Peaty Jobs And Economics - (Breaking Out Of The Rat Race)

[ShotTrue]

One size doesn't fit all is true, I appreciate the discussion. At this point in my life I think I want to gain wealth (sustain living without needing to work) which requires building up assets and the best way to do that is to get as much money in the short term as I can. Ultimately living in the 1% I think is my goal by 50, though I'm gonna shoot for 40
@Andman man might appreciate my ambitions.
And thanks for the suggestion @Tenacity
I agree with @Cirion on the concept of earning around 50k quickly and avoiding the college debt. Having experienced blue collar workers I didn't really fit in, like I worked construction and they said I was too preppy, things like that.
That's part of why I mentioned it's possible to get into a short term college career that pays well quickly, like 5 year engineering program that allows you to work before graduation

 

[ShotTrue]

do not fall into this mindset, it will give you as much stress as being in the rat race. as long as you are chasing money and putting the significance on the money.
you can find peaceful calm people working in the rat race and you can find stressful and angry people out there living so called stress free lives, as opposed to what most people think.
the best investment you can make is in yourself and those around you, build yourself and make sure that you make connections with people who are good for you.
read books, try to increase your knowledge and your skills , improve your creativity and eventually you will find ways to make that money on your own.
be careful of borrowed knolwedge and templates for success that others give you, those that specify exactly what you should do or not, because in reality every person is different and everyone needs to go through their own journey to figure their own path instead of following someone elses footsteps, some of my worst life mistakes came from trying to do that, and some of my best life decision came from following my own experimentation and intuition.

and for those of you who are looking to become traders in stocks or any commodity rememebr that unless you really are willing to study indepth probability and statistics , risk management and put a lot of effort to it, you will most likely blow yourself up and lose your money in the long term. so you are better off just investing in something that is not risky.

This is kind of a 50/50 statement for me. Interesting point that being out of the rat race people can still be stressed out. That is definitely true.
I haven't gone too far down the line of following other's templates, but with Grant Cardone or the online marketing guys sort of thing I wonder how much is just a sales pitch instead of practicable advice.
Investing is definitely a risk game. You need the character to feel fine as stock goes down, you need to be immune to FOMO, you need to do your own research or sometimes your own math. It's a skill based game
And to that regard one can go into the retail business, or buying property to sell or rent, buy and sell cars, it's defnitely still work but down the road will build your wealth and free up time while money grows exponentially bigger.
At this point I don't want to spend 4o hours a week somewhere I don't want to be, and maybe show off to my higher educated friends who aren't as financially savy

 

[SOMO]

All trade jobs are not really "rat race" jobs IMO.

-Construction Worker
-Roofer
-Plumber
-Welder
-Carpenter
-Electrician
-Builder

Basically all of these jobs:
1. Pay well
2. Do not require degrees
3. Are well-respected by laypeople (if you've ever had to call a plumber, you know how thankful you are to have someone willing to do the "dirty jobs."


Ultimately, do what makes you happy and what provides enough financial support for your needs and wants.


I know someone that had a "fun" office job (working at Facebook) and part of her job description was literally to drink alcohol with clients. It doesn't matter if you don't drink alcohol, she had to wine and dine clients and partake in alcohol herself.

She gained about 20 lbs in a few months and began looking worse physically, but hey AT LEAST SHE WAS MAKING GOOD MONEY.

 

[Cirion]

At this point I don't want to spend 4o hours a week somewhere I don't want to be, and maybe show off to my higher educated friends who aren't as financially savy

Exactly. I'm tired of working for money. I want money to work for me, as Kiyosaki put it in Rich dad poor dad. I can't see how people can force themselves into a 9-5 lifestyle in a job they aren't excited about their whole lives. I'm already done with this only 7 yrs into it lol. To me the desire for "nice to haves" is heavily outweighed by the requirement to work to fund said "nice to haves". I'd welcome the idea of downsizing if it means I can get out of working at a sooner date.

 

[ShotTrue]

Exactly. I'm tired of working for money. I want money to work for me, as Kiyosaki put it in Rich dad poor dad. I can't see how people can force themselves into a 9-5 lifestyle in a job they aren't excited about their whole lives. I'm already done with this only 7 yrs into it lol. To me the desire for "nice to haves" is heavily outweighed by the requirement to work to fund said "nice to haves". I'd welcome the idea of downsizing if it means I can get out of working at a sooner date.

You should read Set For Life, he kind of has a step by step mathematically of when you can step away from working and it's basically what the whole book is on (he prefers real estate investing like Robert)
It's split into phases and explains concepts in a manner like Rich Dad Poor Dad, and it's a self narrative

 

[Cirion]

You should read Set For Life, he kind of has a step by step mathematically of when you can step away from working and it's basically what the whole book is on (he prefers real estate investing like Robert)
It's split into phases and explains concepts in a manner like Rich Dad Poor Dad, and it's a self narrative

Yes, I just read that book. I plan to start a rental property enterprise once I have restored my health enough to have the energy to do so.

 

[ShotTrue]

All trade jobs are not really "rat race" jobs IMO.

-Construction Worker
-Roofer
-Plumber
-Welder
-Carpenter
-Electrician
-Builder

Basically all of these jobs:
1. Pay well
2. Do not require degrees
3. Are well-respected by laypeople (if you've ever had to call a plumber, you know how thankful you are to have someone willing to do the "dirty jobs."


Ultimately, do what makes you happy and what provides enough financial support for your needs and wants.


I know someone that had a "fun" office job (working at Facebook) and part of her job description was literally to drink alcohol with clients. It doesn't matter if you don't drink alcohol, she had to wine and dine clients and partake in alcohol herself.

She gained about 20 lbs in a few months and began looking worse physically, but hey AT LEAST SHE WAS MAKING GOOD MONEY.

She should have tried to move internally. I know some coders for google and facebook and they love it.
I think it's best to Make Good Money, but then invest in assests until you're independent

 

[ShotTrue]

Yes, I just read that book. I plan to start a rental property enterprise once I have restored my health enough to have the energy to do so.

Nice! My friend is a nurse doing the same. I make plebe money and I was too sick to finish my degrees this year so I kind of have a parallel

 

[Cirion]

Nice! My friend is a nurse doing the same. I make plebe money and I was too sick to finish my degrees this year so I kind of have a parallel

I think it really doesn't help when you have poor health either. Poor health makes everything worse, a job you already may not be super excited becomes even more of a burden. I do know when I was healthier I got more satisfaction from my job. I just need to get healthy again and that'll help me a lot in so many ways. I really think good health is the key to success in every area of life.

Your friend has my pity. Being a nurse is one of the more unhealthy jobs you can get between the long stressful hours, oftentimes at night, lots of overtime, lack of respect from employers or patients etc... My ex's bipolar condition was triggered from the excess stress from being a nurse. I guess they make okay money, so there is that I suppose.

 

[ShotTrue]

I think it really doesn't help when you have poor health either. Poor health makes everything worse, a job you already may not be super excited becomes even more of a burden. I do know when I was healthier I got more satisfaction from my job. I just need to get healthy again and that'll help me a lot in so many ways. I really think good health is the key to success in every area of life.

Your friend has my pity. Being a nurse is one of the more unhealthy jobs you can get between the long stressful hours, oftentimes at night, lots of overtime, lack of respect from employers or patients etc... My ex's bipolar condition was triggered from the excess stress from being a nurse. I guess they make okay money, so there is that I suppose.

He makes $34 an hour I think. Tbh I haven't heard him complain, he's kind of a F-boy and likes dating all the girls. I suppose it depends what kind of nursing situation you're under

 

[Cirion]

He makes $34 an hour I think. Tbh I haven't heard him complain, he's kind of a F-boy and likes dating all the girls. I suppose it depends what kind of nursing situation you're under

Ahh, perhaps its different as a guy being a nurse because he probably is surrounded by attractive girls. A woman on the other hand isn't going to have the kind of options a guy would have haha.

I am an engineer and surrounded mostly by guys, so the dating environment is not too exciting =P

 

[ShotTrue]

Ahh, perhaps its different as a guy being a nurse because he probably is surrounded by attractive girls. A woman on the other hand isn't going to have the kind of options a guy would have haha.

I am an engineer and surrounded mostly by guys, so the dating environment is not too exciting =P

I should have been an engineer, I studied economics and I'm not sure what good a job I can get. At least you make good money. Honestly I wouldn't even date people at work, don't p*** in the stream you drink from

 

[Cirion]

I should have been an engineer, I studied economics and I'm not sure what good a job I can get. At least you make good money. Honestly I wouldn't even date people at work, don't p*** in the stream you drink from

Lol true. Yeah I make okay money, I don't regret it really, but if I were to re-do life I don't think I'd go for engineering a second time, due to how difficult and time consuming the schooling was.

 

[Rafael Lao Wai]

I've been thinking of going to Portugal to become a construction worker. I'm in the middle of my graduation, but I never really liked studying and since I gained 20 kilograms since 2 years ago( a lot of which was muscle and bone, with some fat but not a lot), I feel like I now have the strength to do these heavier/ more manual jobs. My parents raised me to become something more "educated", even though I never showed interest in that. I was really sick as a child and didn't have the strength to do many tasks, so I never considered other types of job.

In Portugal, the minimum wage is 600 euros, so even if you still are a beginner in the area, you can make good money( as long as you have the health to work hard). If you plan on living a simple life, even this amount of money is enough.

 

[ilikecats]

@Rafael Lao Wai the minimum wage is 600 per MONTH I believe. 600 euros is 681.44 US dollars times 12 is 8172 US dollars per year.... the minimum wage is about 9.8 dollars where I live in the US.... times 40 hours per week times 52 weeks a year it comes out to 20,508 dollars per year... Do you live in the US now?

edit: its 700 euros per month actually. So 795 dollars per month so 9540 per year

 

[ShotTrue]

I've been thinking of going to Portugal to become a construction worker. I'm in the middle of my graduation, but I never really liked studying and since I gained 20 kilograms since 2 years ago( a lot of which was muscle and bone, with some fat but not a lot), I feel like I now have the strength to do these heavier/ more manual jobs. My parents raised me to become something more "educated", even though I never showed interest in that. I was really sick as a child and didn't have the strength to do many tasks, so I never considered other types of job.

In Portugal, the minimum wage is 600 euros, so even if you still are a beginner in the area, you can make good money( as long as you have the health to work hard). If you plan on living a simple life, even this amount of money is enough.

600 euros per what time frame?
Yeah the educated ideal is kind of overblown

 

[Cirion]

Also keep in mind that many jobs that may start out at an above average income often have poor scalability. For example engineering, I've looked at the scaling of income with job responsibilities and it is extremely under-whelming. Where I work engineers range from grade 1-6. I am a 2 with possibly being promoted to a 3 in the next year or two. Even comparing where I am now, a 2, to a 6, is quite underwhelming. A 6 will get paid roughly twice as much as a 2. At first glance this seems reasonable until you realize

-- The responsibilities of a grade 6 are almost executive level (Fully independent under little to no management supervision, capturing lots of government contract work, going to loads of customer meetings, having irreplaceable technical expertise in many subjects, probably loads of technical papers written for AIAA and other orgs, and probably on a first name basis with many top brass in defense/government, probably lots of overtime work expected). So IMO the level of responsibility doesn't fairly translate to income.

-- The taxes on said income of grade 6 is going to make it such that the net pay increase is not even close to 2x as much as grade 2, without doing the math, I'm gonna guess maybe 60% more net pay than the grade 2.

-- Also, there are maybe 10 people in the whole company that are grade 6. I don't know a single G6, the very old employees are G4 and sometimes G5, but never seen G6.

The fact is, chasing really high income is just not a sensible option for 99% of people. And even if you do manage to land a truly high income (say $1M+ a yr), one needs to be willing to lead a frugal lifestyle even then, and resist the temptation to buy $5M houses and 500k cars on a regular basis etc. Achieving wealth through other means such as investing, frugal lifestyles, maybe owning a business are more accessible means of wealth building for average joe than trying to get a huge income from traditional work.

Going back to my example, the more sensible comparison is a grade 2 to grade 4. Many people do get G5, but usually towards the tail end of a very long career (30-40+ yr) but most do get G4 around the middle of their career and many people start off at G2 (like I did) so I think this is more sensible comparisons.

G4 gets paid only 30-40% more than G2 (roughly), and remember, due to increasing % taxes, at the end of the day the G4 might see only 20-25% more overall net pay than the G2. And remember, this is after a pretty long career (many don't see G4 until 15-20 yr of service). 15-20 yr to get 20-25% more money? Yeah, hard pass. Again, frugality and investments and other means IMO are (generally) the only way to go. Or, find a job that scales a lot better. Engineering doesn't scale well...

 

[Rafael Lao Wai]

@Rafael Lao Wai the minimum wage is 600 per MONTH I believe. 600 euros is 681.44 US dollars times 12 is 8172 US dollars per year.... the minimum wage is about 9.8 dollars where I live in the US.... times 40 hours per week times 52 weeks a year it comes out to 20,508 dollars per year... Do you live in the US now?

edit: its 700 euros per month actually. So 795 dollars per month so 9540 per year

Yeah, per month. Forgot to mention that. In Portugal, they pay you in 14 payments, so that's why it's 600 euros. But yes, if they paid you in 12 payments, it's 700 euros per month.

No, I live in Brazil currently.

 

[Rafael Lao Wai]

600 euros per what time frame?
Yeah the educated ideal is kind of overblown

Per month. I agree, it seems nowadays nobody young even thinks about these kind of jobs( at least the people that frequent college). At best they are seen as temporary until some other job is found. To me education is too much theory and very little spontaneity/ free time to practice and make mistakes and have fun. Not to mention the vast amount of wrong information that students have to waste time memorizing.

 

[LUH 3417]

Ahh, perhaps its different as a guy being a nurse because he probably is surrounded by attractive girls. A woman on the other hand isn't going to have the kind of options a guy would have haha.

I am an engineer and surrounded mostly by guys, so the dating environment is not too exciting =P

You can make $55 an hour in New York as a nurse starting. Yea NY is expensive but it’s still a high wage. I have a friend whose mom makes $75 an hour just prepping people for colonoscopy. Not that stressful.