What age to be a millionaire?

[Elky Welky]

But there certainly are exceptions, and some fields will be different than others. Every profession sells experience. I like an experienced doctor, dentist, lawyer, etc, but I don't think I will go to one that sold their "life experience" over a college degree.

I agree. And nor are these things mutually exclusive. Going to college doesn't deny someone "life experience," it's just a different kind of life experience. And if someone goes to college for a long time, they may also be working through college or over the summers in very demanding and grueling jobs to pay for the college they are attending.

And though college can open doors, that promise lures people in to taking out more debt than the job market will compensate them for, even if they get a professional degree.

Take, for example, many of the attorneys I know: "Congrats, here's six figures of debt, now here's a starting job in MT as a public defender or prosecutor for only 60k a year, or you can risk it with a big firm in MT and make a whopping 70k a year, and pay up to the bosses for the next 20."

Was it worth it to waste 7-10 years of prime life taking on debt instead of simply working in the ND oil fields or joining the military and saving money?

 

[Irrelevant]

I'd bet that in any field where someone makes over $250k 85+% have a college degree

Almost every business owner in the country makes that but also has an accountant to show they don't, and damn sure isn't going to admit it. Hell, cherries can turn 15k an acre on a good year, berries are even more. You can make 250k as a lineman, a plumber, or small excavation co. Heck you can dang near turn that by building houses, living in them for 2.5 years and selling them around here.

What they don't teach you in college is how much freaking money there is out there OUTSIDE of the college route, and how both hamstrung you are to affect your wages, and just generally restricted to a box your current and future income will be. We are bleeding staff because they've come to realize that you'll never get rich working for someone else. Do they have degrees, yes, but if anything working in a professional setting has convinced them that design and building retaining walls as a one-man show is more lucrative.

 

[Forkyfinder]

Almost every business owner in the country makes that but also has an accountant to show they don't, and damn sure isn't going to admit it. Hell, cherries can turn 15k an acre on a good year, berries are even more. You can make 250k as a lineman, a plumber, or small excavation co. Heck you can dang near turn that by building houses, living in them for 2.5 years and selling them around here.

What they don't teach you in college is how much freaking money there is out there OUTSIDE of the college route, and how both hamstrung you are to affect your wages, and just generally restricted to a box your current and future income will be. We are bleeding staff because they've come to realize that you'll never get rich working for someone else. Do they have degrees, yes, but if anything working in a professional setting has convinced them that design and building retaining walls as a one-man show is more lucrative.

Lineman, plumbers, electricians, etc all make more than a lot of engineers, lawyers, accountants - independent of business ownership.

One of the things that frustrates me today is that opportunity for young people is ususally take for granted.

One thing that independent folks need to remember though - going the business "tax" self ownership approach doesnt pay for sick days, holidays, pto, healthcare, 401k, etc. Lots of them forget to save and don't take time off because managing that much moving cash is tough in the first place.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Almost every business owner in the country makes that but also has an accountant to show they don't, and damn sure isn't going to admit it. Hell, cherries can turn 15k an acre on a good year, berries are even more. You can make 250k as a lineman, a plumber, or small excavation co. Heck you can dang near turn that by building houses, living in them for 2.5 years and selling them around here.

What they don't teach you in college is how much freaking money there is out there OUTSIDE of the college route, and how both hamstrung you are to affect your wages, and just generally restricted to a box your current and future income will be. We are bleeding staff because they've come to realize that you'll never get rich working for someone else. Do they have degrees, yes, but if anything working in a professional setting has convinced them that design and building retaining walls as a one-man show is more lucrative.

Almost every business owner in the country makes that but also has an accountant to show they don't, and damn sure isn't going to admit it. Hell, cherries can turn 15k an acre on a good year, berries are even more. You can make 250k as a lineman, a plumber, or small excavation co. Heck you can dang near turn that by building houses, living in them for 2.5 years and selling them around here.

AGI

What they don't teach you in college is how much freaking money there is out there OUTSIDE of the college route, and how both hamstrung you are to affect your wages, and just generally restricted to a box your current and future income will be. We are bleeding staff because they've come to realize that you'll never get rich working for someone else. Do they have degrees, yes, but if anything working in a professional setting has convinced them that design and building retaining walls as a one-man show is more lucrative.

My cousins flip houses… both have college degrees.

Again is it necessary for what you are doing in the job, no.

I still think my assertion that ~85% of folks with an AGI of $250k+ have college degrees is correct.

 

[BigHornRam]

I don't know if I agree.

Sure there are some people who go far without a college degree, but aren't they more outliers?

I'd bet that in any field where someone makes over $250k 85+% have a college degree, and that that income is strongly correlated with the ranking of that program on US news and world report.

Going to Princeton doesn't guarantee you a high paying job, but no matter how much folks like to pretend that it isn't true, there are actually paths to certain careers, and while you can get there other routes it's exceedingly more difficult if not impossible to do so.

I bet 85+% of pro football players don't have a degree, and going to Princeton will definitely screw you over if you want to play pro ball.

 

[MLC]

I bet 85+% of pro football players don't have a degree, and going to Princeton will definitely screw you over if you want to play pro ball.

And an inordinately high percentage of them are broke in 5 - 10 years. Sad really!

 

[Irrelevant]

I still think my assertion that ~85% of folks with an AGI of $250k+ have college degrees is correct.

I might only concur that they do not that they need to, with the difference being no one actually teaches you how to make money, you have to learn that yourself, and along the way you got a college education, but it isn't necessarily related.

 

[cgasner1]

You can make 250k as a lineman

That was 10 years ago in Cali it’s a lot more now. Got a buddy that works 8 months out of the year and hunts the other 4 he makes more than that

 

[Ben Long]

Do you have any stats on that? I know Ramsey isn’t popular on here but that last millionaire study they did (which was a large sample size) found something like 70-80% were first generation, self made. Sure, there is generational wealth out there and always has been but I’m not sure that’s the bulk of just “average millionaires”

We all trust different sources. Here's one example. https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/per...s-only-27-of-wealthy-americans-are-self-made/ Inherited wealth is part of it, but so is the setting one grows up in, such as schools, access to advanced education, connections, living in favorable geography, etc. Since the 1980s, inheritance taxes have been branded as unfair "death taxes" and have been trimmed way back, allowing families to pass more money on to their kids. IMO the American "lift your self by the bootstraps" myth is very deeply believed, but not really backed up by data. The rich get richer, the poor work harder, and the gulf between the rich and the poor has gotten much worse in the US in my lifetime. I have a close family member, for example, who is a Harvard MBA who got a job with a new startup called Microsoft back in the 1990s. I'm proud of her and she worked hard and is way smarter than me. But her upbringing and education level allowed her to turn the key. A lot of "success" is luck. Anyway I'm getting political and let's get back to elk hunting...

 

[Nick87]

That was 10 years ago in Cali it’s a lot more now. Got a buddy that works 8 months out of the year and hunts the other 4 he makes more than that

My step dad was a lineman. I never knew how much they made growing up. He never said anything about it. Then he got my Sisters Ex a job, guy is dumber than a day old chicken. Sometimes I just daydream about kicking him right in the balls.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

I bet 85+% of pro football players don't have a degree, and going to Princeton will definitely screw you over if you want to play pro ball.

Don't most play college football?

 

[cgasner1]

My step dad was a lineman. I never knew how much they made growing up. He never said anything about it. Then he got my Sisters Ex a job, guy is dumber than a day old chicken. Sometimes I just daydream about kicking him right in the balls.

Trade has to many safety rules now it use to thin the dumb ones out

 

[brymoore]

Trade has to many safety rules now it use to thin the dumb ones out

Electricity helps

 

[Irrelevant]

That was 10 years ago in Cali it’s a lot more now. Got a buddy that works 8 months out of the year and hunts the other 4 he makes more than that

My cuz left early Sunday to get called out to a job (Portland storm work), he'll check that box before summer ends. My straight wage may not get there for another decade. But someone on another crew in the last storm got fried, so there are drawbacks.

 

[Nick87]

Electricity helps

Not this guy, picture the drunk driver who killed 12 people on the way home from the bar and not a scratch on his car. We had to take him hunting for like 3 years. First question, "do you guys ever just get totally wasted and then go out hunting? Seems like it would be way more fun?" I should have have cut the straps on his stand just enough.

 

[noharleyyet]

Money does not make a person miserable...being told you're great by mooching wannabe sycophants & believing them does.

I belong to an organization that cooks bbq for about 12 shindigs a year to raise dough for The Boys Club, Hospice, & a half dozen other non profit community betterment organizations. I see the same moneyed faces at all of them, giving their time and dough to good causes. They don't have to do it & they could not care less about the attention. They are simply good people who have either worked hard and smart, or enriched heirs of good people that have also become good people. Money hasn't made them bitter, stingy, or miserable.

Eff you dough is the same as a gun, it's up to the owner to decide how to use it.

 

[F250]

That is always the case. I would venture to bet that a having a college degree correlates highly with success. Employers know this and is how we get to the posittion where a lot of positions require degrees that aren;t all that necessary. But there certainly are exceptions, and some fields will be different than others. Every profession sells experience. I like an experienced doctor, dentist, lawyer, etc, but I don't think I will go to one that sold their "life experience" over a college degree.

@F250, who the hell is on a fixed income? Short of someone who used their life savings to buy an annuity, no one should be on a fixed income. But that's on them.

I know many people on fixed income. Get off your high horse sport ! I was fishing this morning with two guys in their 80’s. Both living of Social Security and a small pension. Not everyone had the opportunity to attend college or trade school. Some didn’t even make it through high school before they had to enter the workforce to support family.

 

[SAJ-99]

I know many people on fixed income. Get off your high horse sport ! I was fishing this morning with two guys in their 80’s. Both living of Social Security and a small pension. Not everyone had the opportunity to attend college or trade school. Some didn’t even make it through high school before they had to enter the workforce to support family.

Social security has a COLA adjustment as do most pensions unless you opt out of it.

I like my horse and will continue to gallop.

 

[MTLabrador]

It’s great to get a reminder of just how poor you are every once in a while, really keeps the peasants in line.

But I’m still dead sexy, a better shot, and a better fisherman than most of you.

 

[Nick87]

as do most pensions unless you opt out of it.

That's interesting I know a LOT of guys collecting different pensions and have never heard of them offering this once. Is that a public sector thing?