None of you noticed the payscale slide right after the 10 minute intro vid full of shiny jet flybys and crisp clean uniforms?

 

He got married and started a family while still in college. Great guy, but really hamstrung by the extra 14k that he has to shovel to well's fargo every year. In reality that is a house, pre-mortgaged for your bleak future. Student loan debt is a big scam. It is ultra-secure and carries a very high cost of capitalization from the start. Just awful.

Every pilot needs to avoid debt, especially at first. It's been dogging me for years too, luckily nowhere near that extent though.

 

Thanks....I was asking more for the benefit of any lurkers here thinking of becoming a pilot. There is a lot to learn about what and what not to do simply by reading the posts of people currently flying.

 

Buy a plane and do your training in it, people... Don't let ATP or other marketing savvy businesses charge you >3x than what you could get it for yourselves. You'll both be sitting at an interview table for a part 121/135 operator with the same chances, only you're FAR better off since you can afford to live.

 

At least the good part of making 1650/month (75 hrs at 22/hr) at Skywest as a first year F/O is you don't have to worry about that high tax bracket silliness. You'll be enjoying the lowest tax bracket, 10 percent, for a nice long time. You're effetive tax rate will be in the mid single percentage points if you take in to account your approximately 10k standard deduction even. Now that's a good deal!!!

 

-How I survived, and even put money into savings on first year pay-

Viewed per-diem as normal income, not as justification to spend $ on trips to take care of needs. I know thats technically what its itemized for, but its all the same when it hits your bank account, and its about 1/4th of first year pay.

Packed food for trips. Its cheaper & most of the time healthier. Eating out is for when I run out of food. When I do eat out, I do fast food dollar menus or 5 dollar foot-longs that can be eaten later if I don't finish. Dont get the combo meal, skip the price gouge and sugar of the soda and get a water cup. If I really want a soda, I can ask the FA for one. Avoid making Starbucks your drug dealer. Including packed food, I'll spend around $15 on food for 4 days. A lot of FA making less than me exceed that per day.

Avoid having a car payment, if possible. Get from point A-B as cheap as possible. Someday I'll drive a nice car, but for now I'm driving an old, ugly used car thats extremely affordable and is in excellent mechanical condition. (89' Taurus, 60k original miles on it, cost lil over $1k, paid cash 3 years ago, probably has another 5 years of life on it. Liability only) It wont impress the chicks, but hey you fly shiny multimillion dollar jets all day, thats gotta count for something.

Credit cards are for emergencies. That and building credit by making small purchases (gas, groceries) and immediately paying it off. Save debt for things that build equity, like education and a home.

No cable TV, no big purchases on cool toys like iPads, TV's, video game systems, etc, sigh. $45/mo for phone, though non-smartphone with no data, double sigh . $20/mo for home wifi, (5mbps).

I held out on upgrading on all the goodies at work. ASA headset, $90. Used roller bag, free. Sunglasses, $10 dollars Wal-mart. At 2nd year pay, celebrated by upgrading headset and bag. Bought a used Bose QC15 with a broken mic, had it refurbished, whole thing was under $200. Bought a new luggage works for $260.

Got domicile I wanted. Slept in uncle's basement for two months and a few times slept in my car in employee parking (not fun). Bought a brand new 2011 built home 1500f² finished 2600² total on .25 acre, 170k appraised for 150k. 2.75% no $ down. Total payment with taxes/insurance/escrow $849/mo. That was less than I was paying before for rent and 3 times the size. But thats mostly all due to cost of living for where I moved to.

Married, no kids, wife brought in working part-time $500/mo. Student loan debt from flight training over $200/mo. Total expenses per month $1400-$1500 a month. I brought in net $1600-$1800/mo on first year pay.

I have student loan debt, though maybe not as much as some which helped. I think I did some things right but I wasn't always 100% disciplined with my spending and probably made many mistakes. But then again I felt like I made a lot of sacrifices too, coming off a pay-cut. But I've passed through first year pay and I cant say my spending changed a whole lot, except for some big expenses I'd been holding-off on until the pay raise (home improvement, a vacation).

I wrote a lot more than I planned, I apologize for the length. This is just what I did in my sitution, and I realize other people have different lives with different factors. I remember before getting hired at a regional I read some thread on here about how to survive on first year pay and stay out of the red, and that really affected my decisions. One important thing that stuck was to make sure your financially ready before you start that first year, that was great advice I got. Spend lean, let the seniority build, and hopefully we are all in a better spot.

 

On one hand, good for you (and I mean that sincerely) and those are lessons that apply beyond first year pay.

On the other hand, talk about a thread derailment!

So anyway, about those E-175s...

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by saturn

-How I survived, and even put money into savings on first year pay-

Viewed per-diem as normal income, not as justification to spend $ on trips to take care of needs. I know thats technically what its itemized for, but its all the same when it hits your bank account, and its about 1/4th of first year pay..........


.......Spend lean, let the seniority build, and hopefully we are all in a better spot.

What an excellent post. Bravo, saturn.


May I suggest we make it a sticky on the "part 91 & low time" sub-forum?

Bet it would be useful to a lot of folks just getting into this career.

 

Yes, about those E175s..... I'm curious to hear what the word is from those more familiar. A few questions
- Since Skywest is being so coy about future plans except in 10k phone conference transcripts evidently, what is the likelihood of seeing those on the line?
- What's a likely time frame?
- And most importantly, why is Skywest seemingly unable to compete with it's market competitors to keep growing? Every one else seems to be getting new deals with their major partners and Skywest is stagnating, profitably albeit.
Let the insight rain down upon us all, please.

 

Well this shall be interesting! I got my popcorn ready