If someone would have asked you 10 years ago which one of your three kids would be the most successful, you likely would have guessed that it would be your oldest child. And while you likely would not have shared that answer out loud, the fact of the matter is that you always thought that your oldest daughter would have the easiest path toward financial success. First of all, she is the oldest and so she has had a couple of years jump start on her siblings. Graduating high school first, competing college first, and you expected her to be the one entering the job market first.
After a couple of different changes in her major, however, she did ended up graduation college at the same time her younger sister did. Your older daughter, because of a full ride academic scholarship, had very little debt when she was done. Just a couple of thousand dollars for the extra semester that she needed to finish. Your younger daughter knew exactly what she wanted to do and was able to finish her degree in just three and a half years. Her debt, however, is a little more. She received some scholarships but not a full ride. Both girls basically entered the work force at about the same time, the older daughter in a lower paying teaching career and the younger daughter in a higher paying sales career.
Not Every Job Requires a Four Year College Degree
The real surprise, however, came with the girls’ young brother. Never a stellar high school student, he always had good grades, but far from the straight A’s that his sisters earned. In hindsight, however, his grades were not as good because he always worked more. He loved every thing mechanical and landed a job with a trucking company as soon as he turned 16. Working as many as 25 hours a week, he always did great on tests, but seemed to always miss out on one or two daily homework assignments a week. As he neared high school graduation he announced that he would not be going to a four year college like his sisters. Instead, he would be enrolling in a truck driver training school as soon as he was old enough. In the mean time, his boss had promised him a full time position with an opportunity to earn overtime when ever he wanted.
He learned a lot about the mechanical side of the trucking industry working in the garage, but his boss also let him attend any defensive driving training options that were offered, and he met and talked to a number of people about local truck driving jobs. As a result, when it did come time for him to take the truck driver training courses, they were pretty easy for hime. He was quickly hired when he had completed the necessary training he had a number of trucking jobs available to him.
There were 3.5 million truck drivers employed in in the U.S. in the year 2015, and your son was one of them. With no student loans to pay off and lots of money in his savings account. Your youngest is financially more secure than his older siblings, the ones who pursued a four year degree. The girls are earning a bigger salary than their brother, but the fact that he has so much in savings and that he is already living in his own house instead of renting an apartment means that financially he is in a very good spot.
You would have never guessed that truck driver training would have proven to be so lucrative, but your son is an example of how working early can help you get a start that pays off in the end. Even in a time when digital sales continue to drive the economy, the fact remains that trucks move nearly 70% of the nation’s freight by weight. Certifications from the leading truck driver training programs, combined with the need for truckers across the entire nation, means not only decent salaries now, but job security in the future.
Success is often difficult to measure, but some jobs make financial success attainable at a pretty early age.