First job while still in college - $9/hour of Canadian monopoly money, part-time doing random IT stuff for one of the departments in the college. It was good experience - it had me teach a class on basic computer skills, fix some computer issues for clients at their homes, and some very basic web design with a little html, css, php etc.
After a slew of crappy jobs and no direction in life, I began my employment at a national telco, working as an entry-level call center agent in the technical support peasantry brigade. The starting pay, which hasn't changed in 15+ years, was still better than most of my previous crappy jobs, at $17/hr.
It turned out to be the first employer that I could tolerate for more than a year or two. I've attained significant bumps with regularity, mostly just by not coasting and not remaining stagnant. It has not been too hard to stand out as the bar is set fairly low, most people suck and are lazy/complacent. Meh, more for me. On top of getting cell service for a tiny fraction of the retail price, the overall benefits package is decent with a solid company match for pension plan and company shares among other things. It pales in comparison to the defined benefit pension plans of years past, but it's still better than many alternatives.
Last year was the best so far - $90k, and although it has been >5 years that I'm no longer on the phones, it's still grouped within the call centre in the hierarchy, pretty good money for work that doesn't require a degree or any technical certifications. I don't have to work more than 40 hours per week, I can work from home, and so far, there is still an annual bonus. If I am successful in my next move, it should see me to ~$120k and take the work from home to the next level (could live basically wherever I want so I can target nice low COL areas).
I feel like as a single person, I'd need at least $150k to feel really set. Making $70k-$90k has definitely been nice compared to $35k - but it doesn't change the fact that I still have to work basically forever. Even where I'm at now, I still don't feel like I can justify the expense of home or car ownership. I prefer the freedom of not needing to live paycheck to paycheck, not allotting a gigantic portion of my income to a money pit, etc. Since I chose a carless renter lifestyle for the time being, it has allowed me to save and invest money while still being able to buy and do more or less whatever I want without feeling any pressure about paying rent, bills, etc. I usually take 1 big (3+ weeks) vacation per year and a handful of mini-trips and long weekends (4-5 days) to places throughout the year. This year was the Philippines, Singapore and Maldives for the "big" trip and Canmore, Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper for the mini trip. I'd say the big trips are usually a $3k-$4k affair, with the mini trips being more in the $500-$1500 range. I try to keep myself in a position where spending that kind of money on a whim doesn't hurt me, even though I still think of it as a lot of money.
I mimic the sentiments of some other posters here, where there's no way I would leave where I am now for $10k. Not needing to commute and having close to zero work stress while earning a good living is worth a lot. Moving to where I am now, a year ago, worked out to roughly $20k bump for me. At this point I think it'd have to be even quite a bigger bump than that for me to leave where I am now. Thinking back to my old jobs makes me very thankful for where I'm at now!