Do you pay your employees enough?

Would you consider them middle class?

What does a 3 bedroom 2 bath house average house cost (not a mansion and not a dump)?

Assuming someone purchased it with 20% down, what would their mortgage payment be on the remaining 80% on a 30 Yr. loan?

What's the average car payment for a car that is less than 3 years old?

If you add those two payments together, can your employees pay that monthly expense out of a single paycheck after taxes?

If so, they are living a middle class life. >>>

One of the reasons I got into roofing was the potential for a good living in a relatively short amount of time. I was able to make as much as my Dad when I was 21. I had to physically work much harder than he did to do it, but he had taught me that working hard was something he had admired in his farmer Dad and Grandpa.

But that relatively quick way to good earnings can easily seduce those with addictive traits. I had a several long term employees that it seemed that the more I paid them, the worse they lived and the more unreliable they bacame. With each earnings increase, they would upgrade their choice of drugs as well.

On houses, I can compare my record going on the roofing track with my three kids who went the college track. I bought my first home, a nice new 1800 ft. ranch home in the area of the highest rated schools in town at age 25. None of my kids were able to match that by that age.

Now they're all around their early 30's. Both of my daughters have as nice of a homes as I had, but by then I had bought an adjoining 2 acres and put on a 500 ft addition, so I consider that I was ahead of where they are. My son (the oldest) still has never owned a home. But he makes 200,000 Euros per year, so expect he will pass me sometime soon.>>>

Old School, please elaborate.>>>

Hey you nuts! You are talking about money that has lost its value. That has been caused by our government. We are being screwed and we are blameing each other . What are you thinking.>>>

It's not a simple as frugality/save.....That's why we're able to move to where we can continue to stay in business and proper....Sure, we could have stayed where we were at....Twiddle our thumbs...Maybe enter the job market....But I wasn't ready to call it quits....want a bit more for my family...So here we are.....It just sucks to experience what was once a respected, (and profitable), trade/business go down the tubes.....>>>

I am lucky. I learned my savings lesson some 20 years ago and it has stuck with me very well. It's hard lesson, and being in my early 20's made learning and starting over very easy, by comparison.>>>

Tom...there is no argument that real estate prices have priced many people out of the market. That is one reason why the market is coming down. I cannot live in many neighborhoods in my own city. ---Generally things run in cycles. It is called the boom and bust. One must save during the boom times to survive the bust times. I have actually had to loan my own roofing company $10,000 to pay for overhead. There is simply not enough work to pay my own very low fixed overhead. And I haven't made it back and it is almost the end of the year. Lately we have picked up some work but the point is that saving in 2007 is saving me in 2009. ---My parents lived through the great depression. That changed them. My mom to this day will hardly throw anything away. She saves paper bags, cardboard, you name it and has a mentality that I don't relate to. I grew up in the land of plenty throw it away society. Well, now it is my turn to do some changing. Lanny>>>

Mike/Lanny, as well as a few others; All very true. However, your simply stating the obvious of another topic, than what was started here....But, I'll go with it also....I'll mix it up some more....

Currently we live and work in a community where a simple 3 bdrm home commands $ 500K minn. To rent;$2,500/mo. minn., fuel is darn close to $3/gal. grocerys are a bit higher than that in the "city" , the avg. pay for a tradesmen, (roofers, carpenters, what have you), is $10 - $20/hr. There may be a few that get more....We pay $15-$25. We own a beautiful 4600sf custom home on 2.5 acres in an area we were forced to move from due primarilly to the degedation of the local workforce as well as the trade itself......

I told my wife that we just don't fit here anymore.....That if we wanted to stay in the roofing/construction biz, we would have to move into town and live in the rum-dum trailer park...I could hang out everyday at the local pub with the rest of the jacklegs....So here we are, paying absorbident rent for a piece o' s#*! dump of a house, while our beautiful million$ home sits empty that we can't sell for 1/2 that! We're here because we can still make $ as a contractor...I pity the worker-bees though....And yes, most of them aren't worth 2 cents anyway....So here we are......WTF happened?

Trouble is, there's not much sense to change career paths now; At 52, w/2 young boys, I've just got to make another run at it...so-to-speak....

I suppose we've succumbed to the excessive/glutenous appetite for "the good life" in some respects......But not really. We work very hard, are honest, and are fairly frugal people....We just got caught up in a mess. (meaning, and extremely simply put; The current moral decay of this society). JMVHO>>>

PGRIZ hits the nail on the head. ---Here is my experience...most roofers are below average in intelligence. They have no concept of a financial plan. If they quit drinking beer they would have money for many things, for example. ---There is money in roofing for anyone who works hard. When I started I got $4.00/sq for 3tab on new construction. I worked hard! Then I got $6.50/hr as the kettleman on the hot crew. We worked 10 hour days in the summer and I had more money than any of my friends. Then I switched to another company making $11/sq for all new construction shake. It was clean, easy and smelled great! We all could do 10 sq in 6 hours every day. Many days I got on 14 sq. So I am making over $100/day in 1974. That was more money then anyone else I knew in the trades. ---The big question was...what do I do with that money. Almost everyone I worked with blew the money on expensive toys and a lavish lifestyle. Everybody drove a big 4x4...some had motorcycles and/or boats also. At the end of 10 years they had NOTHING to show for it. I drove an old Rambler that I bought for $50. My wife and I saved $11,000 in 11 months and bought a house for $38,500. 2 years later we sold it for $67,500 and bought another house for $95,000. ---It isn't how much you make it is what you do with the money you have. Yes, wages have gone down compared to inflation. Yes, the gov't is mostly responsible. Yes, the gov't created the housing bubble with cheap money and popped the bubble with stupid policies. However, debt is our fault. Yes, some have been caught in the crunch but many have allowed their own spending habits to create mountains of debt instead of frugal saving. ---We are not in a credit crisis. We are in a self induced debt crisis. The entire USA is spending money we don't have and yes, the gov't is the worst offender. It is time to SAVE instead of spend. Yes, that hurts the economy but it is a pain we must go through to get back to solvency. ---Wages have come down relative to costs of living. But a hard working roofer can still make $45,000-70,000 a year in wages and benefits. That is pretty good in a trade that doesn't even require a GED or expensive tools. Roofers bitch and moan but how many are on drugs? How many won't stay with one company long enough to become a valuable employee? I get calls all the time from "great roofers" who want to come work for me. I wonder why they aren't already working for someone else if they are so great...

PGRIZ, I hear you! Lanny>>>

Egg,

Honestly, your reality is so far from mine, that I can't even begin to comment on it. I can't comprehend it, let alone talk intelligently about it.

Dad just bought 25 acres with an old farmhouse for $115K. Land is still cheap here by any any definition. We don't have hurricanes, we don't have smog, we don't have traffic, we don't have regular weather extremes (over 95 below 15), we don't have earthquakes, forest fires, overcrowding, immigrant problems or a host of other social ills.

A 1977 ranch in a well established middle class neighborhood, on a 1/2 acre lot. About $150-220K depending on all the factors that dictate desireable from undesireable.

An old-town 40-50's house, two story box with a decent detached garage, newer siding, may still have the old slate intact, maybe not, can be had for under 100K.

A million dollars around here will buy you a 10,000 sq ft mansion on 100 acres, and as some relatives have learned over the past 2 years, it's hard to find a buyer. Why is it so hard? Because anyone with that money can find the cheap land to build their own dream, instead of having to learn to love someone else's dream.

However, we have scads of 30-50 year old couples that are being forclosed upon, because they left their nice little homes described above for the new McMansion developments, their lavish trims, commercial quality yet unused kitchens with granite counters, tile baths with 5 jet showers, master suites that rival fine hotels, because they were were tying to keep up with the friends, while driving new Escalades, on lease, maxed in every way to the hilt of every paycheck, forgoing their employer's 401K's because they needed EVERY dollar to keep up with their payments of home cars, 4 HDTV's, cable, internet, 4 cell phones with unlimited text packages, soccer and dance uniforms, ATV's and the rental storage unit. Both mom and dad working every hour they can, so they can buy then next thing that the neighbors buy and keeping the kids in the latest fashions. Middle class americans are living lives beyond what lower upper class did 30 years ago.

People with a real balance sheet may make twice as much/year as those that are flat broke, but they live a life that appears on the surface to 1/2 as grand as the folks that are broke.

These same broke families produced children that thought a mobile home or a 40's fixer-upper was beneath their status. They are the buyers of the 1977 ranch for 180K. The one with no furniture cuz they can't afford any. The one that is professionally mowed because they don't have time to mow it between the jobs and picking kids up from daycare, don't have cash money for a mower, but can say "Lookee where I live". The wicked cycle begins on a higher level.

But that is what I see around here in the hearland. What has occurred on our seaboards is something I can't speak to.>>>

rotfl. As usual, RCS thread separates into variant strands. Everybody has good points, they speak to different ends (unless you consider revolution as a single constant) but I have to pursue the house comparison. Around here the '77 house was 1800 square feet, two-car garage, nearly vertical grain fir framing, tile or shake roof, tile counter-tops, masonry chimney, redwood trim. Cost about 43k. On the downside, the windows were substantially cheaper, the insulation a little thinner in the roof portion, the water heater and hvac unit less efficient, but all metal ductwork, and lacking a lot of steel hold-downs etc...though some of that stuff is only here now to stitch together inferior framing members. This is to distinguish it from the 50's and early sixties homes which were typically much smaller. (That's the stuff I grew up in: 1200 ft. and single car garage and no going out to dinner on any casual basis. Snowy little tv sets and listening to the ball games on the radio.) So what? Those houses are still there, now selling for 400k even without upgrades. A brand new one, you get finger-jointed fascias, plastic baggy ductwork, no redwood, comp shingles, a chimney chase and wood stove if that. Not buying that argument, despite the fact that there is merit in Mr. Hicks' line of reasoning and good reason to explore it further. Building lot costs are ASTRONOMICAL by comparison. The seventies house described had 1-2 ACRES coming with it. The new one: a small lot, period. The seventies house included driveway, well, and septic. The new one a water and sewer hookup with monthly dues. If you want the two acres and the well and septic, now you are talking in the range of one Mill. No-go. We're losing ground. Period. Now what to do about it and what causes it and the other contributing factors is another matter. btw, on the merits of the baggy ductwork vs. the leaky metal ancestors, imho and from what I have personally experienced, vermin have a very easy time penetrating the soft stuff. If they can dig under or pry into your basement, they tear that stuff up in minutes.>>>

Amen!>>>

Hi Jed, that was Jeff that made that comment.

Jeff, how much of our paycheck did the government take back then? How much would a typical 1977 house cost today?

I still contend that it's not the wage that's the problem. Our wages are not keeping up with our tastes and desires, ie:, the credit crunch. Government is far outpacing our GDP growth with their own growth, taking even more purchasing power away from the worker. We don't need more organized unions, we need a revolution.>>>

I think the correct answer to the question is double the poverty rate for a family of three. About $16,000 in 83 and $34,000 in 2008. I pay it (just barely).>>>

Mike, You say:- "I own an American Corporation. I would pay more it I could still remain competitive"

Are you not pricing your work on a 65% profit line? I don't see how you CAN be competitive with that kind of margin for profit.>>>

seen-it-all understands quite well. Organized labor? Don't agree with that.......Curbing the illegal worker onslaught would provide the quickest and most efficient results.....Don't the unions somewhat embrace the illegals? (Very generalized statement; I undestand)>>>