$15-20K/year FT position

Kids right out of college don't know that -- or don't believe it.

Plus, there are some big-timers out there making considerably more than $100K. Until they're laid off.

 

As sad as that salary is, it still wouldn't qualify you for food stamps.

FSSA: Income

Even though Noblesville is a growing suburb, with a roommate you could keep your rent to about $400 a month, which would make an $18,000 a year salary doable, although painful.

You shouldn't have to get a second job out of college just to make ends meet, even though plenty of us have done it. It's growing communities like Noblesville where the advertising premium should be significant enough that a newspaper can pay a living wage, even in the difficult, current climate for newspapers.

 

My first full-time gig out of college paid me $23k per year. That was in 2002. I still needed a part-time restaurant job and additional poker income to afford a 4-year-old car with 60k miles on it, a four-bedroom rental with three of my buddies, the rest of my necessities and beer money. Can't imagine working for $8k less than that.

 

and to go into debt for a college degree to come out of school looking forward to that seems insane.

 

That's probably one area high school guidance counselors fail students the worst - they don't do a good job of helping you evaluate the value proposition of incurring student debt to pursue shitty careers.

 

My dad, a former lab technician with Union Carbide and a federal government employee all his working life, moonlighted by selling World Book encyclopedias door-to-door for part of my childhood. People do whatever it takes. Been that way forever.

 

Started my career making $19.5K at a 10K shop. Eventually made it to $27K at that spot eight years later, which was barely enough to afford a decent one-bedroom apartment. Spent 10 years at my last newspaper job, a span in which my salary increased a whopping $4K and included several rounds of furloughs. I loved the biz, but I was never going to make enough money to even think about buying a house. No future. Glad I found a good landing spot.

 

Have you sold Amway?

 

My brother did for a short time. Nobody in our house sold Avon or Tupperware, though.

 

One of my first TV jobs, I was producing the evening newscast and was put in charge of news promotion. I told the News Director I wanted a raise. She told me I was overpaid (at $20k), but suggested I take a second job -- and proudly pointed out that the main anchor was moonlighting as a maitre d' in town.

I opted to take another job a month later, with a large raise.

 

My mom sold Tupperware when I was a kid. I don't know how well she did, but she must have been hustling like hell because she did well enough to have a couple of other dealers working under her, get a company car, and get invited to the annual convention in Orlando for a few years. Having to unload 20 boxes of Tupperware from the minivan, help her sort it in the dining room, and then pack it all back into the car to be delivered (the last stage usually took up an entire Saturday, and since I was about 9 I couldn't stay home) was a special kind of hell.
On the plus side, I'm pretty sure we still have vintage 1980s-era Tupperware floating around in our family's kitchen cabinets.

 

I started at my paper part time after college and picked up a different part time job in another industry to stay busy and make some extra money. When I was made full time in journalism it was 22500 so I kept the part time job. I'm glad I did because it helped me squirrel away some money but I never would have if I'd been hired FT out of the gates, even at 22K. I'm actually not sure if I would've taken the job if I wasn't in the door already.