Im gonna tell you what an old one told me when I was young.
All youre gonna get out of this is a bunch of wore out tools and a wore out back. There will come a time when you will have wished you hadnt even heard of the trades. Thats when you will be having trouble doing them cause you are too damn old but not old enough to retire. Even if you make it till retirement doing it SS is all the payday there is unless you pay into your own retirement fund and keep it going from your young age till its time . Most people dont do it .
Ill add that I know too many carps that went down before their time and had nothing to fall back on except disablilty SS. Its not enough. You slip one time and you might hurt to feed your family for the next 40 yrs suffering from an injury.
Pick a job that has benifits and a retirement . You will be ahead of what you were doing . You will sleep well knowing you have major medical coveered and WC if somthig happens . Buy an extra insurance too that will cover what major medical wont . People are ruined every day over medical reasons.
Tim
Replies
Your point ?
Tim
Sorry to have not made it more clear. I mis-stroked and posted before I was ready.I thought the topic you raised was a good one since it got so many responses in Jason's thread about quitting business. Thought I'd just start it over as a separate thread.I understand your point of view regarding medical/injury problems and the elusiveness of long term financial success for trades people. Still, I have mixed feelings about it.I have shoulder problems that almost certainly are related to years of framing I did when younger. Those repetetive motion injuries stopped my income at one point. However, the business experiences I had while directly in construction also benefitted me greatly in stepping into others businesses.I'm currently reading "The Millionaire Next Door". The book documents clearly that the self-employed are much more likely to become wealthy than are those who work for others.I'm certainly not a millionare, nor am I advocating that money is the only worthwhile goal. I do think that, from a societal viewpoint, less concentration of wealth is better than more concentration of wealth.I would suggest that employment vs. self-employment is a trade off that gives more security instead of more freedom.My current view is that which one is better is stricly a personal issue and is not related to medical/injury problems, except as a non-verifiable and anecdotal support to what is simply ones personal choice.
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire
Well said.
Did you read my posts in Jason's thread?
To be self employed and sucessful takes the right stuff....it ain't for everybody, and many who tried........... shouldn't have. Failure is not a good reason to blame the trade, or anybody else.
I did, and our views on the matter are pretty similar.
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire
Good point.
SamT
Now if I could just remember that I am a businessman with a hammer and not a craftsman with a business....."anonymous". . .segundo
Mooney is hasbeen?
Who's razzman?
be jaybird
Happy
Holidays
I'm confused!
"I'm confused!"In this tumultuous life of constant change, it is good to see that some things remain constant.;o)
Get over it....... The angry going eat you up. ~Brownbagg '06
Sometimes the only constant in my life is change!
Pretty much true for all of us, I think.
Get over it....... The angry going eat you up. ~Brownbagg '06
Does it hurt much when you do that?
Think....I mean.
Happy
Holidays
Awfully. That's why I try to avoid it as much as possible.
Get over it....... The angry going eat you up. ~Brownbagg '06
Yep....me too.
Course...the wife aint crazy about me doin' it too often either.
Happy
Holidays
Not quite!Just me screwing up.
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire
Yeah, but would you have it any other way? Everything I do depends on me. Sure its a consant ulcer, but there is some pride in finishing a job that you could never get from being an accountant or a factory rat. There's nothing wrong with either of those jobs but they dont compare with what we do.
Exactly!But that's a personal opinion, not a blanket statement.
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire
yes I would have it another way, case in point my BIL asked me once why I hadn't gone into business for myself sooner and my immediate answer was that I wouldn't have been able to work on some of the high profile works of construction in this hemisphere that i have if i was self employed, and for many of those projects there was a great deal of competition just for a spot, a great source of pride to me, and I genuinely love the competiton! I wish construction was an olympic event, like the logging competition games, I may not win, but would absolutey love to compete.
I went into business for myself for financial reasons, there is some satisfaction with working for yourself, and I have gone back to work as an employee. I will probably return to self employment eventually but again its a financial motivation, if I were getting paid well to be an employee I would stay that way,
Lastly I have to agree in principal with what hasbeen said, I would like to see less of a concentration of wealth. I don't want socialism, but I woul like to see some ethics in capitalism. I have heard that Lutheran values are like that, success in business is not to be flaunted, but put back into the business.
I'll bite on at this one.
To begin with as someone mentioned, Yes the Millionaire nextdoor will leave you thinking that self employment is the best path to wealth. But read the part about what they would advise their children to do. You might be surprised.
In 2001 I was where Jason is today. I'd only ever been two things in my entire adult life. A carpenter and a soldier. Sure I'd had other jobs. But never for long and I always came back to one of them.
I never understood my father when he told me not to romantacize the trade or the work. Instead he wanted me to learn the business end of things. But I loved the work and the tools and that feeling of driving home after a hard day of setting rafters.
I didn't love it so much when I was on my own, but I was surviving. I still loved the work. I hated the business. The bills got paid and there was a little left over.
Then when my daughter was born and was so sick, it all fell apart. I was working seven days a week 16 hours a day to pay off what the insurance ddin't cover and to buy the things she needed. Those six months drained me of every dime of capital I had and then some. My spec house lot got sold and my accounts got emptied.
Then the big hit. My wife needed to be home with my daughter. So I became the insurance provider for the family. $2400 a month due to a pre-existing condition. And that was canceled a month later. In February 2001 I volunteered to be deployed knowing that being on active duty would mean health coverage. Good thing. Two weeks after I reported in my daughter was in the hospital. 7 days, $16K bill.
When the deployment was over, I went back to work for myself. In late 2001 I was framing and doing ok but not great. With a little push, I would have made it over the top.
I had just stood up a first floor outside wall when the job super came buy to tell us a plane had flown into the worl trade center. A few months later, I was back on a deployment. Halfway thru I was approached about staying in boots. I made a halfhearted effort at compiling the selection package and going to the board. I was surprised when I was selected.
I spent 8 months waiting to get back to my tools and my work. But on the seventh month, when I called home to line something up.......... No body had anything going on. Even a friend I could always count on had been sitting home all winter.
So, I accepted and reported in after 35 days leave.
Every day I miss my tools. I miss the work. I miss the feeling of having actual built something.
But then I look at the other side. I make more now than I ever did working for myself. My health insurance is better than my wife's and she works for the damn hospital. I've got a 401K and a pension. 30 days vacation and more holidays than I can count.
Yeah, I work some weekends. Yeah, my job isn't always enjoyable. I never againwant to stand on the doorstep of a woman who doesn't speak english and try to explain that her son is ok when she is convinced he's dead. But if I have to, I will.
Then I look at my friends. Most are slaves to their "Businesses". They can never be away for too long. The money is sporadic at best and when you take out retirement, Health insurance and banking a little for a slow time, It isn't even that much when it's steady.
But that's not even the worst part. I just bought a 2200sqft house that was $300K and yet the guys framing not more than a mile from here are getting $2.50 a sq ft. Less than we used to get 20 years ago.
A trimmer I know who used to under bid me when I was getting $25 a door is now sitting home because someone undercut him at $20 a door to hang and case.
I just helped a friend of mine put together a bid for some very difficult stair work. At what amounted to $50 per man hour, he was 30% higher than the next bid.
I watch my friends all trying to hold on to what they have. Lots have given up on making to shore and now are just treading water.
For every one guy with health insurance and a pension, I know ten whose wives work just for benefits. I know a few who actually pay out more to send their wives to work than the wives actually make, but it's the only way to get health insurance.
I love and miss the work. I still help out a friend or two whenever I get a chance to. But until the trades collectively get their heads out of their a$$es? I would not reccommend it as a way of life to a young man looking for a career.
It is sad state.of affairs
I love and miss the work. I still help out a friend or two whenever I get a chance to. But until the trades collectively get their heads out of their a$$es? I would not reccommend it as a way of life to a young man looking for a career
I gotta agree with you on this one Robert.
When I started as a carpenter, the tradesmen made as much as the autoworkers. I passed up a job at Chrysler and Ford to work out in the fields. Today, an autoworker makes 60k without overtime and 100k with overtime. Of course they have a full range of benefits.
I only see the unlicensed trades going downhill from here. To make a buck, the contractors have to employ their young tradesmen at poverty wages.
blue
It actually hurt me to say that.
But the last two years has opened my eyes. until I found out that anyone Staff Sergeant and above with over 12 years is extended until they have 20 years, I was planning my escape back to the trades. But I kept balking.
I've spent long hours talking about this with my brother who is a very gifted financial advisor type guy. No matter how I did it, to return to the trades now would be financial suicide.
look for my spec house about six months after I retire, but not before.
I think you and Blue said it all.
Thanks since this thread was about what I said in the other thread .
I dont have any thing left to say.
Tim
I guess I did it backwards. Until about 5 years ago I had a desk job with the federal government (gubment to some). Was pulling in almost $90K year, wonderful benefits, no overtime whatsoever. Basically tenured, I would have had to stolen a good bit of money or assaulted someone to get fired. Time and time again I have been told how stupid I was for letting that golden goose get away. Why did I quit? In a nutshell, I couldn’t live with myself anymore. Basically, the job was busywork, I was not given anything remotely productive or meaningful to do. No, it wasn’t cause I was blackballed as a troublemaker- though I did get into trouble a few times speaking out about particularly wasteful projects. The ones where we would have been better off flushing hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' $ down the toilet than giving them to the contractor to pizzaway into nothing, making the owner rich in the process. My job and so many around me were nothing more than high dollar welfare. Anyways, I was reaching the point where I couldn't look in the mirror in the morning. Another few years would have found me divorced, a stranger to my kids and looking at an empty bottle every night. Had worked for a remodeler, starting out in highschool also worked my way through college. Did a bit of side work over the years. Now I am self employed working for 1/3 the money and twice the hours. But I can live with myself. Insurance? My wife is still part time with goverment, otherwise we would be without. The hammer and nails part of my job is not so difficult, but I've been taking a beating trying to be a businessman.
Nah.
I just want to make pretty things.
My little company lets me do that. The business aspects bore me to sobs.
Forrest - definitely not a business man with a hammer