That’s a fun grey area where you’re making a lot but not a lot. And the path to making more is paved with leverage, not with hours. You absolutely cannot get to the top 1% by just grinding away.
I can’t find the study right now, but I remember reading that “work for money” tops out at about $400k. The highest average income in USA goes to car wash owners.
And if you are grinding away then you might not have the energy and time to create the real opportunity to help yourself.
According to [2] a household needs to earn 570k. This is in line with [3] which claims a household needs to earn 590k. It's definitely feasible for a couple to earn that on salary alone.
[1] https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/ [2] https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/ [3] https://smartasset.com/data-studies/what-it-takes-to-be-in-t...
If your investments can afford your goals, then quit or scale back. Head over to Bogleheads forums where this situation is frequently addressed.
Is that an euphemism for money laundering (Breaking Bad) or make car wash owners really that much money?
The market is super fragmented and localized so it doesn’t really matter how many other successful car washes exist. People won’t drive too far out of their way just for a car wash. This puts a ceiling on competition.
Starting a car wash is a big but not huge investment. This also puts a ceiling on competition, but remains accessible to fairly regular people. Starting a car wash also doesn’t require any specialized knowledge.
And because the business is profitable, but not that profitable, it has (afaik) escaped the clutches of private equity consolidation. This keeps money in the hands of local owners thus improving average/median outcomes and keeping variance low.
$1M+/year? $4M+/yr? In profit? On average? And no big company has bought them all out?
I can’t remember the incantation to find the underlying paper they were talking about either. And as you noted, Google has become bad at this sort of thing because most people don’t want those sorts of results.