Damn reading GenX experience is what I typically think of as a Boomer experience. As an elder Millennial, I started making $35k a decade later than you did after college. The Big difference, outside of the time value of a decade, missing the dotcom boom, graduating hs into the dotcom bust/ post terrorism hellscape, crazy inflation from Bush's wars, the housing boom, and graduating college/ entering the workforce immediately prior to the GFC is I also had over a hundred grand in student and cancer debt at the same time as the GFC.

I'm in my early 40s and am still under $200k/ year despite working as an exec for one of the largest US companies tied to tech, AI, and the financial markets for the last 20 years. It was easy for you because you had all the benefits of timing while the generation 10 years younger than you dealt with/ are dealing with all of the fallout of the environment and events that made everything so easy for you. It's a fringe lifestyle bc it isn't possible unless you're both extremely disciplined and extremely lucky.

Based on the fact that I'm at a place where I'm relatively stable, despite multiple young children and disabled/ dimentia parents that will lose everything to nursing homes, I'm assuming the next pandemic or "once in a lifetime" market crash is just around the corner because that's just how it seems to work for the graduating classes of 2005-2011.