I once rubbed a friend the wrong way when he said "maybe I'll just get out of tech, take a few years of courses and become an electrician or something like that. Make 100k and be happy with that... leave the computer behind."

My response was: "Fine plan but don't think you'll just go make 100k after a couple years of trade school and not have any stresses!"

A few people showed me I was wrong about that but we were also living in Alberta while oil was still strong. Had my friend taken this path he likely wouldn't have made 100k for long if at all (until he had much more experience).

Anyway, point being, it's hard to go make decent money even though we all meet people who seem to do so with what seems like little effort. Lots of folks say they make good money but their interpretation of "good money" might be much different than the yours.