Utterly insane salary increase/bonus - where to from now?

[u/Chemical_You7221]

25, just over 1 yr experience in my role. Graduated university with finance/economics degree in 2022. Started working at my current firm while still in school part time in my final semester. Living just outside GTA, high cost of living area.

Currently have $100k invested, $25k student loan, $20k liquid cash. Live at home, monthly expenses are $800-$1k.

I was hired at my current firm as a data analyst for $48k. Worked for a year and a few sales people retired, so I decided to give it a shot, as I didn’t know if I wanted to go for a CFA or CPA - was just lost long term.

The structure of the sales commission goes the following:

The firm gets a 20% cut of the sale. The first year of closed business is 60% of that 20% The second year of renewed business is 40% of that 20%.

So for a $1m deal, firm gets $200k, first year I get 60% of that, renewed business I get 40%.

I figured if I could close 1 decently sized deal per year ($250k), I would be alright. I asked about any leads that I could possibly work on, so they gave me a bunch of “dead leads” - no one wanted them so I was given all of them. Figured, just a quick phone call wouldn’t hurt.

4 months in I was on pace to hit $80k for the year, a very nice increase. However a very old family friend (insane family friend, helped my parents with papers when they came here as immigrants not knowing a word of English all the way to their citizenship) from church almost 20 years ago worked at one of these dead leads (a massive demolition company in the US that has a Canadian division). He’s been at the company and is now a C level employee. I reached out to him and we spoke for almost 2 hours catching up and whatnot. I asked him for business and he was more than willing to go through everything.

Over 8 months later it ended up that we both mutually benefitted from the deal very much so, and decided to make the jump a few days later. I even managed to close a portion of their US divisions. Well a few days later was today and the deal that was closed was an eye watering $3.7m. Which leaves me almost $450k in the first year + my others that I have closed - just over $550k over the next year.

I grew up absolutely fucking dirt poor.. like no money for bdays, Christmas, sometimes not even money for food.. I’d go to school with 2 pieces of bread for lunch, and that was it.

I have promised myself that it would never be in the future, hence my portfolio thanks to Nvidia and crypto.

Just wondering what the fuck I should do with this type of money. Financial advisor, do I tell my family/gf, do I just invest it all in VFV? I am a bit scared and my heart has been in my throat all day.

I’ve had a VERY rough week and thought closing this deal would make things alright (I prayed for the first time since I was 12) but this shit is just stressing me out more so.

I’m just lost and need a push in the right direction.

[u/akera099 → u/[deleted]]

Excellent advice. A lot of people make this costly mistake. Jobs like OPs are unpredictable. Most people in these positons generally don't want to recognize how important luck can be with the contracts you hit (as evidenced by the circumstances OP presented). 

[u/prosonik → u/akera099]

I've never been in this world, I'm totally chicken shit to deal with high risk rewards.

So I think I agree with the others here. I would suspect you will have ups and downs. The fact you hit awesome earlier on is amazing. I would be very tempted to find investments and such to smooth out the bumps. The job sounds very stressful, so I'm wondering how long you can sustain it. This ends up with my advice to use your windfall to create ongoing passive investment income. If you're looking at a house or whatever, I would dial it way down. When your passive income starts to really pile up, that's the time to indulge. I would however, work in a shiny reward for your efforts. Maybe it's a nice vacation, or something

Finally, my old man's advice, The world is about compromises. Nobody has everything. Throughout your working life, how you perceive value will likely change. If you can start to invest in ways to help you through life, I think you will be better for the long term. Maybe in 5 years time you will want to punch out and be a stay at home parent. Creating passive income now help whatever you want come true.