year, while repliers push back on whether a hired tour guide (versus an owner who built the business) really clears $500 most days; a tour manager for a touring band offers a separate data point, $600-700 plus per diem, calling it 'tough life' despite the number.

What readers reported: One tour is a sightseeing walking tour where I'm just showing people where to find happy hours, lunch specials, speakeasies and hidden bars... It's more about experience then a traditional tour lecture.

Limit: That's gross. Then there's taxes and expenses. So that gets eaten up quick — and later replies cite a roughly 10% drop in 2025 Vegas visitors, though one commenter disputes the reasons given for the decline.

How commenters used it: Every response in this bucket answers with a bare job title — 'TV producer,' a spouse who 'works in TV,' a television camera operator, a live-production camera operator — and not one attaches a rate, a schedule, or a working condition, so the entry stands on occupational plausibility rather than any actual testimony about pay.

How commenters used it: The detail that surfaces here is business model, not pay: asked directly whether this means coaching, the operator clarifies it's mostly after-school online camps run through Discord and Twitch, with in-person coaching folded in only occasionally rather than being the main product.

What readers reported: Mainly after-school online camps via discord/twitch. A little coaching here and there.

How commenters used it: One answer here is just the job title; the charter owner alongside it immediately complicates the headline number by noting that high revenue and high overhead in this business arrive as a package deal, not a windfall.

What readers reported: Own a fishing charter. Income is high, but expenses are also high.

How commenters used it: This entry rests on a single two-word answer, 'Audiobook narrator,' with no rate, project length, or per-finished-hour detail attached, so it reads as a plausible fit for the $500 premise rather than a demonstrated one.

How commenters used it: The entire testimony for this role is two words, 'Pull focus,' on-set shorthand for the job itself, offered without any day rate or union scale attached to test against the figure this whole list is organized around.

How commenters used it: Like several one-line entries in this batch, the only evidence is the job title itself, with the commenter stopping short of naming a fee, a circuit, or even a single booking to back it up.

How commenters used it: Rather than naming a job title, this commenter describes the actual output — the behind-the-scenes 'making of' featurettes bundled onto DVD and Blu-ray releases — which makes it a more concrete claim about the work itself than most other single-record answers here, even without a dollar figure attached.

What readers reported: you know those behind-the-scenes and “making of” documentaries that come with movies on dvd and bluray? i make those.

How commenters used it: The one account here breaks the day rate into its real pieces: $600-700 on a busy day plus a 1.5x weekend bump, all earned as a freelancer whose commercial-production workload swings between overbooked and dry spells.

What readers reported: I charge anywhere between 600-700/day, and a weekend rate (1.5x)

Limit: I am freelance, so it can be a bit feast or famine, especially these days.

How commenters used it: Twelve years into guiding a genuinely difficult, dangerous stretch of river, this commenter's average day — $550 including tips — only holds up because of that seniority and the river's difficulty; even so the season caps out around twenty trips, which is why they say they still keep another job.

What readers reported: After 12 years of summer guiding work on different rivers, I average about $550 a day including tips at my current gig.

Limit: the pay is poor and the work is inconsistent until you have considerable experience. Basically everyone either has another job or lives in their vehicle.

How commenters used it: This instructor is explicit that the number people want to hear — close to $1,200 in a single day — is a best-case outlier that shows up once or twice a season, not a representative workday.

What readers reported: Most I made in one day was close to $1200

Limit: That's not an average day though... you get one or two of those in a season.

How commenters used it: The single line of testimony adds just one qualifier beyond the bare title — 'on films,' distinguishing this from VFX work for TV or commercials — but nothing on rate or schedule that would let readers test it against the $500 figure.

What readers reported: VFX Producer on films

How commenters used it: This lone reply distinguishes itself from the touring and live-event audio engineers elsewhere in the batch only by its "corporate" qualifier, with nothing further volunteered.

How commenters used it: This umbrella title covers several distinct sub-roles, screen management, LED engineering, camera switching, each commanding a somewhat different rate within the same $700-1,100 band depending on client and position.

What readers reported: Can make anywhere from $700-$1100 a day depending on the client and position.

How commenters used it: This engineer describes a uniquely narrow trap: mastering post-production software so obscure that troubleshooting videos barely exist online, inside an industry, media, that this commenter believes is actively sinking around them.

Limit: The media industry is fucked and sinking and I specialized myself into a corner.

How commenters used it: A self-identified roadie lays out actual touring day rates split by role, putting stage manager pay above carpenter pay on the same crew, which is more granular than most job-title-only entries in this set.

What readers reported: Roadie. Current stage manager rate is $640. Carp its 525.

How commenters used it: Broadcast replay operating pairs a solid day rate with a structural catch shared across sports broadcasting: nearly everyone doing this work is freelance rather than staff.

What readers reported: $650-700 a day

Limit: most people in my industry are freelance.

How commenters used it: AV and live-event production pay reads high per day, but nearly every commenter attaches a punishing schedule to it — 15 to 20-hour days and one 26-hour shift — rather than describing it as easy money.

What readers reported: I'm a union sound mixer for TV and Movies. Make about $900 a day for labor and gear rental.

Limit: There are no requirements or skills needed to get into this type of work beyond being a workaholic psychopath that is cool with working 60 hours in a three day span and having zero stability whatsoever when it comes to your schedule.

How commenters used it: Stagehand pay comes from overtime stacking, like double time after midnight and 18-hour call days, rather than a high base rate, and the entry-path comment makes clear those days are gated behind years of building union seniority first.

What readers reported: Stagehand. Concert load ins, load outs, OT after 8 hrs, great rates, 2x pay after midnight in some locations, corporate summit stage builds, theater work. Ive made more than 1k in a day, but 500 is quite common.

Limit: Getting in is easy, but with over 3k people it is hard to get regular work for a few years... A lot of people also petition non-union labor in the corporate AV industry to make ends meet in the lean season.

How commenters used it: Production sound recording is described as a stack of separate payments, an hourly rate, kit rental fees, and travel pay, rather than one flat number.

What readers reported: Hourly + kit rental. Throw a little travel pay in there.

How commenters used it: Servers and bartenders here consistently tie the number to venue and volume — fine dining, resort bars, and packed weekend sections produce it reliably, while weekday shifts are described as hit-or-miss.

What readers reported: I work as a server in the wealthiest neighborhood in Texas and last year including cash tips I made $125,000.

Limit: serving/bartending jobs will get you there on nights you work in some spots. Will you pick up extremely bad habits and a terrible sleep schedule? That's up to you!

How commenters used it: The notary thread turns into a genuine debate over whether the figure is honest — one commenter calls fee-charging notaries "morally bankrupt," while working notaries counter that the money comes from travel, coordination, and liability rather than the stamp, and that state fee caps as low as $2 in New York explain why the number is impossible in some places.

What readers reported: I've specialized in real estate closings in the SF Bay Area for about 10 years and average around $200k a year.

Limit: A lot of notaries who complain about no work rely on signing services that keep a huge cut, around 50% of total fees.

How commenters used it: Elevator mechanic comes up so often as a one-word answer that it reads as a known-good union trade, and the one commenter who elaborated backs that up with a six-figure salary plus rental income funding an early retirement plan.

What readers reported: elevator mechanic. I make about 180k a year.

How commenters used it: Independent handymen quote day rates in a tight $400-plus band no matter how they structure billing — hourly with minimums, flat day rates, per-job pricing — but several undercut their own numbers by describing how much taxes, insurance, and gas eat before it becomes real take-home.

What readers reported: I have a small handyman company. Just me. I charge between $500 - $550/day. Carpentry, drywall, paint, odd jobs and pretty much any smallish home repairs you can think of

Limit: I don't go out of the house for less than $125 an hour, $1,000 per day. After taxes, insurance and gas I keep about half that.

How commenters used it: Tile and flooring installers who gave detail point to specialization in custom showers specifically and long apprenticeships as what pushes day rates toward four figures, with one walking through exactly how much of an $800 gross day taxes take before it nets out to $500.

What readers reported: Residential tile installer. I specialize in custom showers. 25 years experience i make about $1k a day

Limit: If I make 800 240 goes to Uncle Sam so I have to make 800 to take home 500. It's up and down some months I make 20 k and some 10 k.

How commenters used it: Ecommerce reselling answers are the most explicit in this category about the gap between gross sales and real income — the livestream seller subtracts platform fees and cost of goods before quoting a figure, and the Etsy seller flags going solo means no benefits at all.

What readers reported: When I do a whatnot show selling stuff my best day is $1,100 in 3hrs or $950 after fees and cogs.

Limit: I did when I had an Etsy selling 3d prints. thats self employed though so no benefits and no paid time off or anything. I kept my day job.

How commenters used it: Auto detailing answers make a point of the low barrier to entry — no college, started by washing cars — while still landing at $700 to $860 a day once volume, and in one case a helper, gets added into the mix.

What readers reported: Autobody painter. No college education, started out washing cars. Last week averaged $860ish a day after paying my helper.

How commenters used it: The only real data point in this thread is a flat hourly rate, and the replies underneath are just other commenters asking what the job title even means.

What readers reported: I earn about $76/hr. I work for an ISP.

How commenters used it: The union carpenter here is the most direct about paycheck versus package: the day-rate math implies a solid figure, but pension and insurance contributions mean the actual check lands well below it.

Limit: union carpenter, but i don't see anywhere near that on my check. most of its in pension and insurance

How commenters used it: Couch and carpet cleaning here is purely a job-count math problem — three couches clears $600, a fourth job pushes past $1,000 — with the only follow-up being a curious question about which machine gets used.

What readers reported: Couch cleaning. 3 couches a day, $600 per day. Sometimes I do $1000 a day with 4 jobs

How commenters used it: The car buyer's pay is described as wildly variable day to day, as low as $150 and as high as $1,200, with only the average landing near $600.

What readers reported: I buy cars for a dealer. Paid per car. Some days i make 150 some days i make 1200... it averaged out to about 600 a day.

Limit: Bit of a slow payroll

How commenters used it: This title covers people whose value comes from being nearly irreplaceable — one describes being literally one of two people in a global company trusted with a specific infrastructure system — and that same specialist admits the flip side is genuine anxiety about what comes next if the role disappears.

What readers reported: I am one of two people in a very large, global company who has the knowledge and trust to manage a specific type of very valuable critical infrastructure.

Limit: The downside to that is if I'm ever laid off or fired I genuinely have no idea what I'm going to do for a career.

How commenters used it: The industrial-materials reseller story is a genuine arbitrage play — free bulk bags rescued from one company's trash resold for $4 apiece to others — specific enough that the only reply is someone asking what a super sack even is.

What readers reported: he picks them up then sells them for $4 each to company BC&D he gets about 100+ bags per day There are weeks where he has more demand than supply

How commenters used it: Pipeline laborer pay breaks down into wages plus a separate benefits rate plus a live-out allowance, with both commenters careful to note how much of the total is overtime and per diem rather than straight hourly pay.

What readers reported: Laborer on the pipeline. $52/hour in wages + $35/hour on benefits. $78/hour OT. We're working six ten hour days

How commenters used it: The DJ answer is the most extensive rebuttal in this whole category to its own premise — they average the figure per event worked but says the wild month-to-month swings, from $7k summer months down to $1,000 in February, mean the real annual total is closer to $15k net once gear, gas, and wardrobe are subtracted.

What readers reported: I am currently averaging $500 per day / per event that I work

Limit: That is barely enough to survive in a major city (Chicago)... I probably netted $15,000 this year. So no, this is not a lucrative job, not a cool job and not a fair or profitable job.

How commenters used it: Modeling is one of the few titles here where the person doing it directly undercuts the premise, saying the work barely breaks even on living expenses because gigs aren't constant.

Limit: Not really all that great, it's not constant work, only paying when I have gigs. It only barely breaks even on living expenses usually.

How commenters used it: Like the union carpenter entry, this sheet-metal worker breaks down total package versus take-home pay, and the reply adds a pointed cynicism about unions advertising benefits that are really funded by the worker's own deductions.

What readers reported: Union sheet metal worker, $72/hr total package, only get like $48/hr on check

Limit: Don't you love how the union boasts about having the best benefits when really after deductions and dues they're just paying for the benefits with your own money.

How commenters used it: The lone asphalt-laborer comment frames the pay less around the rate itself and more around a learning curve, saying once they got the hang of the physical work it became straightforward.

What readers reported: Once I got the hang of how to do the work it became pretty easy.

How commenters used it: The hydro-excavation operator ties their roughly $50-an-hour rate directly to a seasonal 12-hour-day schedule that only runs through summer, rather than year-round steady work.

What readers reported: I clean shit pipes and make 50/hr roughly

Limit: we pretty much only work 12 hour days in the summer

How commenters used it: This automotive product specialist is careful to distinguish the role from sales entirely, describing the job as explaining cars at shows rather than closing deals or working commission.

How commenters used it: The blacksmith answer is really a small-business detail rather than a pay claim, describing a combined blacksmith-and-wagon-repair shop run in a town square with no dollar figure attached at all.

How commenters used it: The bricklayer only clears the figure on double-time Saturday shifts specifically, and says outright that's the only time in their schedule it happens.

What readers reported: $100.72/hour for 8

Limit: That's the only time I make it, double time.

How commenters used it: The canoe restorer's figure only holds up as a household total, combining antique canoe restoration with a spouse's Instagram candle business into roughly $400k a year rather than from either income alone.

What readers reported: Together we make about $400k a year.

How commenters used it: Court reporter is another single-word answer in this set, with no elaboration on rate, caseload, or how often the headline figure actually applies.

How commenters used it: The custom car builder describes the work by its variety and difficulty rather than its pay — welding, FRP fabrication, and engineering across odd-hour, complicated projects — without ever stating a rate.

How commenters used it: This log-home builder likewise describes a craft specialty, oak log homes and custom woodwork, with no pay figure attached at all.

How commenters used it: The customer-success answer frames the job's difficulty around timing rather than volume, saying the work stays manageable except when several clients hit the same filing deadline at once.

Limit: It's not normally bad unless a lot of clients have similar filing timelines.

How commenters used it: The dispatcher's only qualifier is a tax note, flagging that whatever number is implied is pre-tax and before deductions rather than real take-home.

Limit: 911 dispatcher (pre-tax/deductions)

How commenters used it: The finish carpenter lays out a general trades career arc, hourly employee first and then multiples more once self-employed, and calls their own day rate low-ish for the field despite the higher taxes and overhead of working solo.

What readers reported: I charge 520 per 8 hour day as a finish carpenter and that's a low-ish rate.

Limit: Taxes, overhead, etc, are higher on your own

How commenters used it: The furniture-delivery entry bundles two different tasks into one job, hauling deliveries and helping stage houses for sale, without a rate attached to either.

How commenters used it: The slot mathematician's own joking self-description — ‘the guy who rigs the game so you never win’ — covers design, modeling, and production code, with base pay sitting right around the benchmark before bonuses push it higher.

What readers reported: Base is just around here but averages much higher with bonuses and such.

How commenters used it: The industrial maintenance supervisor is explicit that they're optimizing for the number, saying a 10-hour shift lands just under $650 and admitting outright that they milk that arrangement.

What readers reported: 10 hours puts me right under $650, and I milk that cow.

How commenters used it: As a day job, maintenance supervisor gets described here mainly as the platform for a side handyman business rather than a source of steady income on its own, with the swings between big days and nothing coming from that side work.

What readers reported: I've made 2k a day

Limit: Only limitations are my fragile mortal body. I've made 2k a day and I've made 0 a day because of burnout.

How commenters used it: Petroleum landman appears only as an independent-contractor title here, without any pay or workload specifics given.

How commenters used it: The roadside produce vendor's real margin comes from add-ons sourced alongside the corn, sourdough, local honey, salsa, and tips, and they're upfront that it's a roughly 75-day weekend season with weekday income running about half of weekend income.

What readers reported: I found a way to profit off sourcing sourdough bread, local honey & salsa. +tips.

Limit: It's only on the weekends during the 75~ day season. During the week it's about half that.

How commenters used it: Steel-industry pay here is entirely overtime-dependent, with a $51-an-hour OT rate across a 10-hour shift producing the figure rather than a straight base rate.

What readers reported: any overtime day is $51 a hr. I work 10hr shifts so $500 a day

How commenters used it: Traffic control is another single-phrase job title in this set without any pay context attached whatsoever.

How commenters used it: Translation and interpretation appears as a bare title as well, with no rate or workload detail given by the commenter.

How commenters used it: Union rep is a two-word answer here with nothing further about pay or day-to-day duties.

How commenters used it: The UN staffer's notable detail isn't the salary itself but that it's tax-free, which they flag as a distinct perk of the position.

What readers reported: Senior staff at the United Nations. And its tax-free too!

How commenters used it: The wallpaper installer's figure is the highest flat day-rate claim in this entire category at $2,000, stated with no further qualification.

What readers reported: I make $2k a day installing wallpaper

How commenters used it: The watchmaker comment emphasizes specialization in specific brand movements rather than giving any pay figure at all.

How commenters used it: Window and door installation is presented as a wide range rather than a single figure, spanning from $350 up to $1,200 depending on the day.

What readers reported: Can make anywhere from $350 to $1200 a day

How commenters used it: This fit model describes a genuinely contained schedule — four days a week, roughly five hours a day — working directly with brand fit technicians to try on samples before they reach production, a specialty answer that stands apart from the trades and shift-work entries dominating this category.

What readers reported: Clients hire me to work internally with fit techs to try on samples all day and get the fit right for said brand before the samples reach the production stage.

How commenters used it: Wedding hair and makeup appears here as a bare job description, offering no pricing or booking detail to explain how a single day reaches that figure.

How commenters used it: Both veterinarians who answered immediately attach the same caveat to their title — six-figure student debt they say makes the job far less lucrative than the raw day rate implies.

Limit: Veterinarian (small animal GP) but I have so much student debt so not as lucrative as some others commenting!

How commenters used it: Hairdressers and barbers dominate this entry, and their accounts span from '$500 is a slow day' for established self-employed stylists to specific per-service math like $85 cuts plus $15-20 tips, with several describing niches in bridal, curly-hair, or color and extension work that push averages toward $800-1000 a day.

What readers reported: Self employed hair stylist with 12 years behind the chair. I average $600-$1000 a day depending on services and how many hours I decide to work.

Limit: One barber is explicit about the tradeoff: 'average around 100 an hour. No benefits or pto,' and several others mention working only 3-4 days a week with unpaid time off.

How commenters used it: Private-chef pay in these comments depends heavily on the setting: a luxury-hotel task-force chef nets roughly $350 a day plus lodging and a meal stipend, an executive chef lands right at $500, and one commenter clears $1200 a day, with the spread explained by client load and whether the work is contracted or freelance.

What readers reported: Private chef. $1200 a day minimum

Limit: One commenter notes the work only fills 2-4 days a week, depending on how many clients they have at once and the time of year, while a separate commenter describes private-chef work as a side gig on top of a salaried job, billed at $75/hour rather than a flat day rate.

How commenters used it: The farrier reply chain barely touches pay at all, turning instead into a conversation about the job's physical toll, with the original poster admitting they cut way back after almost thirty years because of back problems.

Limit: A second commenter reinforces this, saying just watching farriers work online 'gives me lower back spasms,' underscoring the bodily wear behind the day rate.

How commenters used it: Groomers in this entry frame $500 as a busy-day outcome rather than a routine one, covering both dog and cat clients, with one self-employed groomer noting they can still finish inside a six-hour shift.

What readers reported: Cat groomer 6 hour days

Limit: One groomer ties the figure directly to volume: 'If I'm having a busy day- dog grooming,' suggesting $500 is closer to a ceiling than an average day.

How commenters used it: Nanny pay here splits sharply by shift: one commenter earning $360 for an 8-hour day of childcare and chores falls well short of $500, while another says only their night shifts clear it, pointing to overnight work as the real driver of the higher number.

What readers reported: Nannying! My night shifts are over $500.

Limit: The daytime rate reported — $360 for 8 hours caring for a 4-year-old — lands well under the $500 figure the category is built around.

How commenters used it: Tutors and instructors here price by the hour rather than the day, with two private tutors quoting $60-200 and $100 per hour respectively, while a private guitar teacher with a full schedule and waiting list says the money is almost secondary to how much they enjoy the work.

What readers reported: Private guitar teacher with a full schedule and a waiting list. And in addition to the lucrative pay, I love it so much I barely feel like I'm working.

How commenters used it: The lone blackjack dealer in this entry frames $500 as a long-run average rather than a daily guarantee.

What readers reported: average $500 a day dealing Blackjack

Limit: They qualify it themselves — 'Not everyday' — pointing to real day-to-day variance in tips and table assignments.

How commenters used it: The only commercial baker in this entry names the product line, donuts and bread, but gives no dollar figure at all, leaving the $500 claim entirely unsupported by their own words.

How commenters used it: This electrologist describes income scaling directly with hours worked as a newly licensed practitioner who came to the field at 40 without a college background, with short client days bringing in around $300 and full 6-8 hour days reaching $700-1000.

What readers reported: On my 6-8 hour days I can make anywhere from $700-$1000

Limit: On lighter days with only 1.5 hours of hands-on client time, they say 'I'm only going to make around $300,' well short of the $500 mark.

How commenters used it: The single golf-course-superintendent comment identifies the role and setting, a private club, but stops there, offering no pay figure or context to support the $500 claim.

How commenters used it: A professional poker player measures success not in daily totals but in a $150-an-hour win rate sustained over seven years, explicitly noting that $500 doesn't land in the bankroll every single day.

What readers reported: have a win rate of $150/hr over the last 7 years

Limit: They state upfront that 'I don't earn $500 every day,' consistent with the swings inherent to poker.

How commenters used it: The trading-card grader's only comment names a specific niche, regrading Pokemon cards, without attaching any figures, leaving this among the thinnest entries in the category.

How commenters used it: The valet attendant's entire contribution is one lighthearted line about parking cars, with nothing offered on pay or hours to explain how the role reaches $500 a day.

How commenters used it: Dog walking and home boarding hit the figure through stacking services — multiple dogs per pack, boarding layered on top of walks, brand deals on top of a kennel — but the most experienced commenter warns the pace isn't sustainable without help.

What readers reported: Dog walker! Two packs of 8-10 dogs at day at $35 per dog. Also do training and pet sitting on weekends so I probably make close to 800.00 a day.

Limit: It was a hell of a lot of work and it's not the sort of thing that's sustainable, unless you have help or just really love spending nearly every minute of the day in the company of dogs

How commenters used it: The self-described professional gambler undercuts their own title immediately, since the real day job is local truck driving, and they explicitly call gambling not advisable even while saying it out-earns their paycheck.

What readers reported: I make good money at work, but even better money at gambling

Limit: Not advisable, but you asked. Local Truck Driver otherwise.

How commenters used it: Usability testing here is described narrowly by client type, website testing for a major insurance company, without any pay figure attached.

How commenters used it: Commenters describing this work range from a geophysicist parsing seismic data to a construction-site advisor, with quoted day rates spanning roughly $500 to $1,450 depending on niche and client; one respondent deliberately caps earnings at $50k a year despite a $500+ daily rate because free time matters more than the extra income.

What readers reported: Consulting helped me buy my first new car, my house and ultimately land a full-time corporate gig with a much higher salary.

Limit: consulting is basically just telling rich people what they already want to hear but with powerpoints and a 400% markup, i did it for three years and my soul left my body somewhere around month fourteen

How commenters used it: Tenure varies more than a single pattern would suggest: two architects here cite 20+ years of experience, but the single highest figure in the group — about $2,000 a day for residential architecture — comes from a commenter who states no tenure at all. Among those who do elaborate, the top earners tend to bill by the job rather than the hour: one claims a $600 pole-barn drawing finished in a single hour, another nets $600-800 a day working part time in semi-retirement.

What readers reported: My record was drafting a $600 pole barn in one hour

How commenters used it: Titles here shift with the technology cycle — Solution Architect, Network/Cloud Architect, and now Enterprise AI Architect after one commenter says AI rolled into the software world — yet the underlying account is the same: strong pay for a schedule that's mostly meetings and strategy rather than hands-on hours.

What readers reported: Love my job and money is awesome. Moreover I "work" just 2-3 hours a day.

How commenters used it: Getting into semiconductor consulting takes real specialization — a retiree grossed $1,280 a day plus expenses advising chip companies on acquisitions, while a current application engineer describes the role as half science and half sales, running their own schedule with nobody checking when they arrive or leave.

What readers reported: I was grossing $1280/day plus expenses consulting for chip companies and advising them on new products and acquisitions.

Limit: Not a job you can get without a good bit of education, experience, and most of all, a reputation for rock-solid delivery.

How commenters used it: The one commenter who names a figure took five years of freelancing to reach $200-250K a year, and even then describes weeks that swing between 30 and 60 hours rather than settling into a steady schedule.

What readers reported: I make $200-$250K/year in USD. Took 5 years to get to this point though.

Limit: Some weeks are 30 hours a week, some are 60.

How commenters used it: A reader asking how to break into research compliance got a blunt answer instead of a shortcut: two years and roughly 2,000 job applications, even backed by a PhD and a decade of experience.

Limit: I applied for 2000 jobs over the course of 2 years. I have a PhD and 10 years of experience.

How commenters used it: One nearly three-decade career arc goes from $250 a day in the late '90s to roughly $1k a day by retirement, but the same commenter is candid that the stress got bad enough to need sleep and anxiety medication, and that colleagues quietly went through the same thing.

What readers reported: Product/UX Designer. I work at home and make $600+ a day not including my annual bonus.

Limit: the anxiety was so bad I was drinking myself to death and unable to sleep - eventually went on Ambien and an SSRI and tranquilizers to deal with it

How commenters used it: One reply pushes back on the stereotype of tech support as basic helpdesk work, describing genuinely complex B2B troubleshooting instead; the other, an on-site comms technician, flags that pay gets broken up by unpaid dead time between calls.

What readers reported: It's pretty complex tech support, not really "turn it off and back on again" tech support.

Limit: Plenty of dead time between, so it's not a consistent rate.

How commenters used it: The contrast inside this small pair is stark: one commenter recalls billing up to $1,200 a day as an interim R&D manager, while the other, who used to earn the same figure, now describes being unable to find any work at all.

What readers reported: Head of R&D. Currently as employee at roughly 700 or so. In the past, also as interim manager with 1200 / day.

Limit: When I used to make that I worked in R&D now I'm just a loser that can't find work

How commenters used it: Neither reply elaborates on rate or workload — one says simply 'environmental scientist' and the other cites 30 years in environmental consulting with a master's degree, suggesting long tenure is what the field rewards rather than any shortcut.

How commenters used it: One reply describes advising manufacturers on operations and CAPEX projects directly, while the other only clears the $500-a-day bar after dividing a salaried job's pay and bonus across all 365 calendar days — a reminder that not everyone quoting a day rate is actually paid by the day.

What readers reported: I consult for manufacturing and supply chain companies on how to improve operations and some CAPEX projects.

Limit: My pre-tax salary + typical bonus (divided by 365 calendar days) just baaarely meets your threshold.

How commenters used it: Neither response goes beyond naming the field itself, so unlike most other entries in this subcategory there's no rate, client type, or workload detail attached to 'waste management consultant' here.

How commenters used it: The single detailed reply frames crisis communications as high-paying but grinding work: strong money if you're skilled, yet constant client-hunting and a roster of clients everyone dislikes make casual small talk about the job genuinely awkward.

What readers reported: If you're good, the pay is great.

Limit: But hustling to find clients is hard. Well and by nature of the work, you work almost exclusively for companies/entities that everyone hates

How commenters used it: This entry stacks three separate income streams into a single identity — AI consultant, radio personality, and SaaS owner — rather than describing one job tied to one rate.

How commenters used it: Reaching a $720-a-day rate here took eleven years in college to earn a computer-science PhD, and the commenter notes the university research center's schedule includes 47 paid days off, cutting the actual work year down to about 42 weeks.

What readers reported: get 47 paid days off a year, so only work about 42 weeks out of the year

Limit: Spent 11 years in college to get a PhD in computer science to qualify for the job.

How commenters used it: 'College consultant' is the entirety of what this reply offers, leaving the actual clients, rate, and admissions specialty unspecified.

How commenters used it: This entry is a bare two-word job title with no elaboration on what compensation consulting pays or who it's performed for.

How commenters used it: Rather than billing clients directly, this commenter sits a layer above the client work itself, describing the job only as overseeing a team of consultants.

How commenters used it: This reply gets specific about the actual deliverable: implementing the tracking systems large companies use to tie website, app, and offline purchase data together into one customer view.

What readers reported: I'm the guy that works with big companies to help them plan and implement the technologies used to track what people buy on there Web sites, mobile apps and integrating that with customer and offline data.

How commenters used it: This is a narrow compliance-advisory niche — translating federal and state employment-tax rules for employers who are hiring staff and running payroll — rather than general tax preparation.

What readers reported: I explain the US federal and state employment tax considerations when engaging employees and paying wages.

How commenters used it: Working as a GTM systems architect inside a fast-paced startup means genuinely intense hours by this commenter's account, but they also say pay scales directly with skill, and they're already eyeing a move into consultancy next.

What readers reported: pay scales well with skill so the better you get the more you can earn

Limit: The hours can be really intense

How commenters used it: This commenter ties job security explicitly to a client's infrastructure lifecycle: steady architecture-consulting work and great money as long as a company is still on a normal enterprise refresh cycle, but a signal to move on once everything is already built and working.

What readers reported: There's always work and money is great.

Limit: if your company is 'everything built and working, no need you no more' it is a sign to find another company

How commenters used it: This is a personal-service niche built around avoiding a dealership rather than a corporate consulting engagement — clients pay a fee specifically to skip negotiating themselves, and the commenter claims the discount secured usually covers that fee and then some.

What readers reported: I can almost always score a way bigger discount that offsets the fee and then some.

How commenters used it: Pipeline corrosion control is about as specific as this subcategory gets, and the one commenter attaches a concrete number to it: roughly $590 net per day.

What readers reported: Pipeline consulting, corrosion control mostly. I net about $590/day

How commenters used it: 'Consulting on niche regulations' implies a narrow specialty rather than broad compliance work, though the comment doesn't name which regulations or industry.

How commenters used it: This entry merges two adjacent writing disciplines into one job title, UX and technical writing, without further detail on employer or rate.

How commenters used it: This describes an extreme institutional-knowledge premium: veteran consultants working half-time into their eighties, by the commenter's account not fully all there mentally anymore, still paid handsomely because replacing decades of undocumented program history costs even more.

What readers reported: Consulting half time at 80, making a half million a year.

Limit: It's clear they aren't all mentally there.

How commenters used it: The one comment behind this entry describes a mostly remote healthcare-IT role setting up pharmacy EMRs for hospital systems, with onsite travel reserved for quarterly go-lives and hardware inspections rather than daily commuting.

What readers reported: Mostly WFH, usually quarterly onsite travel for go-lives, hardware inspection, etc.

How commenters used it: One systems engineer traces a full career arc — from a $50,000 starting engineering salary eighteen years ago to $200,000 running medical-device R&D fully remote today — arriving at the number only after twenty-plus years of progression.

What readers reported: Principal Systems Engineer in Medical Device R&D. ~$200K USD/annually, 100% Remote

Limit: it took 20+ years to get here. For comparison, my first real engineering job was 18 years ago and started at $50K.

How commenters used it: Analytics and BI commenters describe backing into this career from unrelated degrees and no formal certifications, building dashboards and translating spreadsheets into decisions, while agreeing that the entry-level rung is the hardest part of the whole path.

What readers reported: I get to play with Excel, create dashboards in PowerBI, and essentially get to figure out how to make my company view data more efficiently... I love it!

Limit: No certifications. Started working with data and continued in all the jobs I had... Entry level is the hardest job to get.

How commenters used it: This business-technology liaison boils the entire role down to translation work: spending the day on the phone turning business-side requirements into something the tech team can act on.

What readers reported: I talk on the phone all day. I give the business side requirements to the tech team.

How commenters used it: Information-security commenters split sharply by employer: one recalls a colleague poached from overseas at AU$500 an hour while the commenter's own rate at the time was just $30, and another jokes about infosec work at an agency that reportedly paid nowhere near $500 a day.

What readers reported: one of my colleagues was on AU$500 an hour. He was an IT security specialist the company had enticed away from an overseas position.

Limit: I wasn't making anywhere close to $500 a day at the agency.

How commenters used it: ERP specialists explain the pay as a scarcity premium — few people combine a decade of back-end experience across IT, manufacturing, accounting, and training the way this role requires — and one consultant only discovered they were clearing the figure after actually doing the math on their invoices.

What readers reported: Not a ton of people in the field... Not a ton of people who have 10+ years of experience on the back ends of these systems... So essentially I spent years honing my skills killing all kinds of slimes, and now the world needs slime specialist

How commenters used it: Application-analyst pay sits just under the benchmark on a fixed hospital contract here, while the second commenter's description of negotiating between business demands and what developers will actually build explains why the role commands that rate at all.

What readers reported: I'm not quite there, but I make around $460/day... I'm on a two year contract with a large hospital making 120k/year.

How commenters used it: Desktop support pay in this comment is driven almost entirely by the employer, not the job title, with the same IT-support role at a hedge fund described as clearing nearly double the benchmark figure.

What readers reported: way more than that as desktop support ata hedge fund, think like nearly double

How commenters used it: The PACS administrator spends most of the comment explaining the hybrid nature of the job, clinical IT admin mixed with project management across radiology and cardiology departments, and closes on a bittersweet note about missing the clinical users despite having left the role.

Limit: Thankfully I don't work there anymore but I do miss my clinical users.

How commenters used it: The penetration tester's figure comes in well above the category's benchmark, more than double $500, stated as a flat day rate with no further detail.

What readers reported: $1200 a day penetration tester

How commenters used it: Software engineers here spend more energy relitigating process (Agile relabeled as SAFe, then quietly re-becoming waterfall) than discussing the pay itself, with burnout and layoff anxiety surfacing even from people well past six figures.

What readers reported: I make about $1.3k per work day as a software engineer... when I first started out of college I still made about $540.

Limit: I'm literally always stressed out that I'm going to get laid off. It's been in the back of my mind for months now.

How commenters used it: One solo developer's steady $400-600 a day only arrived after fourteen unpaid years, and most of the thread's energy goes into unpacking what that timeline actually cost rather than celebrating the number.

What readers reported: generates about $400 a day (after Steam's cut)

Limit: 14 years is a long time making very little money... you have no benefits or 401k like a regular job.

How commenters used it: People land in program management from wildly different starting points here, teaching, millwrighting, straight engineering, yet describe the same shift once they arrive: physical or technical stress traded for a desk's worth of headaches.

What readers reported: 1. Work in technology 2. Work in a large city 3. Get a certification 4. Get 10 years of experience doing that 5. Don't burn any bridges.

Limit: I make that managing construction projects…but it's insanely stressful and truthfully not worth the non stop headaches others cause you on a daily basis.

How commenters used it: Nearly identical cybersecurity titles land at very different pay depending on structure alone, staff engineer, sales-hybrid, or freelancer, with one freelancer flagging how much of that headline day rate quietly disappears around sick days and admin time.

What readers reported: Cybersecurity sales engineer. Work maybe 25 hours a week on average and earn a commission/RSU's on top of salary. Roughly 200k yearly.

Limit: The per-day pay for freelancers is amazing. But you get no pay if you're sick, on holiday, doing the paperwork... always divide it by at least two.

How commenters used it: Management is where the real money in this batch actually lives, an Amazon EM near $500 an hour, a laid-off director who'd cleared $1,500 a day, yet the promotion buys meetings and layoff exposure right alongside the raise.

What readers reported: just shy of $500 per hour. Senior Software Engineering Manager at Amazon... overseeing a team of about 80 people.

Limit: I was an engineering manager at a large multinational enterprise. Made > $1,500/day. Until I got laid off. Now in a startup.

How commenters used it: Sysadmin pay here tends to be solid but unspectacular even after decades on the job, and it's a thirty-year veteran, not a newcomer, who ends up warning others away from entering the field at all.

What readers reported: Computer tech support for small businesses is the main gig. I bill at $150 per hour.

Limit: I've been in IT for 30 years... I'd advise against anyone going into IT at this point. I'm still in it only because I don't have another skill.

How commenters used it: Going independent reliably pushes day rates above the $500 mark, several land at $800-1000+, but one consultant admits the actual leverage has flipped: clients now use experts to rubber-stamp AI plans their boards already decided on.

What readers reported: was a freelance it consultant.. ended up at roughly 1000 per day

Limit: Lately only getting on 'AI transformation' projects where we start by demonstrating to the clients their problems will [be] made worse with AI coding tools, and then proceed to do what their boards demand anyway.

How commenters used it: The AI-enablement consultant's actual job, per this thread, is unglamorous plumbing work, chasing clean data and cultural buy-in inside companies that won't accept even a short-term velocity hit to get there.

What readers reported: trying to help POs actually write AC in their tickets, convincing scrum masters to do releases more often than once every six months.

Limit: Transforming your entire enterprise from the ground up to support AI costs a lot of money and you have to have squeaky clean data and incredible engineering culture to do it.

How commenters used it: The one detailed founder account here explicitly chose retention and culture over maximum growth, six times below industry turnover, while a second, much shorter reply flags that founder income math conveniently skips the unpaid early years.

What readers reported: Our turnover rate [is] 6X lower than the industry average. I'm proud of that.

Limit: Entrepreneurship. It averages out to more than $500/day... if you conveniently ignore the first few years.

How commenters used it: A specific pattern recurs among these network engineers: build the infrastructure well enough that it runs itself, and management concludes they no longer need you, pushing several toward consulting work instead.

What readers reported: Snr Network Engineer No college degree rqd, but you need to pass certification exams. $150-$230k yr.

Limit: Same for Senior Network Engineer. Oh everything is running smoothly that you built, we don't need you anymore.

How commenters used it: One data-science leader flatly calls $500 a day low for the field, while another describes a full two decades, a decade of schooling plus a decade of grinding contract work, before finally escaping paycheck-to-paycheck living.

What readers reported: It took me a decade of schooling and another decade of grinding consulting and contract jobs before I got out of living paycheck to paycheck... hourly rate when I do consulting work is $400/hour.

Limit: If you are anywhere close to $500 a day, you're not being paid nearly market rates.

How commenters used it: Big tech comp shows up here alongside its own asterisks, one worker with hefty salary, bonus, and stock still can't afford to buy a home, while another walked away from double pay just to reclaim time.

What readers reported: Tech. I make just over $200k and live in the Midwest. I feel pretty fortunate.

Limit: The salaries, bonuses, and stock you receive are a lot... However, even with this pay, I cannot afford to own a house/apartment yet.

How commenters used it: A DevOps role that once paid $300k at an AppSec startup got hollowed out by a downturn, forcing its holder into a merged project-manager-plus-infrastructure job rather than a clean layoff.

What readers reported: $300k at an AppSec start up. ~$250k cash.

Limit: This was my dream job, until the whole economy thing happened and now I'm a project manager that also does the infra lmao.

How commenters used it: Pay in this group spans a shift worker clearing $490 on a 4-on-3-off schedule up to someone building data centers and running a personal brokerage account on the side, the latter explicitly noting they grew up without steady electricity or food.

What readers reported: I build data centers... anywhere between $650- a few thousand per day across all income sources depending on market returns... I grew up without any insurances, sometimes without electricity, and sometimes without food.

How commenters used it: Two principal-level voices land on the same complaint from different angles, the title pays well specifically for stepping away from hands-on coding into documentation and oversight, and AI tools are now eating what little hands-on time was left.

What readers reported: Sometimes I can't believe they pay me as much as they do to write documents and diagrams every day.

Limit: AI has been robbing me of all this lately.

How commenters used it: The top figure in this small group, $2,400 a day, belongs to someone who isn't purely a salesperson but stacks engineering, sales, consulting, and security skills into a single hybrid billing role.

What readers reported: I'm right at $2.4[k]/day, $12k/week. Software sales/consulting.

How commenters used it: A small, quirky detail carries this one: an ML team booking a conference room until 9pm to play Warhammer suggests some well-paid tech workers still socialize like the stereotype rather than grinding straight through.

What readers reported: Bunch of us will book a conference room till 9pm and play Warhammer at work. So plenty of highish earners are still big ol dorks.

How commenters used it: It's job-hopping, not tenure, that delivered the raises here, a physics graduate on their third semiconductor employer in thirteen years describes each move bringing a hefty salary bump.

What readers reported: B.S. in Physics and this is my 13th year out of college. I'm at my 3rd company and each move came with a hefty salary bump.

How commenters used it: One computer engineer's twenty-year path runs straight through hardware's biggest shifts, memory chips, then CPUs, then AI accelerators, describing sector-hopping within hardware rather than a single employer's ladder as the route to this pay.

What readers reported: Computer Engineering with Graduate Degree from top school. Memory company to CPU company to AI Chip company -- 20 years.

How commenters used it: A Copenhagen data engineer with a PhD notes the number barely stretches given local living costs, while a second argues data engineering is uniquely AI-resistant precisely because the data volumes involved are too costly for firms to just hand to a model.

What readers reported: Proving to be kind of the most AI-proofed (so far) part of the software engineering world, simply because we work with data that's at such a scale that it's not economically feasible for most firms to just feed it into an AI.

Limit: It's not even that much to be honest, life is really expensive here.

How commenters used it: A household comparison does the real work in this small group: a product owner clearing close to $1,000 a day still earns less than half what their corporate-litigation-attorney spouse brings home.

What readers reported: Marketing data science product owner for a large company. I'm close to a thousand a day.

Limit: My wife is a corporate litigation attorney (share holder actions) she's over double me.

How commenters used it: All three voices here reached engineering-executive titles through years of internal promotion rather than lateral hiring, including one who says outright they never finished a degree at all.

What readers reported: Software engineering VP. Worked my way up from an engineer to lead an org of 150 people.

How commenters used it: What stands out here isn't the $600-plus day rate but the tenure attached to it, seventeen years at the same staff position with explicitly no plans to leave before retirement.

What readers reported: $600+ a day plus extremely good benefits package as i'm staff not a contractor... Cushiest and best job I've ever had.

How commenters used it: This founder's pitch is that unglamorous, unloved data work pays: maintaining auto-parts cross-reference APIs that nobody wants to touch turned into a business other companies would rather pay for than build themselves.

What readers reported: Turns out 'boring infrastructure other companies depend on' is a solid way to clear that number.

How commenters used it: The detail worth noting is the degree mismatch: a mechanical-engineering graduate ended up titled as a senior design-automation engineer, working in a moderate-cost-of-living metro rather than a coastal hub.

What readers reported: My degree is in mechanical engineering, my current role is as a Sr Design Automation Engineer... in a MCOL metropolitan area.

How commenters used it: The figure cited, $16,000 in a single week, reads as a peak paycheck rather than a routine baseline, so treat it as a best-case snapshot of AI-annotation management pay, not a steady rate.

What readers reported: Ai data annotation and team management. Biggest standard paycheck so far was 16k/week.

How commenters used it: This single line is a job-search plea, not an income report, a senior AI research engineer publicly asking for help finding remote work, which says something about security in that specialty right now.

Limit: A senior AI research engineer here is job-hunting for help finding a remote position, not reporting steady pay.

How commenters used it: Despite a $155k salary that clears $500 a day with room to spare, this digital-forensics specialist calls their own pay grossly inadequate for the work and location.

What readers reported: I do cyber threat intelligence and incident response with a focus on digital forensics. I'm salaried... at 155k at my current location.

Limit: Grossly underpaid at 155k at my current location.

How commenters used it: No elaboration accompanies this one, the lone cybersecurity-architect voice in the batch offers only the title, with no figure or story attached.

How commenters used it: This VP treats crossing $130k a year as a milestone passed over a decade ago as an individual contributor, with today's mid-to-high six figures framed as a much later, separate threshold that stock performance still gates.

What readers reported: Passed the 130k/year mark over a decade ago as an independent contributor in cyber security doing architecture and then incident response.

Limit: Breaking into 7 figures will depend on company stock performance... bleh.

How commenters used it: Only a title is offered, senior data governance manager, with no figures or narrative to go alongside it.

How commenters used it: The single detail this database administrator volunteers is contractor status, suggesting the interesting part of their situation is employment structure, not a specific pay figure.

How commenters used it: This entry names the specialty precisely, designing Wi-Fi for enterprise clients, but attaches no pay figure or context to it, unlike the wider networking crowd surveyed elsewhere in this batch.

What readers reported: I design Wi-Fi for enterprises.

How commenters used it: A single sarcastic line stands in for this entire specialty, a principal firmware developer joking about not having any design methodology at all, in pointed contrast to the process fatigue voiced elsewhere in this category.

Limit: Imagine having a software design methodology :(

How commenters used it: This single record offers only a compressed title, OS, kernel, and hardware development bundled into one line, with no further elaboration.