#MiddleClass #AmericanDream #security #fortunes
We used to see becoming middle class as part of the American Dream.
Middle class used to mean security. Instead of dreaming of fortunes, we craved security.
It was there to be had, if you just got a job, showed up for work most every day, did your job satisfactorily and didn’t cause trouble.
In exchange for your good behavior, you got a decent salary, health benefits, a pension when you retired and, basically, a pretty good life.
More importantly, your continued good behavior gave you a job for as long as you wanted it, with regular raises and, perhaps, a promotion or two if you really worked hard.
Mostly, you would be able to do this with little more than a high school diploma.
Those days have slowly gone away, to the point that they have almost vanished altogether.
Paul Davidson, in an article for USA Today, discusses a revival of the middle class in recent times, thanks to a healthier economy. His article was also published Feb. 13, 2019, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Davidson tells the story of Andrew Gehrt, 29, of Greenville, S.C., who was laid off as a sales rep for a water filter company and, after being unemployed for a year, he landed a job as a business development manager for a tech company. Salary: $60,000.
Andrew was very fortunate. Most who lose good jobs today end up, perhaps after a long unemployment, taking jobs that pay less than they were making.
Though Davidson writes that the fortunes of the middle class have brightened recently with the economy, it’s still a craps shoot for a lot of people.
This situation may require a new train of thought among individuals. Remember that security you, or your parents, craved that the middle class provided? With that security eroding because of technology, changing markets, company reorganizations etc., we all have to start thinking differently.
There is indeed good news here. There are many vehicles out there that can allow people to eventually not have to sweat getting laid off. In fact, if these people devote a few part-time hours a week toward one of these, he or she can build an income that could allow him or her to walk away from his or her job with a smile one day.
Here’s the key: you have to be willing to check out your options. You have to be willing to say yes to that person you know, or whom you meet, who brings one of these vehicles to you and asks you to take a look. You don’t have to say yes after you’ve seen it, but you should be open to looking.
If you are one who is willing to explore options, and wants to check out one of the best such vehicles, message me.
The middle class is indeed shrinking. It may be redefining itself. Even some with college degrees are finding options in the job market skimpy. Rather than hunt and peck through jobs you don’t like just to make a living, dream about what you would do when something great comes into your life that you can work at, have fun with and set goals you would never imagine with just a “regular” job.
If you are among those who still crave security, it will get harder and harder to find. The world is increasingly leaving you out on your own to determine your future. Not only is security no longer guaranteed, it can be elusive.
If you have a good job, have lots of years left to work and believe you are “all set,” think again. That next reorganization, or bad manager, could yank the rug out from under you.
Even if you see yourself as “all set,” check out your options anyway.
Peter
Tag Archives: USA Today
WOMEN SEE RETIREMENT AS LIBERATING
#women #retirement #WomenInRetirement #RetiredWomen
Forget the doom and gloom.
American women are increasingly viewing their retirement years with optimism, seeing the aging process as liberating.
So writes Adam Shell for USA Today. His article was also published in the Nov. 17, 2018, edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“Women are so enthusiastic when it comes to aging, and that is a different message than what is out there,” the articles quotes Christine Russell, senior manager of retirement and annuities at TD Ameritrade.
Seventy is the new 50, Shell writes.
The stats suggest that women are “planning for a longer life,” an acknowledgement that should home in on taking the financial steps to fund the lives they want to lead in their later years, the article quotes Russell.
If women are planning for a long, healthy and prosperous life, why can’t all of us do the same?
Everyone’s circumstances are different. You might add the adjective “wealthy” to the women who are planning so carefully.
Truth is, we all can do it, to varying degrees. If you are not wealthy, you will just need more time to plan so you can get there.
That means starting early – right when you start working. You may have to start with a small amount. Even socking away $5 every week from your paycheck will be a start. That’s the equivalent of one or two beverages from your favorite coffee shop every week.
Then, as you get raises, sock those away. As your costs go up, perhaps you can bring your lunch to work instead of buying lunch.
In short, you can plan for a healthy retirement by making it a priority in your life.
Sure, not everyone has that discipline. For some, the discipline may have to be cultivated.
Also, expenses, foreseen and unforeseen, will come up for which you may have to tap into your savings. Buying a house is a good example of a foreseen expense. A big medical bill is an example of an unforeseen expense.
Still, if you have cultivated the discipline and made retirement savings a priority, you can catch up relatively quickly.
Some believe that in your young life, you need to provide for your family first. As your children grow to adulthood, you can start saving in earnest.
That works only if you know that your job will be there for as long as you want. Few can say that today.
If you have trouble leveraging your income, perhaps leveraging your time can accomplish the same thing. There are many vehicles out there that allow people to spend a few part-time hours a week and pick up a potentially lucrative income in addition to their regular W-2 income. If you are willing to step outside of your box and check out one of the best such vehicles, message me.
Saving for retirement, and planning for a long life, mainly requires discipline and prioritizing. Anyone can do it, by spending less and saving more. You can still treat yourself, but make those treats worthwhile and rare – perhaps until those later years come.
To quote the old adage: do today what others won’t, so you can do tomorrow what others can’t.
Peter
CUTTING VACATIONS SHORT
#vacation #TimeOffWork #TimeOff #vacations
You may go on vacation to refresh and recharge.
You may take a vacation to catch up on chores at home.
Mostly, though, you go on vacation to get away from work.
Yet, 63 percent of professionals cut their vacations short because of pressures at work.
So says a statistic published by USA Today. It was also published Monday, Nov. 18, 2018, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
One can read a lot into that number. The employee may be frightened about losing his or her job. The employer hates it when key employees take time off, so they pile up the work for that employee while he or she is gone.
Or, companies run with so few employees that when one is gone, the whole operation suffers.
Here’s something to ponder, if you are an employee: your employer gives you vacation time as a benefit in hopes that you will use that time to relax and come back raring to perform.
Use that time to its fullest, if you know you will never get it back. In some cases, it may pay off for employees to “save” their vacation time to get a nice payoff when they retire. Most employers, though, don’t offer that. For most, it’s use it or lose it. For those, not using vacation time puts money back in the employer’s pocket.
Still, there could be some very good reasons to cut one’s vacation short. Perhaps there is a co-worker facing a grave illness and doesn’t have enough vacation time to get paid for all the time off he or she will need to fight that illness. Perhaps the healthier workers may want to donate some of their time to that person.
A hurricane or some other disaster could strike your place of business while you are away. It may be important for you to get back and help get the business back on its feet.
But just because your employer doesn’t WANT you to use all your vacation, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. If an employer lets you go because you used your vacation, legal action is possible. Or, better yet, find a better place to work.
What if you could go on vacation worry-free, with no pressure on you to return until YOU want to? One might call that financial independence. There are many vehicles out there that potentially could give you the ability to one day fire your boss, and go on vacation whenever you wish, for as long as you wish.
But, you have to be willing to look at something that may be outside of your comfort zone – something you could do part time, without affecting what you are doing now. To check out one of the best such vehicles, message me.
Meanwhile, if you have a job in which you can just be off, where no one really replaces you and there is no pile of work sitting on your desk when you return, consider yourself fortunate. Or, to put it another way, you can perhaps consider yourself expendable and you might need a little more job security.
One of the definitions of job security is whether your boss has to replace you while you are gone.
But regardless of your job situation, using your vacation time is money in YOUR pocket. Cutting your vacation short puts money back in your boss’ pocket.
So, take time off if you can get it. Enjoy. Use all that your employer gives you. It’s time you will NEVER get back.
Peter
HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL
#baseball #BaseballSeason #TroublesInBaseball #HopeSpringsEternal
This time of year, hope springs eternal for every baseball fan.
Spring training has started. The first pitch of the regular season is just around the corner.
Yet, as USA Today columnist Bob Nightengale writes, all is not well in the baseball world. His column on the subject also ran Feb. 22, 2019, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
One star free agent, Manny Machado, just signed the richest contract in Major League Baseball history. He’ll play for the San Diego Padres for $300 million.
Still, other star free agents are still unsigned. Some of them, Nightengale writes, have few teams bidding on their services.
And, there’s talk of s players strike in 2021.
Players, and probably fans, wonder why these stars still linger on the market so close to the beginning of the season.
Aren’t the teams still in competition with one another? Don’t they want to suit up the best team at the start of the season so they have a shot at getting to, or winning, the World Series?
Long-term contracts for stars used to be the norm. But with the prospect of injury, a risk that a “star” will not be a star anymore after getting all that security, are keeping owners, in many cases, from betting big on one or two players. They prefer short-term deals, just in case.
Yes, even highly paid athletes undergo on-the-job issues. They may pale in comparison to the issues in your world, but still …
If you find yourself in a situation in which the good times seemed to have disappeared, the ballplayers are feeling the same thing, perhaps on a different level.
The ballplayers may think that going on strike in a couple of years will solve their problems. You may not have that ability.
But you still have to take matters into your own hands.
If your world is no longer what it was, YOU have to change it.
Are you not making enough money? Is your job to your liking? Is your job, and other life events, eating your time alive? Do you long for a different lifestyle?
If you answered no to the first two, and yes to the second two, know that there are many vehicles out there that can put more money in your pocket, and more time in your life to do what YOU want.
To check out one of the best such vehicles, message me.
Remember, times change and, in this day and age, quite frequently. Gravy trains eventually slow, and even come to a stop.
Promises that you perhaps have relied on through life can be broken. What you were hired to do may change.
People need to be open to things they may not have ever dreamed of doing. If they are not, they may be left behind.
So pencil yourself into the lineup and take your turn at bat. You may never play baseball for a living, but you can still make your life a real hit, or even a home run.
Peter
BANKROLLING ADULT CHILDREN
#AdultChildren #BankrollingAdultChildren #AdultChildrenLivingAtHome
Four out of five parents provide some type of financial support for their adult offspring.
They spend twice as much on them as they do saving for retirement.
Half of parents are willing to draw down savings, and a quarter would go into debt or pull from retirement savings to support kids who’ve left the nest.
These are facts according to a new survey from Merrill Lynch and Age Wave, a research firm, which provided the results to USA TODAY exclusively.
Janna Herron tackled this topic in a USA TODAY article that was also published Oct. 3, 2018, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
And it’s not just giving them daily financial report. Parents pay rent for their kids. They pay for weddings and vacations. You might expect parents to pay for college, or loan their child money for a down payment on a house, but they also cover groceries, cell phones and other expenses, the article quotes the survey.
It had been predicted a few years ago that the Baby Boom generation would see the greatest transfer of wealth from their parents, largely because their parents’ houses had increased dramatically in value over their lives.
Now, it appears, that same Baby Boom generation is helping their kids, to a greater or lesser degree, live the lives they want.
As these parents struggle to have enough financial security in retirement, will their children be in a position to repay them for all they had done for them?
As we break this down, it helps to have some perspective. Just a few decades ago, job security was more prevalent. One could rent an apartment or buy a home in most locales for much less than it costs now.
Kids are graduating college with much more debt. They are postponing things like marriage because many of them can’t even afford to move out of their parents’ house. The jobs they have could go away tomorrow – and many have.
On the other hand, lifestyles are more expensive today. Years ago, one didn’t have all the gadgets that make life easier today. Not only do the kids today have them, they need them. It’s tough to survive today without a computer or cell phone, but they make life much more expensive than it was years ago.
If you are a young adult, you should seek to gain independence, financial and otherwise, from your parents.
If you went away to college, you probably had a roommate. Think about a roommate, or roommates, to make living on your own more affordable.
Watch your daily expenses. If you have a $5 a day coffee shop habit, get a Thermos and brew your own. If you buy lunch every day, think about brown-bagging it.
And, thinking further outside the box, think about using a few part-time non-work hours a week pursuing one of the many vehicles that can help you make potentially a lot of extra money. To check out one of the best, message me.
Remember, too, that Mom and Dad deserve the best retirement they can have. If they have helped you in your youth, it behooves you to help them later on, and pay them back.
Life as a young adult is different for you from what it was for your parents. That should not give you license to live off them forever. Because life is different for you, YOU have to learn to think differently.
Peter
IS YOUR ECONOMY MATCHING THE NATION’S?
#economy #YourEconomy #jobs #raises
OK. The numbers show a booming economy.
Corporate profits are up. The unemployment rate is at a historic low.
So, how are you doing – financially, that is?
Arizona Republic columnist Russ Wiles poses that question in a column for USA Today. It was also published July 1, 2018, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
If you don’t find yourself in a booming financial situation now, here’s what Wiles suggests: find a better, steadier job, while the unemployment rate is so low; He admits, however, that a lot of jobs pay poorly or feature irregular work hours.
He also suggests getting financial help from someone outside your household – hey kids, ask mom and dad or supplement your income with a part-time job in your off hours.
He even suggests the bold move of asking your boss for a raise. Wiles says the employee may be in the driver’s seat in this economy. We’ve all been told, perhaps, that it never hurts to ask. After all, the answer is always NO if you don’t ask. As a practical matter, however, most request for raises generally receive a NO, perhaps in a more graceful manner.
Let’s look at this problem from the employer’s perspective. The general rule of thumb is to pay people as little as you can get away with. However, if you have good, dependable people working for you, it may improve your bottom line – and cut down on work you have to do yourself – to INVEST in those people.
It’s not just in raises, though they indeed may be necessary. You want to make sure that if you know of some particular hardships that a good employee is enduring at home, that you help relieve some of that stress as best you can. Recently, an Alabama worker just hired by a moving company walked 20 miles, hitching rides along the way, to make sure he showed up for his first day of work.
The employee’s car had broken down and he had no other way to get to work. The boss, realizing how difficult it is to buy that kind of dedication, gave the young man a car.
That CEO should make sure he has a decent career ladder crafted for that employee, so that he never leaves.
Of course, at the same time, we read about employers dealing with workers who don’t show up for interviews, or, worse, are hired and don’t show up for their first day of work. Or, they abruptly leave a job without giving the employer any notice.
Reports indicate that during the recession, people would apply for or be interviewed for jobs, and the employers never get back to them. This may be in retaliation for that.
If you follow Wiles’ suggestion and consider getting a second, part-time job to boost your finances, consider a thought outside the box. There are many ways out there to pick up some extra money – perhaps eventually enough to quit a lousy job you hate, that doesn’t pay you enough – that do not involve a second, traditional job. To check out one of the best such vehicles, message me.
In short, these are supposed to be among the best of times for workers. However, many jobs involve hard work and low pay – or at least lower pay than many deserve. Companies have to keep their costs down to compete. The employers have to make money. No one wants to work for someone forced to go out of business.
It’s up to employers and employees to learn more about each other’s circumstances. There’s really no good reason for people not make good wages, while companies make decent profits. It does workers little good to keep changing jobs, and it does employers no good to have to be constantly rehiring.
Everyone – employers and employees – wants options. If everyone treats everyone fairly, there’s no telling what great options everyone will have.
Peter
HOUSING PRICES GOING UP, BUT …
#HousingPrices #AffordableHousing #HousingCosts
About a decade ago, we were hearing about people being forced out of their homes through foreclosure.
Today, we’re hearing about housing shortages, sky-high prices and high rents.
Rick Hampson tackled this issue in Los Angeles in an article for USA Today. It was also published May 20, 2018, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Hampson’s article calls this time the second Gilded Age. The first was in the late 1800s, when industrialization of the U.S. brought many immigrants, mostly from Europe, attracted by higher wages here than in their home countries.
“In this Gilded Age, like the one at the end of the 19th century, the gap between rich and poor is widening: monopolies have more power over business; business has more power over politics; and politics are close-fought and hyper-partisan,” Hampson writes.
In Los Angeles, where the cost of housing is out of sight, you have the mega-rich and the homeless huddled together.
Hampson writes about affluent areas like Bel Air, where a wildfire revealed a homeless encampment among pricey homes.
We all would like to live where we want. We all can’t afford, perhaps, to live where we might want, so we settle for living where we are.
We all can’t afford homes worth, say, $500 million, like the hilltop mansion in Bel Air that Hampson says is bigger than the White House.
Some of those homeless folks might be mentally ill. Some might just be urban outdoorsmen, to coin a phrase from retired radio talk show host Neal Boortz.
Some might have been victims of the recession 10 years ago. They’ve lost their homes to foreclosure, and can no longer afford another one – or even an apartment in California – at current prices.
One may not aspire to live in a $500 million hilltop home, but there are many ways people of modest means can better their lives, with a few hours a week part time. To check out one of the best such methods, message me.
The gap between rich and poor may be widening. Builders are not concentrating their efforts on building “affordable” housing. They are concentrating on building large homes for those who can, or want to, afford them.
Hampson goes on to say what Realtors in L.A. are doing to entice buyers. One even includes furniture, decorations and champagne with a home she is listing, he says.
Certainly, one could read this and think that it’s over the top. Perhaps you live in a small town in the middle of the country and cannot envision this happening where you are.
But the point is that housing prices are going up just about everywhere – especially in and around big cities.
Amazon is scouting places for its second headquarters that promises to bring 50,000 jobs. But amid all this prosperity are those who have very little.
We have to hope that as some prosper, others will be able to use what they leave behind to build a life of their own. The answer to homelessness is building more housing. It won’t get every homeless person off the street, but it may help the ones who’ve gotten there because of bad luck, and who want to work to create a better life.
Peter
SAVE EARLY, SAVE OFTEN
#SaveEarly #SaveOften #retirement #jobs
In previous generations, people (usually the man of the household) worked, using the money to raise his family.
Couples married fairly young, had children young, and concentrated on giving the kids the best life they could.
When the kids grew, graduated college etc., parents were still working, still fairly young, and began to save for retirement.
In the few years between when the kids grew up and when they actually retired, investing their nest eggs into fairly safe investments, they could accumulate a decent amount of money. Using that savings, plus pension and Social Security – and, if desired, a low-stress part-time job – they could put together a pretty good life in retirement.
That was then. Now, young people, who may or may not marry young, need to begin thinking about saving for retirement as soon as they get their first jobs. But, as life would have it, most young people postpone saving for retirement, and pay the price later.
Two articles from USA Today, both also published April 22, 2018, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, take on this topic.
“Wasting just five short years at the start of your career would cost you nearly $500,000 (if you invest $250 a month), reads a headline under a column by Peter Dunn, known at Peter the Planner.
“Too little cash. Don’t know what I’m doing. Not the right time.” These are some of the excuses cited in an article by Adam Shell about postponing key financial decisions in life.
To sum up these articles: save early, save often. Let time work in your favor. Whatever inconvenience one must endure to put a regular amount of money from each paycheck away, not to be touched until later in life, it will be so worth it.
When you analyze the scenario above, you realize that times have greatly changed. Previous generations could bank on a certain amount of job security. Today’s workers have virtually no job security, no matter what they are doing.
The job security of previous generations allowed them to wait until later years to save. They knew they could work until, say, age 65, and save for a comfortable retirement in a few short years.
Today, many workers are forced to retire long before they want to. Younger people may work for eight, nine or 10 employers over their lifetime, without little, or no, pensions. Social Security probably won’t go away, experts say, but in coming years benefits could be reduced.
That leaves the bulk of one’s retirement nest egg up to his or her own decisions.
That means that no matter what you are earning, put some of it away and let it grow. You may only be able to afford, say, $5 a week. Start with that, and keep increasing it as your pay increases – presuming it does. (There’s no assurance of that anymore).
Something else to consider: perhaps you might take a few non-work hours a week to pursue your dream of a comfortable retirement. How? There are many vehicles out there that, with a few hours a week of part-time effort, could produce a substantial income, without interfering with your regular, W-2 job.
To check out one of the best such vehicles, message me.
Since one cannot count on employers or other entities to ensure a good retirement, one must take matters into his or her own hands. Certainly, you want to provide a good life for your family, if you start one. Certainly, you want to pay rent or a mortgage, put food on the table, pay the electric bill etc.
But you HAVE to think about the future. You have to think about what will happen to you if your job goes away. Presuming you don’t want to work until you die, you have to think about, as the TV ad says, not how long you expect to live, but how long you could live.
If you are young, time is your best ally. If you are nearing retirement, and don’t have what you need, you have to perhaps think outside the box on how you are going to make up what you didn’t, or were unable, to do when you were young.
Save early, save often.
Peter
FINANCIAL STRESS? YOU ARE NOT ALONE
#FinancialStress #ImprovingEconomy #FinancialStrains
We hear the economy is improving.
We also hear that companies can’t fill jobs, when just a few short years ago, they were laying people off in droves.
Yet, many are suffering financial distress.
“A growing number of low- and middle-income households are plagued by high debt and have little or no savings,” writes Paul Davidson for USA Today. “The financial strains have especially worsened for those near the bottom of the income ladder,” Davidson continues.
Davidson, whose article on the subject was also published April 19, 2018, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, quotes a UBS study that says some households could fall behind on loan payments, reduce their spending and slow or even undercut a buoyant U.S. economy for the first time since the Great Recession officially ended in 2009.
In other words, the economic news we hear isn’t telling the whole story.
Though the study focuses on lower-income households, other households, whose income was just fine prior to the recession, have yet to recover. The job they now have pays less than the jobs they lost. The manageable debt they had with the higher-paying job is less manageable now.
The article quotes a Bankrate.com survey that says rents are soaring. One in five working Americans aren’t saving any income, the survey says. Average rents have jumped 30 percent nationally since 2010, the article quotes RealPage.
In other words, paychecks have grown much more slowly than expenses.
What to do, if you’re in this predicament?
Perhaps moving is not an option. More than likely, if you are having trouble paying your rent, your search for cheaper accommodations will be futile, since the studies indicate that rising rents is a universal problem.
A second job? Chances are your first job already extracts too much from you for too little compensation, and the thought of getting a second job, even as a temporary measure, is unappealing. Besides, the second job probably won’t give you the extra financial cushion you need, and will just take more of your time away from your family, or things you like to do.
So what is the solution? Perhaps, instead of a second job, you could check out one of the many ways to make extra money without having to get another traditional W-2 job. To examine one of the best such vehicles – one that could also help you save money on some household expenses – message me.
It’s been said that a rising (economic) tide will lift all boats. It’s also been said that building an economy from the bottom up, is better for everyone than building from the top down.
However you look at things, be it the economy as a whole or your life in particular, you can’t count on someone, or something, to solve your problems, if you are having problems.
You have to look for things YOU can do to make your life better. It’s great to set goals, but they will not be reached without action on your part.
Sometimes, all it takes is meeting someone who can show you a way out that you hadn’t noticed, or thought about, before.
If such a person comes into your life, don’t ignore him or her. See what he or she is offering, and whether it is right for you.
Peter
THE DREAM OF BEING YOUR OWN BOSS
#BeingYourOwnBoss #entrepreneurs #BusinessOwners #freelancers
The trend is growing.
Americans say they intend to become their own boss, with all the flexibility that may entail.
According to MetLife study on employee benefits trends, 57 percent of workers say they are interested in becoming a freelancer, according to an article by Charisse Jones for USA Today. It was also published April 22, 2018, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The 57 percent, the article says, is up from 51 percent just last year.
Millennials were the most interested in such work, with 74 percent of those in that age group saying they were curious about becoming a freelancer. That compares to 57 percent of those in Generation X and 43 percent of Baby Boomers, the article quotes the study.
Certainly, the lack of job security working for someone else has contributed to this feeling. Younger folks can look forward to a work life of not knowing whether they will still have a job when the walk into work on a given day.
Younger folks, it seems, want more out of life than just working, working, working. But they may not realize that becoming a freelancer has many pitfalls.
First, until the U.S. can figure out how to make health insurance affordable, buying such insurance on the individual market is incredibly expensive.
Second, it’s been said that one doesn’t own a business. A business owns him or her. If you want to be successful as an entrepreneur, you can’t really tell yourself that you are only going to work X number of hours, with certain days off etc. You have to work when work finds you, and, you have to keep hustling to make sure you have enough work to make a living.
Third, there are duties that you have to do – or pay someone else to do – to keep your enterprise afloat. There is bookkeeping, keeping records for taxes etc. – the kind of work you may not like to do, or find boring.
In short, the flexibility you sought by not working for someone else may not be there for you.
Certainly, there are advantages.
There is something to be said for starting a business from the ground up, and making it successful.
Perhaps, eventually, it can be successful enough that you can pay others to do much of the work, so you can be more flexible.
Usually, though, that takes many years to achieve, and many, many hours of being chief cook and bottle washer.
Perhaps there is a happy medium – having a regular W-2 job that pays the bills, while using some of your own time – say, a few hours a week — building a business for yourself – one that potentially could allow you to eventually ditch the W-2 job and be on your own.
There are many vehicles out there that would allow you to do that. To check out one of the best, message me.
No matter how you decide to earn a living, there is good and bad about each. Independence is a lofty goal, but it’s not for everyone, or every situation.
Here’s a rule of thumb, as you contemplate how you construct your life: if it is to be, it’s up to me. Working for someone else has some benefits, but those benefits can be taken away at any time. Working for yourself has many benefits, but you have to know whether your skill has a market and, if you believe it does, be willing to go out to find it.
Write out your dreams for your life, then put together a game plan that will get you to those dreams.
Peter