How Much I Made as a Tax Accountant vs. Trainer

I worked at one of the Big 4 public accounting companies for 8 years. I started as a summer intern during my junior year at NYU Stern, landing full-time with an annual salary of 59K at the end of the internship.

Every year my salary increased anywhere from 10-20% depending on my performance and promotions. I was promoted twice - to a senior associate and to a manager. I made around 162K in 2018, which was the final full-year I worked at the firm.

It was a great company to build your career at. Clients were sophisticated, we were managing and making ridiculous amounts of money as a group, I respected my bosses and my hard-working team. If I had stayed with the firm, I could’ve had a successful and lucrative career. But with all those good things comes sacrifice. I was working anywhere from 60-90hours for the good half of the year. Unable to disconnect completely from work even when I was on a vacation. Constantly worried and stressed about the fast-paced work environment. I was convincing myself, telling myself ‘You are thriving in this environment. Suck it up.’ When I really wasn’t.

In 2018 I took a 4-weeks vacation in Hawaii and during that trip I decided to quit my job. A few months later I did.

My first year (2020) as a personal trainer, I made 40K. Honestly more than I thought I could, considering it was the first year of COVID with a long lockdown in NYC. I made most of the money being an online trainer.

In 2021, I made 80K. That was a busy year. I was stoked.

In 2022, I wasn’t as busy, I made 52K.

This year I’ve been getting busier every month and am tracking to make around 80K again. Including some money from random modeling gigs and social media partnership.

NYC is a very transient city. I learned that being a trainer in this city requires constant hustling, retaining current clients and looking for new clients. People come and go all the time. People take long vacations. There are so many alternatives/options they can choose for their fitness. I’m somewhat easily disposable to them.

The best part of being a trainer is that I can work as hard as I want, but I also have total control over how much time to take off and when to take off. I think last year I was traveling for ~2 months when I combine all the little vacations I took.

When I think of how many hours I was working as an accountant, I’m probably making the same or more amount of money now, hourly. That’s wild to me. Of course, it would be extremely hard for me to make 10-20% more money every single year as a trainer (unlike how I could as an accountant) without venturing out to different sources of income (ex: writing for blogs/magazines, opening a gym, offering online courses/subscriptions, brand deals, etc.).

But… right now I am loving and comfortable with the flexibility and independence I have with my current workload.

Have you had a career change? What did your income change look like? How did it impact your lifestyle / sense of well-being?

#lemon8partner #salarytransparency #embracevulnerability

#corporategirl