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Find out how much money you've made (in your entire life)

Article Table of Contents

This post went by on the Personal Finance subreddit today:

https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/

After creating an account / logging in, click on Earnings, then add the columns. If you have been working for many years, try copying/pasting the column in excel and using the sum function.

The numbers don’t list money not reported to the government, obviously. I don’t know if the numbers are before or after taxes.

You’ll come up with a number of how much you’ve earned in your lifetime. Reduce that by 25% to account for taxes.

This is your lifetime earnings, as reported to the Feds.

You might feel many emotions rolling through you as you see this number.

In response to these many emotions, read Your Money Or Your Life. This book will help you process those emotions.

(Also, with this number in hand, you’ll have done the hardest bit of homework in that book, which is “calculate life-time earnings”.)

Here’s the book again:

Your Money Or Your Life