When I flew commuters in the northeast, I was making around $17,000 a year BEFORE taxes ($15,000 or so after taxes). I lived in a crashpad with 18 other guys and we paid $40 a month to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor. I worked up to 22 days a month and didn't have much of a life. I distinctly remember one of our Ithica hotel van drivers discussing his wife's job........a professor at Cornell making over $120,000 a year, and he said he was making around $18,000 a year on tips alone driving the hotel shuttle. So........here I was living like a dog, scraping by, and giving him MY HARD EARNED money, while he was living the good life. Had a cab driver tell me the same story........had 5 or 6 very expensive race horses and used the cab money to pay for hay. Well, that cooked my goose on who got tips and who didn't. Needless to say, I got very frugal with my tip money. Now it's no problem, but hey, you don't have to give your retirement money away when you're first starting out. The only person I felt bad for was myself for giving away my sweat money to people who had money. Seemed everyone wanted the handout..............except the pilot working his butt off.