Plumbing isn't really a great way to make money unless you run your own business. I know a few plumbers/roofers/general contractors that run their own business and make 6 figures easy. Many own a few homes. The guys working for them aren't really pulling it in though. I've worked in construction and it isn't easy. You wont survive in the business if you can't bend over cause of back problems which will come after a few years. A lot of the guys don't really work, if there short a guy he'll do some things. Most of the day is spent driving around, checking on jobs and pricing out others. Like in everything else you have to have the drive to be better rather then settling for what your doing now. I've also worked as a mechanic and plumbing/roofing would be easier to start up since its run out of a pick up rather then a shop with a lease.
There's more than one way to skin a cat when it comes to learning a trade and making a living. A fiend of mine is a chef in a high end restaurant. We got to talking about how he finds his help... he said he wouldn't hire anybody out of those vocational chef schools since he ends up having to re-train them to do it his way, the way he likes a sous chef to work. On top of that, these kids incur a substantial debt and can't pay it off making 9 bucks an hour. He would rather a kid who wants a career as a chef just come to him and intern for a while, make a few bucks to live on and avoid racking up several thousand in debt. If kids coming out of high school don't want to go to college, offer to intern to learn a trade, learn a skill and off you go. I've had several friends with kids who volunteered to intern for free for a couple of months only to end up being hired and making a good living for single guys.
what do you mean by double? So you were getting paid $80/hr after 40 hours? I thought overtime means time and a half.
Sorry I should I have been more clear. When I was working, double time kicks in after an 8 hour shift. However they recently changed it a couple years ago to time and a half for the first 2 hours after 8, then double time after that, plus a meal. Any weekend work is all double time, 80 an hour. If you work out of town, they also pay you living out which is 115 a day cash tax free. This is union of course.
There is an overwhelming majority that thinks (paying for) school is a poor choice. Probably to be expected on a trading site. FWIW, this book agrees with the majority here: "Higher Education?: How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids---and What We Can Do About It [Hardcover]" http://www.amazon.com/Higher-Educat...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283722362&sr=8-1
College charge too much and offer too little most of the time. You can learn a great deal on your own w/o paying for it. Here are some links. Choose what you are interested, do it at your own pace. Free Online Courses from great universities http://universitiesandcolleges.org/free-online-college-courses/ Free online language course developed by the US government for the Foreign Service. http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world http://www.ted.com/ ... The Underground History of American Education http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm Khan Academy makes educational content available online for free http://www.khanacademy.org/ The Money Masters - How International Bankers Gained Control of America. This is rather long documentary but well worth the time. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936&hl=en Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA
<b>This is from JamesAltucher dot com I am not allowed to post links on this site--- but check out this blog--its classic!</b> Somehow I went wrong as a father. The other day my two daughters informed me they eventually want to go to college. I said, âNo way!â and they attempted to argue with me. I have no problem with them talking back to me but somehow theyâve been brainwashed by society into thinking that college is a good thing for young, intelligent, ambitious young people. Letâs look at the basic facts about higher education. The average tuition cost is approximately $16,000 per year. Plus assume another $10,000 in living costs, books, etc. $26,000 in total for a complete cost of $104,000 in a 4 year period. Some people choose to go more expensive by going to a private college and some people choose to go a little cheaper by going public but this is an average. Also, a huge assumption is that its just for a 4 year period. According to the Department of Education, only 54% of undergraduates graduate within 6 years. So for the 46% that donât graduate, or take 10 years to graduate, this is a horrible investment. But lets assume your children are in the brilliant first half who finish within six years (and hopefully within four). Is it worth it? First, letâs look at it completely from a monetary perspective. Over the course of a lifetime, according to CollegeBoard, a college graduate can be expected to earn $800,000 more than his counterpart that didnât go to college. $800,000 is a big spread and it could potentially separate the haves from the have-nots. But who has and who doesnât? If I took that $104,000 and I chose to invest it in a savings account that had interest income of 5% per year Iâd end up with an extra $1.4 million dollars over a 50 year period. A full $600,000 more. That $600,000 is a lot of extra money an 18 year old could look forward to in her retirement. I also think the $800,000 quoted above is too high. Right now most motivated kids who have the interest and resources to go to college think itâs the only way to go if they want a good job. If those same kids decided to not go to college my guess is they would quickly close the gap on that $800,000 spread. There are other factors as well. I wonât be spending $104,000 per child when my children, ages 10 and 7, decide to go to college. College costs have historically gone up much faster than inflation. Since 1978, cost of living has gone up three-fold. Medical costs, much to the horror of everyone in Congress, has gone up six-fold. And college education has gone up a whopping tenfold. This is beyond the housing bubble, the stock market bubble, any bubble you can think of. So how can people afford college? Well, how has the US consumer afforded anything? They borrow it, of course. The average student now graduates with a $23,000 debt burden. Up from $13,000 12 years ago. Last year, student borrowings totaled $75 billion, up 25% from the year before. If students go on to graduate degrees such as law degrees they can see their debt burden soar to $200,000 or more. And the easy borrowing convinces colleges that they can raise prices even more. So what should people do instead? One idea: start a business. You donât need to be an entrepreneur to get valuable experience selling a service, or buying some set of goods cheap and selling them expensive. A year or two of that will be a massive education in salesmanship, finance, and how to deal with the ups and downs of any business. And if youâre missing out on the 500 page books on The Deconstruction of Televisionthen buy a Kindle and read in your spare time. Maybe travel a bit. Or learn to paint. All of these things can be done cheap, will provide massive life experience, and maybe even make some money.