atomflunder

With all of the tech layoffs happening right now, it sort of dawned on me that even as a software engineer I am still very much „working class“: The pay might be good, but there still seems to be a huge gap between people that sell their time, and people that make money through owning something. Not to get all too class warefare-y, but you get my drift.

If my company decides to lay me off, I‘m out of luck. If a bunch of enormously profitable tech companies decide to do layoffs seemingly only to suppress their worker‘s market value, then I‘m also out of luck. My entire wealth depends on my employer paycheck. Even with a good salary, buying an apartment in a big city here in Germany (which is where the jobs are) seems completely out of reach. Let alone accruing any other wealth beyond that. And I don’t see a significant change in that even if I were to climb the software career ladder somewhere.

It feels like as long as I am primarily and employee, I will never „make it“.

So, how do I escape this state of only selling my time?

I am buying ETFs for a few hundred € a month, and the other obvious answer seems to be starting my own business/startup, but I don’t feel experienced enough for that.

What else can I do? Any advice for accruing wealth in the short/medium/long term?