Looking for some common pitfalls or “obvious” things you guys might have now given hindsight. For reference I am a single 25 year old man who grew up pretty poor. Got through college and worked my ass off, now my income has increased faster than I can know how to count and unfortunately I don’t have much by way of mentors around me to guide me on managing this. I thought I had the right idea early on but now that the figure has gone up so much I am somewhat panicked that I am going to mess something up. I haven’t told anyone in my life both to not make any relationships weird (not that I have many as I am pretty solitary) but also I don’t know how much they could offer as far as more knowledge - as I said I started off pretty poor and most people I know are not managing this sort of thing. Graduated in May 2024. Started engineering job with around 70k salary. Immediately started a consulting company for my web/data development hobby hoping to make extra cash. Saw a problem at my fulltime job company and pitched directly to the CEO (looking back this was kinda a crazy move and I had put my whole job on the line) they started me off on a small contract $45k. Quickly this grew and they wanted more, by end of 2025 my fulltime plus side gig was $170k. Long story short this kept growing and I also got promoted, my 2026 projected was $300k, from both fulltime and side business, I had cleared about $140k of that by May. About a month and half back (end of May ish) my girlfriend left me. It hurt but to be honest I saw it coming, she was going to graduate and move on, nothing tying her to the area, our relationship hadn’t been perfect from either side. I was very sad but having seen it miles away it really didn’t hit that hard, it was kind of more of a disappointment. I didn’t tell her that I was working on plan to grow my business since I didn’t want her staying just to get money off me, not to mention if I were with her it would have taken way longer to close as I wouldn’t have been able to work 24/7 on it like an animal. I was emotionally hurt very bad, the first weeks were awful and even getting up every day was tough but I fought through it and set myself goals I told myself I had to reach initially to stick it to the ex, but with time just to better my own life. The talks with these prospective clients were stressful as hell but distracted me well, I went back and forth for a month with both, early last week I closed the first and thought I was good, mission accomplished… but then I also got message from the second a few days later! They both signed AND immediately paid the $50k deposit price I had set to hold “space” for development early 2027… yeah I kinda made it seem I was more busy than I actually was. Anyway now my 2026 is set to be $400k ($260k cleared already) and my 2027 is set to be about $750k plus the now 3 clients for my business will be paying ~20k monthly recurring revenue total once I finish initial delivery. I am preparing to hire two people to help me handle things (mostly the monthly maintenance/hourly consulting request stuff) but to a huge degree the programming of the B2B saas product is already done. Also I am good at utilizing AI and eventually hope to set up agents to help as I grow the business further. I am basically just selling a core B2B saas product and making small tweaks/customizations for each client over the 3-6 month delivery period start of 2027, finishing up my current client by end of this year. Basically the money is almost pure profit, not to mention given it was only a month of hard work by mid 2027 I hope to be looking to secure more clients pushing that 750k even further up. What do I need to do to manage this properly? I figured it might be useful for other guys who find themselves in this sort of situation. Yes I know the basics like a tax advisor to optimize etc. I am tempted to buy some expensive stuff, but also afraid as I don’t know actually what level of income/wealth allows sustenance of these things. Also I am not sure who I should tell, if anyone? What would you guys say to any younger friend who is in this boat? I still have my fulltime job… that is $100k/yr and even though it takes tons of my time 40hrs a week, I like to keep it as it makes me feel safe… the big contract money almost feels fake right now, almost like a joke or dream of something, I like how my regular 9-5 engineering job feels “legit”? Sorry for long post, wanted to give context and have some discussion especially from anyone who had similar sudden change of circumstance in their life. Also sorry if this is not the right thread, I am reposting across a few to try and get responses. submitted by /u/RobertRKraken
Originally posted by u/RobertRKraken on r/AskMen
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