If you are "self made," could you do it again in this economy?
 

Assuming you didn't inherit a business or a trust fund and your rise to middle class or more was on your own efforts. Could you do the same if you were 22 years old in 2024?

Me? I paid for college with a crappy blue collar job. Did various sales gigs and bought as much real estate as I could for a while. I am 58 and don't really work much today.

However I have a 22 year old son who can't afford to buy a home and needs to follow a completely different model than I did.

Me? I could survive in today's market. But I would not do nearly as well if I followed the same recipe.

What about you?

Given that I started learning how to program when I was 10 out of curiosity, easy for me to assume I would go down that road if I turned 10 in 2011 instead of 1981.

Google, the ends of the news groups, the start of forums and Stack Overflow and such. Plenty of Free and Open languages, dev environments, etc.

Fairly sure I'd have the same current-technology skill sets as I do now, but I would be missing the "oh yeah this is how vsam flat file devs thought and did stuff..." stuff that really helps me with our DB2 database... that was designed by vsam flat file devs (so everything is duplicated everywhere instead of actually using the relationship, db enforced or not... argh!). Of course, to counter that I'd probably be a lot better at modern front end web work than I am (I'd rather do it all back end and send plain old HTML 1.1 compliant code out to the browser)

What would that get you? Well, we got a just out of high school with some interesting side projects in a non-related language and field kid who has been learning on the fly, not just our crazy DB structure but also Java with the Spring framework, our internal utils for it, Angular JS, etc. He's remote so via a contracting agency, but if he were local and a "real" employee in his position he'd be making not quite 60k starting pay with no bumps for experience, extra degrees, etc. Buying power? Well, locally my daughter's 1br apartment in a nice area is 1500/mo, and gas is hovering around $3/gal

I can't think of anyone my age who bought a house at 22 ... back in '82 .... many top computer science grads could not get a job. I worked for peanuts in R&D at IBM outta college .... paid my dues.

It'd be a different path ... but yeah ... I'd do just fine .... or just a crappy as I did back then :D

My life career has always been in photography.

Digital changed the photo industry totally. Professional photographers outside of news photographers really struggle. And now with AI and and Photoshop it is nothing like what I did when I started.

I would have to find a totally different career in 2024.

Fortunately for me I own an aerial photo company and don't have to start over.

Looking back to the 50s & 60s when I started working, The same enviroment (obviously) doesn't exist and hasn't for many decades. I truthfully don't see how young people make it if they don't have help from family (lots of people I know are helping their kids and grandkids) or from somewhere, or are educated/trained in a high paying occupation. I paid my way after high school (& helped my family during high school) and on by working in whatever job I could get to fit the need and situation. Doing that now days won't get you anywhere past the current paycheck. I don't know how I would fare now if I were young. I'm not interested in social media or lots of things young people are into currently. If I were young, I assume I'd have a different mind set.

There is a lot more opportunity and less competition now. Information is at the tips of your fingers. It would be much easier.

Haven’t $1000 drones interrupted the aerial photography industry?

This thread hits close to home. I’m a professional engineer who (at least right now) is in demand.

My very bright and capable son who has a passion for cars wants to be a mechanic.

The more I think about this, apart from my creativity, I could be replaced by AI. AI can’t restore cars, troubleshoot mechanical things, or actually turn wrenches.

Maybe he’s onto something.

It’s a different world. AI is a thing and it’s now… and it’s not going away.

My computer science and data communnications specific "fields" ended many times over the years ... like sailing .... and started with no wind at all. You could not "re-do" any aspect now... the winds changed... again... and again...

Same as it ever was...

I thrived in automation and robotics and computerized environments .... state-of-the-art ... putting humans outta work ... except ME ... and others ;)

It was a different world in 1984 ... but still the same as before and now :D

This blows my mind: There are people out there making a lot of money trading Crypto.

Back in the 90's no one could've predicted such a thing.

For some applications, yes. When we had storm damage two years ago the insurance agents flew around the house and roof areas. Based on that, we got a new shingles.

For other applications it is a question of endurance and scale. That and you still have to get to the site.

To further the conversation and also clarify, no, I didn't buy a home at 22. I was in fact hopelessly underemployed if not unemployed at that time. I didn't actually find a steady gig until I was three years out of school for a whopping $18.5K in 1991. Bought my first house (serious fixer) for 75K in 1993 using leftover funds from my MBA student loan (was unable to pay back!!!) as a down payment.

And to agree with Fint, IF I knew today at 22 what I know now? I would absolutely KILL it. But that is the thing, time gives expertise. A 22 yr old doesn't often have that. My son is mostly just as dumb as I was.

And to agree with Unclebilly? AI is coming. I did tell my son that AI will never unplug a toilet. He doesn't see the glamour in plumbing. Which is a shame. It is a great trade.

Not really for us. To deploy our airplane and do a project we don't usually do not do an area smaller than a 1/4 section (160 acres). In the past the surveyor usually did those on the ground for less. We have a project to fly in eastern Colorado now that we are waiting for the snow to melt and the ground to be snow free. Our customer is a drone company. He does not want to spend two days driving to three different remote areas in eastern Colorado. We can fly them in a day and do it for him and he does not drive around in rural remote area with poor roads and no decent hotels.

Certainly the oblique photo business has been hurt by drones, but the true photogrammetric ortho photos we provide in 3D in beyond the majority of drone companies.

no one is self made, so no, you couldn't "do it again" because you didn't do it in the first place.

I paid for college in the early 80s working jobs on campus and with a small loan and scholarships. I started in public accounting at the largest CPA firm in the world. Went into corporate finance/accounting jobs and bought rental real estate on the side. The real estate part I'm not sure about today. I was able to buy single family homes in the 80s and early 90s and cash flow them right away. Today, I don't see that working in the same way given how housing costs have skyrocketed compared to earnings since the late 90s/early 2000s. I road that wave and am thankful for it to a certain extent. On the other hand, I see how it has hurt the younger generations. My kids haven't had the same opportunities to acquire real estate that I did.

Combine the 2.
Engineer that works on cars.
Last 3 jobs I got were because of my wrenching.

I was just thinking about this exact question.
Like you I made it from rear estate.
Bought a fixer upper, fixed it up while living there, then bought another and rented out the first.
Went from $800 a month for one house to $1000 a month to buy 2.
Now I pay less than $500 a month for 15.
Don't think that is possible with housing costs and interest rates.

Did the same with early 911s.
That ship has also sailed away!!

Still advise youngins to buy something.
Even if you have to have a roommate.
Then buy another and get different roommates.

No way for me. I have a government job and though my salary is good it hasn’t caught up with inflation. And my part time Porsche business is a shell of what it was

I can't understand this level of thinking. Or, maybe I should say, lack thereof...

Just wow...

I think for many, opportunities that presented themselves along the way wouldn't happen again, so the path would have to be different. In some fields, I don't see those types of opportunities likely to ever happen again. Lots of things in the world have changed and certain sectors of the economy will never be what they were before.