Correct but as I got older I decided to work smarter and not harder.

I quite high school as a junior and got my GED. Worked for my dad in his small construction company, decided to move to DFW and found out it wasn’t the life for me. I did learn a lot about commercial construction and moved back to West Texas and rebuilt the family business and with hard work, common sense and the grace of god we made it bigger and more successful. No trust fund etc. I was given a start, payed it back after the first job and the rest is history. All my stuff is payed for, I do keep a note on my boat for credit purposes only, learned that lesson a few years back.

I do feel like my carrier in manufacturing was devalued by 50% on the low end by my government’s ability to outsource my job to CHINA or I would have a 100k dollar boat.

A new Skeeter Apex with standard Apex package is $103,000. Four month waiting list.

Go get a good paying job, build up credit, be smart with your money and how you finance, and boom you can them afford a $100k rig

I stand corrected.

A buddy of mine showed up at our local get together last night. All I can say is wow!!
He has a brand new BassCat Jaguar with a Mercury 400 on it. Every conceivable option.

….and a new truck too!

AND HE IS RETIRED!

my dick won't fit in a 100K boat....my eurologist told me to stick to bass trackers from the 80's

I often wonder this as well. I think there are a few things. I think there are more decently higher paying jobs now. In my area, entry level type jobs pay more and some places if you stay there long enough you can move up and start making some solid money. The market has been very good the past few years. (SPY i think is up 200% since 2011).

It's interesting how my view has changed. 3-4 years ago I spent just into the 5 figures on my used boat. This was alot of money to me. Now it doesn't seem quite as much, My dividends for this year make more than the boat was worth.

Back fresh out of high school I had a chance to go work at a local computer shop in Austin but was given an opportunity to go work for a Fortune 500 company. It was Ross Perot's company right around the time of the sale. This was the tail end of an era when folks worked for one company for life, in fact the company still had a pension program at the time. I opted to go corporate thinking I would go to school part time and climb the proverbial ladder, it being the safer less risky choice. I gave them seven years of my life and finally ended up leaving only earning $29K a year. Although I was advancing as far as responsibilities and job titles go, I was hamstrung by a cap on annual increases no matter where I sat in the pay band. Anything over 10% had to go to the SVP for approval which meant going through the gauntlet of middle management approvals and recommendations so I never really caught up salary wise. Meanwhile that little computer shop later went on to become Dell. Needless to say I would've retired in my early 30's as a Dellionaire.

It's funny and interesting to reflect back on the decisions and circumstances that landed us on whatever trajectory we're on. I'm blessed and appreciative to be born an American at the end of it. I got a real sense of this after having worked overseas for a number of years.

I know one thing for certain, in all my years I've never had the urge or desire to eat a Tide pod. That has to make me better than *those* people, right? :-)

BTW, if anyone wants to go halves on Sweet Tuna we could fish Big Rock in June.

With a 4,015 gallon tank x $7.00 a gallon marina gas = $28,000 to filler up!

a decently big, but pretty basic deep sea fishing rig is like a million dollars! I had no idea, started looking into the freemans when Scott Martin got his for curiosity sake....and holy [censored]! watching those "boats vs haulover inlet" videos and seeing how deep sea rig after deep sea rig heads out blew my mind about how much money is in that miami area!

Work hard.

And even after all of that your wife still has a Sancho......... you are such a trooper bro!

133 posts and going on 10,000 views? All about talking about other peoples chit? Sad. Well, I guess I added another post to the count. 🤷🏻‍♂️