Money Money Money: Part 1

(Edit: After reading this again, it feels really negative or arrogant. I'm not sure why. I've tried to be as realistic as possible to give some guidance to people starting out in their careers.  I promise I'm a really nice person.
Also, I SERIOUSLY don't want to hear ANYONE complain about this post by saying that  money isn't everything and shouldn't be the only factor when choosing a career.  No one believes that more than me.  Read ANY OTHER post in this blog for discussions on finding your passions or working your strengths.  THIS post is about money.  Once again, I promise that I'm a really nice person.)

( I recommend opening this link in a separate tab to set the mood for this post...)

Having "The Talk"

A lot of parents have a hard time talking with their kids about money.  It's another one of those awkward conversations that parents mean to have, but the time never seems right.  They put it off until their child is old enough, but by then, they figure that the kid has probably heard it all from their friends anyway.

School won't teach you how to make money either.  This is something I don't understand, because teachers don't seem too bothered when teaching much more awkward subjects in Sophomore Health class.

There is a lot I don't know about money, but there are a few simple things that I do know.  I'm going to go in depth on one of these ideas here and save
the rest for another day.

The more widely available that your skill set is, the less you will be paid

This is why laborers don't make a lot of money.  The fact that the work is difficult and not fun does not outweigh the fact that there are a proportionally high number of people willing/able to do it.  For the REALLY hard labor jobs (i.e. road construction crews that require extended assignments away from home) you can expect to see a bump in pay.  This is NOT because the employer is feeling generous.  It's because there are fewer people willing to do the work.  A person could decide on a career strategy of doing the hard work that no one else wants to do.  That person would see a larger pay check.  This however, is what I call working harder, not smarter.  There are easier ways to live.  One sad truth of labor positions is that good laborers are never paid what they are worth.  If a person were to work twice as efficiently as his or her peers, he or she would never expect to make twice as much.  Fifteen percent more, MAYBE, but never what the person is really worth.  The employer doesn't have to pay more than that to keep the person around.

This is also why even professionals from respected schools continue to find themselves trapped in the rat race and feeling like they never get ahead.  I graduated with a bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from a respected university.  I took a job straight out of school with a large, growing company. I was surprised in the first couple of years after graduating to find that my paycheck barely covered the necessities and left very little for savings, investments or video games.  From talking with friends, I found that this wasn't limited to me, my school or my employer.  Because of the hard work required to get my degree, I expected that my more-rare skill set would pay off with a cushy lifestyle.  Though engineers are harder to find than, for example, retail clerks, our post-industrial world has standardized the role of the engineer to the point that any decent engineer from any decent school can largely do the work.  Companies spend a lot of money, it's true, hiring the best and the brightest.  But keep in mind that if you won't do the work for the dollar amount that they are offering, there is another best and another brightest able to take your spot.  This isn't a conspiracy.  It's not the Fairchilds and Rockefellers trying to keep us under control.  It's economics.  And it's guaranteed.

So what's the answer? Spend your life in school? Put in the time to climb the corporate ladder?  (Maybe, or maybe not. I think those will be the topic of another post.)

The real answer is that there isn't a guaranteed answer on how to make a lot of money.  Wages will always be limited for people that need to be told what to do.  If you're willing to hunt and try things out, my advice is this:

1. Learn skills that other people can make money off of because they will want you around.
2. Learn how money works and go to the departments or industries that are producing it.
3. Increase the rarity of your skill set by developing your skills in networking (as in people, not computers), writing, public speaking, current technologies, and sales.

What advice do you have regarding making more money?  Join the conversation in the comments!