1. Start a business
2. Start contracting anything north of 80$ will give you a really solid income
3. Through your business give yourself a ~45k SEK a month salary
4. Pay yourself dividends from the business profit. You pay very low taxes on dividends
This is a model many many SW engineers in Sweden follow, also running your own business it super simple and for finding clients you can use bigger contracting firms(AFRY) which will take a % of your hourly salary.
If you can convince around 170 businesses, or business-minded folks to pay $49 each month for a service you provide, or info-product (but then you need to keep finding new customers), you're there.
Easier said than done, and requires building a reputation and all that, but that's what I'm working on, anyway.
Another way: Work in a country that routinely pays over 100k. Switzerland, Dubai, Hong Kong, Australia etc.
I suspect you live or would like to live in a country with a lower cost of living while making a higher salary. If you don't have US residency, what you're trying to do might be a challenge because you have the tremendous amount of competition of a global foreign work force.
The US is actually a low-wage country in comparison to several other countries. Every time I go there I see that working conditions for US wage-earners are not particularly great. It's just a matter of what's the 'norm for you/me', I guess. (Most people will get used to anything. The 'period of adjustment' is pretty constant at about 3 months.)
If you can't find a high-wage job, there is the usual range of ways. Real estate, landlording, professions. Speaking of professions, many US professional qualifications will not necessarily be recognised outside the US, just as many foreign professional qualifications are not necessarily recognised within the US.
switzerland - 100K+ possible as full time employee, germany - possible as a contractor
if you are US citizen, whats stopping you from creating llc in the US and look for remote contracts.