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I know a married couple who both work as anesthesiologists. They do pretty well.

A family friend is a prosthetic surgeon. He is loaded. He paid 3 million for his house, with cash.

Not outrageously wealthy by any means, but my BIL and SIL are very very comfortable. They live in Annapolis and work in DC, she's a chemist for a pharmaceutical company and he's a bio-tech engineer (I *think* that's what he's called) who does a ton of contract work for the DOD. He started as a mechanical engineer but now specializes in creating and improving things like fingerprint and eyeball security scanners.

One of my old bosses was really well-off, too. Actually her whole family, individually. They all co-owned and ran the store I worked at, but the main owner's husband owns a popular butcher shop and rumor has it between the two of them they own a ton of real estate in South Philly. Her sister's husband is a real estate developer.

My brother is well off (not as much as a dr or lawyer), but he married into money, he works with poop! Lol he is in the septic business and they own one of the biggest septic businesses in Eastern Illinois.

I don't know anyone personally, but I have heard that owning chain restaurant franchises can be really lucrative. A friend of a friend had a seriously amazing wedding and her parents own a few Burger Kings. Also the Tuohys (the family in the Blind Side movie) were fast food restaurant owners too and they seemed pretty wealthy based on the article I read about them.

Then again, I'm sure there are also a lot of failures that end up costing families their entire savings.

Good old investment banking.

I'm with Mama Moose: investment banking. I would also add private equity to that (I think they can make more than bankers). I know a few people from law school who are partners at large/major law firms. I also have a friend who is a specialized cardiologist. I think she's doing pretty well.

I know a lot since I work in hedge funds.

We have friends that work in consulting, as does DH, but they have been in the field for much longer and make way more then DH does. Also have another friend that is in medical equipment sales and lives very comfortable.

Both of my brothers are PhD-level software engineers for two major competing industry leaders (leaving out the names for fear of Google..oops, there goes one of them). My older brother especially does crazy well. ETA: probably not as well as investment bankers, though! They live in a nice condo but aren't like, throwing away money. Yeah, what do you consider "a lot of money"?

DH's friend is an orthodontist and he makes BANK!

I'll second or third all the recommendations for the various jobs in at the major investment firms in NYC. Bonuses go out late January, so at dh's job, they went out yesterday. Depending on the position, seniority, and performance, bonuses can be hundreds of thousands of dollars-- on top of the regular salaries, which are capped at all the major firms at around 175,000 or so. So ppl expect to make their real money in the bonus each year.

Hedge funds work differently with bonuses and salaries, but there's huge money for managing directors of successful hedge funds.

@Sunny @MrBee: That was my question . . . how much do you consider a lot of money?

My parents I guess many people would consider to be rich, but they have owned a business for the past 30 years... lots of stress and 80 hour work weeks.

My uncle made (he’s semi-retired now) a lot of money – international banking and investment banking. They live *on* cliff walk in Newport, RI and have an apartment in Manhattan.

My husband’s best friend is the art director on a popular HBO show. She makes about 500k a year and is not the breadwinner in her family; her husband is insanely smart and does some sort of brainy-something-or-other research. Really cool stuff, but I don’t understand a lot of it!

nobody. lol

DHs boss is ridiculously loaded.. he was a corporate attorney, then an ambassador, had a cabinet level position and now owns 2 companies... He has a driver, plane and lives on the same road as the embassies in DC.. and I think he has over an acre which is ridiculously expensive in DC

It's funny because my "rich" friends are not really rich. They make a lot of money but in NYC it doesn't seem that the money goes far--they would need a lot more to be rich. Maybe they are just super comfortable?

Damn, I need some rich friends!

My dad pulled in 500K a year when I was growing up, and I consider that to be a lot. Texas has a lower cost of living, so we had a very huge/nice house and nice cars. He worked in mortgage banking. Everyone we know now makes anywhere from 30-90k a year, which is very average for my town!

@MsLipGloss: Wow... really? I can't even imagine making that much money. Like, it's not in my mental vocabulary to grasp what making $500,000 a year is like.