Learners Before Earners

You know we have got lot a kids out there today that are not graduating from high school and are not going onto college. Did you know 50% of kids are not graduating high school nationally and 50% of them that do graduate are not going onto college. Today, the market is very competitive and if you don't have a college education as a minimum you are going to be in some serious trouble. We are going to talk a little about this, this concept that some of these kids have that I can just drop out of school or maybe I will just graduate and I will just get a job.

I will start earning some money and then I'll get a better job. Today's job environment is not employee friendly. Companies, higher employees then discard employees like they are just a commodity. The whole of idea working for company your whole life and getting a pension and retirement that is all but gone and you know there are a few government jobs that still have some kind of pension, although you know every time you turn around the government taking that money away and saying that those employees did not earn it and they need to spend it on some other project that they have spent all the money on. You need to be able to get a job outside of that.

For the government jobs there are a 100 people for every one of those jobs trying to get those jobs and they are not that great a job any way. They are average paying jobs, they require a lot of your time and effort, and have very little reward anymore. Because of the political nature you are changing perspectives every couple years and are not the way to go. So what is out there for the rest of us, the kids that don't go onto college, that don't graduate, they are going to just get the average unskilled labor job. And let's talk a little bit about that.

The kids think "well I will just quit school and get a construction job or get a job in a warehouse or get a fast-food job". Let's just look at the financials behind making that kind of decision.

They get a job and let's say they are lucky enough to be an unskilled labor making 10 bucks an hour. Now $10 an hour is actually, pretty decent because it's well above the minimum wage and most of unskilled labor are being paid the minimum wage. So if you are lucky to get a $10 an hour job, let's do the math, your are making $20,000 a year, $14,000 dollar a year after taxes, that is about $1,200 a month take home. Now out of that $1,200 a month you are going to have to pay $500 to $1000 a month for a place to live. I have talked with some kids and they say "well, I will just have roommatesamd they will pay the bills" or "I will have a girlfriend and she will pay the bills", that doesn't work out. I mean yeah when you are first out of high school, first out of college may be you will go and have a few roommates but you will find as you move on in life you are not going to have roommates forever and you are not going to be willing to live in the conditions such you have to live in when living with the roommate or live in an house or an apartment that would allow roommates.

So you got $500 to $1000 a month going out for a place to live. There's $300 to $500 a month going out for the car payment and probably just about the same amount for car insurance. You have got a $100 a week for food and that is if you never eat out, which you know every high school kid eats out probably every day of the week, $100 your income goes to bare essentials like soap and shampoo and personal care products and clothes.

If you add that $500, $600, $300 and $100, you are talking $1500 a month and that's $1500 a month compared to the $1200 dollars a month your earning. So you are going in the hole $300 dollars a month every single month and that's taking some numbers that are saying that your are going to do all the things right that you are going to get the least expensive place to live with the cheapest utilities. You are going to get the car with the smallest car payment, the insurance with the lowest price, the food without eating out, all the bare essentials, never buying anything new and you are go $300 a month in debt. You know you guys are out there thinking that you are going to go and this what you are going to do, you are just going to, you know mom and dad are stupid, coach is stupid, they don't know what they are talking about, you are just going to go out and you are just going to do it.

Well why set yourself up to be a failure. There is no way you are going to make it. You can't even have the dream that well me and my girlfriend will both have $10 an hour jobs. Okay fine, you both have $10 an hour job. You think you guys are going to able to live on that. You still have to double the food, you have to double the bare essentials, you have to double the cars, so your really not saving yourself anything. Low behold if you come out of school and end up going and having a kid, before marriage whatever, we are not going to be getting into that but that's going to be a huge expense. Children eat up as much as 50% of your gross income and you saying well you know my girlfriend is going to work.

Okay, well fine but who is going to watch the kid, your mom and dad have jobs and lives, they are not going to watch your kid day in and day out. So you are going to have to that them to daycare then you are going to be paying a $150-200 a week for daycare. So half or more of the $10 an hours go just for daycare that's not including food, clothes, diapers, and miscellaneous, and one thing about kids is you cannot tell a kid to go without diapers, you cannot tell a kid to go without formula, you cannot tell a kid to go without their bare essentials. You might be able to get by not doing laundry, you might able to get by wearing your used clothes but you have a kid and that's a fixed coast that you are not going to be able to get away from.


Copyright (c) 2011 anthonyflatt.com