Ain’t nothing wrong with making millions on top of millions. Some get offended by sports players making so much. Whenever I hear about some short stop who negotiated 3 million for the next season, I always think “Go for 4 or even 5 next season. get as much as you can.” Their salary has nothing to do with me. As in, if he made 20 thousand a year and not 3 million, it would not effect my life in the least, would take nothing away, so I say go for it. If you don’t, someone else will.
As far as a monthly salary? I’d say enough to pay all bills by the end of the month, not get into debt, and have enough saved up after 35 years so you could retire and not depend on Social Security or the like to keep you solvent for your retirement years. This number will vary depending on region you live, lifestyle, just good old plain spending habits, and how the economy as a whole is doing. Some would say 8k is excessive, but you couldn’t live in downtown Chicago on that amount, even if that is the after-tax and other deductions salary. Still, best you could do is after making that 96 thousand a year, which is really a high salary considering, is go for, say, 100 thousand the following year, which is just about a 5% raise. The following go for another 5% or so and don’t settle.
Oh, and how much I make or potentially would like to is a secret I’m taking to my grave. Nothing personal.