Ok here’s the situation folks. I’ve been working a life insurance gig for a lil over a year. I was promised insane possibilities and of course some great commissions. Well the business plan hasn’t panned out, the company is floundering and I’m not making nearly what I was told I would be at this point in time. I have a young son, 6 months old.
So I need a lil help, send me your money…(ie the Suicidal Tendencies song) Actually I was just wondering if some people here could give me some figures on what kind of money I would be making. Say… if I became a personal trainer at a 24 hour fitness. Or if I became a bouncer, or bartender?
I have no college education, however I’d like to pick up a job that would give me the flexibility to take some classes and work on getting an associates. Then I can move onto becoming a Police Officer.
Also if anyone has some suggestions on jobs other then the ones mentioned above, that would be great.
Where I live, I wouldnt expect anything below $14/hour as a personal trainer at a gym - plus comissions from each of your one-on-one sessions.
I see you're looking at becoming a police office.
However, since you asked for other suggestions, it might be in your interest to become an aircraft mechanic. It's a real cool job (fixing corporate jets, gulfstreams, boeings, et al); You get payed good; And the training can take as little as a year and a half before you can get a job with charters, airlines, or aircraft building coompanies like sikorski. The training is damn cheap, if you do it through a company like sikorski, and you get government financial aid for it too. It's what I would do if I knew it'd take me more than 3-4 years before I can finally get the 'job of my dreams' so to speak.
Anything in the medical field is gauranteed to pay well. My best friend to a correspondence course from california college to become a respitory therapist while he worked at McDonalds to support his wife and kid. Then as time went on he was able to work his way through nursing school. Yesterday (honestly) he closed on a $190,000 house. Not bad. He’s gone from being a 16 year old father working at McD’s to being a 27 year old nurse making $70,000 a year.
See Doogie, I’ve heard nurses on the east coast can make quite a bit. For a while I was interested in it. However my mom is a nurse, for the state (Who used to be payed more then anywhere else) and she’s making barely above 45,000. What kind of nurse is your friend? RN?
He’s an RN and so is his wife. Together they made about 135k last year. They just leapfrogged their way through school until they both were done. He works nights and weekends in the ER which means he gets a $3 an hour for working weekends and $3 an hour for working nights on top of the $24 an hour base. He also works at a cardiac rehab during the week, strapping old people to treadmills, watching FoxSports. My wife is in nursing school now (I teach), and when she gets out next year she’ll make more than me working 30 hours a week.
Ever think of being a firefighter?
Decent pay, great benefits, and with my schedule, I only work every third day(10 days a month). Leaves plenty of time for family, lifting, or even a second job. I don’t think there is a better one out there.
Don, the only problem with becoming a fire fighter here in San Diego is there are so many guys on the waiting list, on the website they say that anyone trying to become one could, and most likely will end up waiting two years on the list.
Had a friend that was a bartender at a local club in a minor city7 in PA he made over 30k a year doing it. Problem was very late nights. The money was all cash which translates to about a 40-45k tax paying job. This’ll give you money to live, but won’t do much for you if you need a loan or to finance something since it isn’t really reportable unless you pay all appropriate taxes on it and then it doesn’t work out so well for you.
Another friend of mine just completed an 18 week course to become a medical transcriptionist/ insurance coder at the local community college(Cheap tuition).
She got out and got a job for about $18 an hour. No Problem. That was a great deal if you ask me. I went through 4 years of engineering school and barely made that much after 2-3 years of experience.
Good suggestions above, Renegade, and I don’t have any bright ideas. I do have one comment. GET THE HELL OUT AS SOON AS YOU CAN!!! I too, sold life insurance (and property, casualty, health, investment products) with the promises from many that I too would soon be making megabucks. Truth is, only one in ten are successful.
I spent FIVE years trying to make a go of it, finally got smart enough to get out, and it seemed to take forever to dig myself out of the deep financial pit I dug myself into. Which is why I think you’re smart to cut the losses as soon as you can. (sorry, had to get that off my chest!)
Thanks everyone for your advice and help. I think I may follow Doogies advice, since I have always wanted to help people. Maybe I’ll change my handle to RenegadeNurse some day.
You like to travel a lot? It might interest you to become a pilot. You work an average of 82 hour a month, and if you're flying a boeing 777 as for delta you're cashing in 200,000 dollars a year (plus 20 grand for each extra flight done overtime), for 20 hours a week - not to mention plenty of travel to every corner in the world, free flight benefits for your family and deep discounts on hotels, not to mention hot flight attendants - AND you're your own damn boss. As a captain, it's YOUR final say as to wether that plane is getting off the ground in the first place, not the airline, and not the FAA.
So, you get plenty of travel, cute flight attendants, you get to take your girl with you and have her stay with you at the airline's expense, covered room and food by the airlines while away, and no supervisor bugging the crap out of you. How can you beat that? How many wouldnt give anything to be able to spend every weekend in a different place? This week in hawaii, next in orlando, next in new orleans, L.A....
Just my suggestion. If you're young and single - and like to travel and have fun - not to mention a real neat job, then this just might be of interest of you. Don't let an aircraft incident news scare you. Don't buy into the media either. Right now demand for pilots is below par due to the economic recession. In the next 6 years alone demand for pilots is expected to be the highest it's ever been, as baby boom pilots retire. Now's the time to catch the wave for anyone who wants to be a pilot.