how expensive is it to have a job ?

[bookwormom]

I am just wondering. I "worked" for several years after the kids were grown, but I could ride with my husband as we worked on the same base.
I did not have a very lucrative job, first I was teaching pottery and crafts at the recreational facility. One of the girls there working in the office had a baby and when it was six weeks old she put it in daycare so she could go back to work. The daycare cost so much that she had a little over two dollars left. I am sure if she had applied herself she could save more than those two dollars an hr. and I am wondering if she did not actually wind up with less than with more.
what are your thoughts, ideas and experiences upon the subject?

[Deberosa]

This thought started to bug me in the late 90's. I had a high pressure job in downtown Denver. It was a huge project and I had spent a year driving from my garage at home to the parking garage in the highrise and then back. I worked 14 hour days and was on call 24/7. I hired someone to clean my house, someone to mow my lawn, just parking the truck in the garage was 200 a month!!! I had to buy fancy clothes and eat out most of the time. I came home exhausted and even if I wasn't everywhere I would want to go had lines and lines of people.

I told my boss at the time when you look at the costs of what it took to work that job that I would make more per hour working at a McDonalds for minimum wage.


In 1999 I had had enough. I sold out and quit and a new opportunity brought me here to the Olympic Peninsula. That was before I even heard of this self sufficiency thing or homesteading. It was just me wanting to get out of the rat race!

It costs alot to work!

[RNMOM]

I agree, it does cost a lot to work. My dil works and puts that cute grandbaby in daycare, they eat out all the time, she doesn't cook from scratch and she has more clothes than I've ever owned. Irritates the heck out of me.

She works just to get out of the house. I figure they are going in the hole every month.

I work in an ER 4 blocks from my house, so travel isn't an issue. I make considerably more than minimum wage, I wear the same three sets of scrubs I've had for several years. I work 3 12 hour shifts a week. I still make my own bread, grind my own wheat, cook from scratch, plant a garden and can my food. I don't hire my housework out, but would love to.

My dil thinks I'm weird..........................I won't say what I think of her :-/

[machinemaker]

My job is self employment from a shop I built on our property about 60' from our house. Because the house and shop are part of the same mortgage, we can add up the total square footage of both structures and then deduct the percentatge that is the shop from out taxes, about 50% of our mortgage. I don't have to commute daily, but do drive 40 miles into the city once or twice a week. I can charge the same shop rate as my competitors in the city who rent shops and have payments on newer equipment, but I have used equipment that I bought cheaply for cash. This work for me, as long as there is plenty of work, however the economy is slow for my customers and my work is slow. I am still trying to figure out how to claim the dogs as employees, since they spend the days with me out in the shop!
kent

[Deberosa]

Yes, I work from home now too and thus I cut out what now would be a $300 plus gas bill to commute. I also take the office as a deduction but I owe so little on the mortgage that I may lose that at some point. I am just on the border line of itemizing.
Now my employer pays my phone and dsl charges, but last year I was able to take them off the taxes too. You can also deduct the same percentage of maintenance, light bills, etc. for the office space so that is cool.

It's a far cry from the job I had in Denver that's for sure! Plus no more long hours and on call. YEAH! And to top it off I make 20% more than I did back then. So now it's worth my while to stick with it.