While cleaning up a few days ago, I found an old pay statement from the summer of 2000. It was from the third week or so since I had started my job as a games tester at EA. I was making $10.50 an hour at the time. I got paid twice a month just like most of you. Each paycheque after taxes netted me a grand total of $647.94. I made about $1300 a month.
I knew that was low at the time, but I’m surprised at how little that mattered to me back then. I was still living at home at the time, so that helped. I wonder now at how my co-workers were able to pay for rent, food, clothes, and entertainment. Now that I think of it, I’m surprised that some of them even owned vehicles.
Here’s another crazy stat, I was able to save approximately $10 000 in the year and a half that I worked there. Mind you I was making about $12.50 an hour near the end and I got paid handsomely for my crazy overtime hours. Still, it was an impressive feat given my base salary didn’t go above $23 000 before taxes.
Heady times indeed.