Mike I am glad you are thinking about the long term and investing. When I was 19 at my first full time job, my boss who turned out to be a great friend convinced me to get in the 401k. He said to start with whatever I could afford, which wasn't much at the time, then every time I got a raise to put half the raise towards my 401k. Before long I would be at the maximum contribution rate and one day I could retire with a very comfortable life. I am very thankful as I have seen some very good years on average in the last 29 years of investing. If you go to Cnnmoney.com and look for financial calculators in the personal finance section, it will help you figure how much money you could have if the stock market performs on average as it has performed the last 100 years. Most financial planners suggest you pick 3-4 different mutual funds with long track records in your401k and invest long term and don't ever touch that money until you retire!! Dont take loans out against your 401k either. You could reasonably expect to average between 8-12 percent long term (10-20 year periods). In your calculation of $10,000 a year for 15 years you could have $303,000 at 8 percent returns which is very doable. Also about Jack Cooper jobs, I don't know how many, when or what terminals will hire, but company wide we are 200 drivers short. I saw referall cards in dispatch this morning. They said for experienced carhaulers, but generally they have to hire non carhaulers and train them to haul cars. Even after loading in the brutal cold all week in Sub zero weather, I still like my job, not as much as I do in May, but I still like it!10-15 year plan So far I've got 8-9 months of that accomplished ha-ha!
Let's do some creative mathematics. I accelerate in hypothetical mathematics!
Say you make $60,000 a year being conservative about it you can kiss $15,000 of that good by Uncle Sam needs his fair share.
That leaves you with clearing $45,000 after taxes. Figure you own a car roughly if you own a car out right it costs about $5,000-$6,000 a year in gas and maintenance so you are down to $40,000 a year you have kids well that doesn't leave a whole lot left. I don't have kids so I can only go by what I know, $40,000 after the car figure all other utilities probably hover around $10,00-$11,000 a year so now you're down to $30,000 then you figure rent/mortgage that's $4800 right there give or take anymore property taxes where I live are as high as what a mortgage payment is which is kind of making it like gee why do we need to buy this house? So that puts you down to $25,200 then you figure groceries figure average family of four probably spends $15,000 a year on groceries so that leaves you with a profit of $10,200 at the end of the year. So $10,200 put into an IRA or something saving $10,200 a year in 15 years you would have a tad over $100,000 dollars. Which is okay, but not great. Not good enough to retire on. However you could I guess work a little less harder.
Keep in mind this is my rough mathematical guesstimate and this is all pretty lose.
I am doing my best not to fall off the top as it has been fatal to some of those carhaulers that have. The most dangerous spot is over the cab, most rigs have safety cables to grab on to. There are other spots that are tricky but usually your not that high off the ground.
This was a bad situation, I'm glad to not have been a part of it. You just never know when your luck will run out and put you right in the middle of something like this.
Here's a Jack cooper car hauler that was in that big pile up in Michigan. It started on fire. So many cars lost. 1 person died in that pile up. It could've been so much worse...
Amen to that. Sometimes it doesn't matter who you are rookie like me or seasoned veterans like all of you guys. Everyone's luck can run out at anytime without warning.
Here's a Jack cooper car hauler that was in that big pile up in Michigan. It started on fire. So many cars lost. 1 person died in that pile up. It could've been so much worse...
