Early Retirement Extreme Forums

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@JasonB: To me this seem like an very well-paid adventure trip. What am I missing? Why isn't everyone doing this? How dangerous is it? Is it only available to US citizens? You could do this for a year and save those $250k. It's probably exciting to be in Iraq, and by the time you get bored, the year is over.

From an AP news article in 2007:
"In a largely invisible cost of the war in Iraq, nearly 800 civilians working under contract to the Pentagon have been killed and more than 3,300 hurt doing jobs normally handled by the U.S. military"

Thanks for that figure! You should see this in proportion to the number of people working there, though. Quick googling suggests several hundred thousands -- at any given time or in total up till now? If in total, that's like a 1% chance, which is too risky for me. If at any given time, it's probably still more than 0.1%, still a little too risky as far as I'm concerned.

In comparison, the annual rate of death in commercial fishing is 0.13%
The annual rate of death of eating to many hamburgers is ...
I read somewhere that in terms of getting shot it was more dangerous to live in Washington DC than it was to be stationed as a soldier in Iraq. [anecdotal]

Mint.com Blog Article: Who Needs a PhD? 5 Jobs That Pay Well Without a Degree

@jason

Where can I get more info about this?

Crime.

Then move to other country, just if you want to be safe yourself.

The sad part is many of us with 4-6 YEAR college degrees might end up with 30-40k jobs. Obviously this depends on what one studies, but I remember seeing some sobering stats on debt-earnings ratios for college and master's degrees (even mba's & law degrees depending on the school).

I think if I had the courage to defy cultural and family expectations 3.5 years ago, I might've at least deferred college to learn how to be a high-skill machinist/welder.

@olaz

Yeah, if only I had known about ere back then. Welding or working as a machinist for the rest of my life sound awful, but if its only five years its totally doable.

bla

Hm, how about this question: which one of these lucrative jobs is best combined with the (our?) more typical corporate 9-5 grind?

I could see machining or welding being possible. Nursing, possibly, depending on whether you're staff by a hospital or on-your own or part-time. Going to Iraq probably wouldn't work (that'd be a full-time gig). IT consulting could definitely work, or any consulting, actually ( as long as you're good at it).

Thoughts?

I feel like a broken record, but I'll repeat myself only because I wish somebody had told me this in college.

If you are in the humanities (i.e. not engineering, computer sci, etc) I believe that the quickest way to FU money for the majority of people to is through technology sales.

1. The barrier to entry is very low-any degree is fine to get started, particularly in inside sales.
2. If you can do well in the humanities you understand what drives humans. If you can understand what motivates people, you can sell to them.
3. The compensation ranges from solid to absurd-we hire frat kids from southern schools and give them target incomes of 60k with a base of 40k. Two years later they have the option of being promoted to management (120k) or field sales (150k or so). Salaries for enterprise software sales are from 250k to 500k...with outliers above that.

There are downsides (stress probably being the worst one) but the math, as they say, checks out. You can also let your freak-flag fly a little higher in the sales environment...if you are making your number, nobody can touch you. If you're not making your number, nobody can save you

TL:DR No need to reinvent the wheel- if you have the brains to study philosophy/literature/art you have the ability to kill it in sales and achieve ERE very quickly.

plantingourpennies wrote:I feel like a broken record, but I'll repeat myself only because I wish somebody had told me this in college.

If you are in the humanities (i.e. not engineering, computer sci, etc) I believe that the quickest way to FU money for the majority of people to is through technology sazles.

1. The barrier to entry is very low-any degree is fine to get started, particularly in inside sales.
2. If you can do well in the humanities you understand what drives humans. If you can understand what motivates people, you can sell to them.
3. The compensation ranges from solid to absurd-we hire frat kids from southern schools and give them target incomes of 60k with a base of 40k. Two years later they have the option of being promoted to management (120k) or field sales (150k or so). Salaries for enterprise software sales are from 250k to 500k...with outliers above that.

Soooo, are you hiring? Will apply. Any of my other potential jobs will be stressful anyway, and I can believe in selling technology more than other products (e.g. 100% anuities). Resume & CL at the ready

Olaz wrote:Hm, how about this question: which one of these lucrative jobs is best combined with the (our?) more typical corporate 9-5 grind?

I could see machining or welding being possible. Nursing, possibly, depending on whether you're staff by a hospital or on-your own or part-time. Going to Iraq probably wouldn't work (that'd be a full-time gig). IT consulting could definitely work, or any consulting, actually ( as long as you're good at it).

Thoughts?

I'm trying to tutor highschool kids in math after work. In a big city, I bet you could charge like 45 dollars an hour - especially for sat prep stuff.

plantingourpennies wrote:I feel like a broken record, but I'll repeat myself only because I wish somebody had told me this in college.

If you are in the humanities (i.e. not engineering, computer sci, etc) I believe that the quickest way to FU money for the majority of people to is through technology sales.
.

I recall you saying this. I agree. I've known some heavy hitting closers in semiconductor tools.

But you have to be a closer.

Sclass wrote: I recall you saying this. I agree. I've known some heavy hitting closers in semiconductor tools.

But you have to be a closer.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-tru ... er-person/

Nobody's mentioned real estate. Getting a bunch of income generating rentals is maybe the most common way to achieve FI.

halfmoon wrote:

Sclass wrote: I recall you saying this. I agree. I've known some heavy hitting closers in semiconductor tools.

But you have to be a closer.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-tru ... er-person/

Thanks for sharing the article. Funny, dark and full of truths.

Sales is awesome to make big dollars while working for somebody else (which doesn't often yield big dollars). It is one of those games where 90% of the sales are closed by 10% of the players. The rest get nothing. I've seen it up close and it isn't pretty for the losers. It's like actors, only a few get the juicy roles...the other 10,000 get nothing.

Good luck getting rich.

Yeah, those salary curves for a given career should also come with a Gini index along with the average.

I have a family member who was infected with the enthusiasm. In the beginning, it was all "yay, benefits, and free pizza, my boss is awesome, and I got a $50 bonus this week". A couple of months later they quit because of the stress of having to be chipper/salesy on the phone for 8 hours straight. It's definitely not for everybody. It's basically up/out with tons of churn. The more evil companies also make you pay for the "training"; training which can easily be part of the business model for the company (cf. college education tuition).