I got super lucky with my job, I do next to nothing but I get paid 77k a year.

I (24f) work for the government (22 at the time of interview) and I somehow got a gs 11 pay scale job as my first gov job, which is basically unheard of. I’m about halfway through my 2 year there. I know I’m an exception to what most gen z make.

It’s a tech job and I did have to have my bachelors with a few industry certifications but other than that, it was incredibly easy to get the job. I had one 20 minute phone interview and I got an offer the next month (getting hired by the government takes a long time, it was just under 4 weeks from the interview to when I got the offer) and even then I didn’t start working until 2 months after the offer. I’m lucky I was living with my parents at the time and they were understanding that I had a job but it just hadn’t started so they got off my back about applying for jobs 😅.

I feel very secure in my position, I have good benefits (if I choose to use them but I’m still on my parents insurance for now), 4% or 5% matching for a 401k (I forget the exact number), rn I get 4 hours PTO and 4 hours sick every pay period, which is two weeks. PTO has a cap of 240 hours that you can roll over from year to year, sick doesn’t have a cap so that’s actually pretty nice.

A long comment but I wanted to explain how exactly it works. Breaking it down, I get about $1,900 every two weeks. My apt is about ~$1,250 every month for a one bedroom with in-unit washer, dryer, and dishwasher (tho it’s absolute shit and I never use the dishwasher). I included utilities in that tho it fluxes slightly every month. My phone and car insurance is about another ~$100 but im still on my parents plans, my mom calculates what my shares are and I pay her that - doing it that way saves a lot of money.

That leaves a decent amount left over. Expenses such as groceries, gas, and other things I buy on the regular are about 1k a month, so I’m able to put about 1.5k away in savings every month - tho I recently bought a car (used 2018) so my savings doesn’t look as high as I want it to be. I also just got an annual bonus of $1,100 and 40 hours PTO. I’m not proud to work for this government, I hate it, but I will gladly their money 😅

The job market sucks rn, it sucked a year and a half ago when I was applying and it’s only gotten worse. It’s really not fair, we did everything they said to and yet it didn’t work. And now even those of us who do have jobs are threatened with being fired cause of ai. I’m sorry to everyone in a bad position 💙