30 People Online Spill The Beans About Their High-Pay Jobs That They Do Without A Degree

My husband never attended college a single day. Union electrician, $126.13 an hour. Sometimes on like airport rush jobs they get triple time - $378.16 an hour.

I rotisserize chicken at Costco for $63k a year. Bought a house and everything. Great times

I work at a union warehouse for Kroger and I make about 80-85k a year but that’s with OT and I work about 50-60 hours work weeks I do pay 80 a month for unions due but that’s all I pay , I get free healthcare dental care vision care and a good retirement plan

Not bad for 10th grade drop out

I deliver bread to grocery stores and I made $120k last year working 6-8 hours per day. Healthcare, pension, paid vacation, union representation. It's great work if you can find it.

Edit: If you guys can't get in at Bimbo, try Aunt Millie's or a local brand like Flowers, Kordas, etc.

I make 138k, I work as a baker, no degree
7 years experience. San Francisco, California
Michelin 1 star.

Post office, I work in a plant. It’s easy af and I can listen to audiobooks while I work so that’s a bonus.

IT senior level $100k+. Never graduated. Learned everything on the job.

Union electrician got me started. Now as a master electrician I have the experience to commission data centers. Still electrical, but less physical and more mental.

Dog groomer, but I’m retired/disabled now (not entirely due to the career, mostly genetics). An average year would be 50k for me, a great year 60k or so. Faster groomers make more money and I was just average speed but excellent results. It’s nowhere near all the 100k+ careers listed here but it’s one I loved.

I turned 40 in July and I work as a full time rural carrier for USPS. I only got full time this last January, so I just recently broke the "poverty shackles" (got a story below, in case anyone cares to read).
My current salary is $55,036/yr, with it going up about $1500/yr next January (my year anniversary).
My route is also one where I use my own vehicle, so I also receive an Equipment Maintenance Allowance (EMA for short) that just got raised to $0.98/mile. With my assigned route being 136 miles, I earn $133.28 in EMA **per day** I work. Normally I work 10 days per pay period, so I earn $133.28 x 10 per paycheck. This EMA is added to my salary, so my paycheck is basically this:
$55,036/26 = $2,116.76.
$2,116.76 - deductions & insurance = net pay.
Net pay + EMA = my paycheck

Added bonus: This EMA portion is untaxable income, since it's used to compensate me for using my own vehicle, but you only get this if you get a rural route that you have to use your own vehicle...some rural routes use postal vehicles, so in this case, you would only get salary.

Now I will state the obvious and mention that USPS isn't for everyone. It can be a high stress job, but it is mainly based on where you are at. I live in a small town rural area, so me working is mostly stress-free (I spend most my days driving around the country roads jamming to my Spotify playlist while delivering mail...and it's peaceful for me).
It's nowhere near one of the highest paying jobs out there. Also the pay is the same across the board, so no matter where you are in the US, the pay is the same. That $55,036 for my route size in my small rural town is the exact same pay rate as someone doing a "rural" route in places as big (and as costly as) Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City, etc... So me making what I make is "amazing money" where I live, but if you live in one of these high cost of living places, $55k/year is "chump change", so take that in to consideration.
Another thing...I was an RCA for 4 years before getting FT, but there are some RCAs that have had to wait 10+ years to get full time. There are also some RCAs that have to wait only 1 year (you can't bid for FT until you have worked 1 full year), so it all depends on your area whether or not it's worth your time and energy to even consider it (BTW, of course there are other jobs other than RCA/rural carriers...I am just unfamiliar with those aspects).

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Background info as to how I got here, in case anyone is wondering.

I was born into poverty and I have lived below the poverty line pretty much my entire life. Before 2019, I never worked a job that ever paid more than $10.50/hr that was full time hours, and any job I ever tried to get in to that paid higher always was extremely part time (less than 10 hours/week), a "temp" job, or just flat out wouldn't hire me. Any time I thought something would finally come my way, something would happen to wreck it.

Well in January of 2019, I took a RCA position (which is the entry level position for rural carrier) for USPS. Of course this was a 1 day a week (Saturdays) job, but it paid almost $17.83/hr at the time (it's $19.96/hr now, with its annual increase in November) plus the EMA. So I was content with my 1 day a week, with an occasional extra day here or there (when the full time carrier needed a day off for whatever reason). At this time, I also worked a couple retail merchandising jobs that had flexible hours in a way that as long as the work got done the week it was assigned, they didn't care when it got done. (BTW...for anyone reading this...if you need part-time flexible "choose your schedule" hours, I highly recommend Premium Retail, if they have it in your area).
Everyone was calling me crazy and stupid for holding out on the hope of getting a full time post office position. When I was hired, they basically told me that they had over half of their FT carriers close to retirement, so I came in "at a good time". So I persisted, even with everyone I knew telling me time and time again that I was basically a f*****g idiot for holding out on the promise of eventual full time. I lost friends and basically became the black sheep of my in-laws family (most of them are in various medical fields and "blue collar" jobs that are typical for a rural town environment, so if you didn't work one of those jobs, their "superiority complex" side would show).
Well basically after exactly 4 years (4 years and 8 days, to be exact), I finally got my own full time route! For the first time in my entire life, I finally am at a position and pay where I can break free from below the poverty line. Now I am nowhere near financially stable at the moment (considering the economy right now), but I am now at a point in my life where every recurring monthly bill is paid before it's due without stress.

I do autopsies as a autopsy tech. $50k without over time. I take out peoples organs and give it to a doc to do the actual autopsy. Then I sew up, clean up and release bodies to funeral homes. It's smelly work and you see things you can never unsee but the death industry is the last Wild West and I have a lot of down time for reading and naps.

I’m a career nanny- I’m in my 20s at 90k plus benefits, 45 hours a week.

Service Technician for Pepsi. It's cake and my home is my office. I have a work truck and a work phone. It's entry level too. I have a zoom meeting once a week, other than that it's just me and the road.

Project Manager for a health insurance company, 100K remote. I worked my way up over the last 6 years but I’m 30 now.

29, £60k, no degree at all, 2 years as an ERP software consultant- pick Salesforce, Aws or Msft and the "qualifications" are all open book, you can get practice environments to f**k about n find out with the UI of the softwares, and all the answers to the exams are available online too.

And it's nothing to do with coding either, you just need to get a good understanding of how to use the software and how people are gonna want to use it.

Link the exam badges to your LinkedIn and share that you passed it and recruiters will come to you as there's a shortage in the space

I learned how to configure Salesforce for free ( www.trailhead.com) and immediately started working with a Salesforce partner. My income went from 45k to 75k, and I hit 6 figures within my first year in the industry.

Welder. I did an apprenticeship through the federal government. Started almost 5 years ago at 28, at $18 an hour now I'm making close to $35 as a journeyman. I'm pushing 100k this year with OT and bought my first house last spring. My work is dirty but isn't crazy hard and I'm not forced to travel. That being said, I would not recommend welding as a trade, there are lot more trades that make more money and are less rough on your body and lungs.

Real estate. Spent my last dime on my license. Last year I did over 120k and I am on my 4th year of RE. Best decision I ever made.

My husband makes $48k a year as a forklift operator. He's not even earning as much as he potentially could if he had a different employer.

Corrections officer in NYS, easy to clear over 100 k, only need a high-school diploma and attend an 8 week academy.