Archive

Trades: every article

36 articles, newest first.

23 September 202636 pieces

TradesLicensing, Insurance and Your First Ten CustomersYou can be running your own trade business a year from now. The order you do things in decides whether you make money or just make noise.
TradesHow a Teenager Gets Into the Trades Before GraduationShop class, a legal summer job and a sixty-dollar tool kit will put a 16-year-old years ahead of his classmates.
TradesRetiring From the Trades When Nobody Hands You a PensionYour knees have a deadline your 401(k) doesn't know about. How to build a retirement out of self-employment income, a truck, and a trade.
TradesHow to Get Your A&P and What Aircraft Mechanics Actually EarnThe certificate is federal, it never expires, and it works in all fifty states. Two ways in, real pay numbers, and the parts the recruiters skip.
TradesStarting a Trade at 38 When You Already Have a MortgageThe pay dip is real, the hours are real, and thousands of guys do it anyway. Here's how to plan the jump so it doesn't wreck your family's budget.
TradesUnion or Non-Union in the Trades and How to DecideBoth sides sell you a story. Here's the arithmetic, the fine print, and the eight questions that actually settle it.
TradesThe Three Carpentry Careers and What Each One PaysFraming, finish and cabinetry are different jobs with different bodies, different money and different exits. Pick on purpose.
TradesYour Knees, Back and Ears Are the Tools You Can't ReplaceA working man's plan for keeping hearing, cartilage and spine intact through a 30-year trade career, and what your state owes you if it goes wrong.
TradesFrom the Tools to Foreman to Owner Without Going BrokeThe skills that make you the best hand on the crew aren't the skills that run one. What actually changes at each jump, and what it costs you.
TradesBreaking Into the Trades When You're the Only Woman on the CrewHarness fit, apprenticeship math, the tools that suit a smaller frame, and how respect actually gets earned on a jobsite.
TradesHow to Actually Land a Trades ApprenticeshipThe application window, the aptitude test, the oral board, and the part nobody tells you: most guys lose the spot before they ever fill out the form.
TradesThe Safety Habits That Keep You Working for Forty YearsMost trade careers don't end with a dramatic fall. They end with hearing, lungs, knees and one shortcut that finally caught up.
TradesApprentice to Master Electrician and What Each Step PaysFour to five years of paid work, 8,000 hours on the books, and a code exam that eats people who wing it. The real path, the money, the trade-offs.
TradesDiesel Mechanic Pay, Tools and the Path InSteady work, real money, and a trade that can't be shipped overseas — plus an honest look at the hazards and the tool-truck debt trap.
TradesWhat Welding Pays and Which Certifications Get You ThereThe 6G pipe test, the code books that matter, and how to look up the real wage for your zip code instead of trusting a recruiter.
TradesHow to Become a Lineman and What It Actually PaysFour years of apprenticeship, a Class A CDL, and a willingness to climb a pole in sleet at 3 a.m. The money is real. So is the cost.
TradesHVAC Is the Trade That Keeps Paying When the Economy Doesn'tFurnaces quit in January whether or not the stock market cooperates. Here's the real pay, the licensing path, and the parts nobody tells you about.
TradesHow to Get an A and P Certificate and Make a Living With ItThe FAA license that never expires, the two routes to earning it, what the job actually pays, and the parts of the work nobody warns you about.
TradesHow to Save Your Knees, Back and Hearing on the JobHearing loss is permanent, kneeling on concrete is a slow injury, and the back you wreck at 30 bills you at 50. Here's how to stay in the trade.
TradesFrom the Tools to Foreman to Owning the TruckThe promotion nobody prepares you for, the license that gates the next one, and the cash squeeze that kills good contractors in year one.
TradesStarting a Trade at Thirty or Forty Is Not Too LateThe apprenticeship math, the pay dip you have to survive, and the part nobody tells you about your knees.
TradesHow Teenagers Get a Head Start in the TradesShop class, summer crews, the federal age rules nobody explains, and the four tools a kid should own before graduation.
TradesWork Forty Years in the Trades Without Wrecking Your BodyThe guys still working at sixty aren't lucky. They locked in a handful of habits early and never negotiated with them.
TradesHow to Get Hired Running Heavy EquipmentExcavators, dozers and haul trucks pay a real living without a diploma from anywhere. Here's the license order, the training paths, and what the yard actually looks for.
TradesYour Knees Are Not a Retirement PlanNobody's handing a self-employed electrician a gold watch at 65. Here's how to build the pension yourself, starting with this week's deposit.
TradesThe Tools a First-Year Apprentice Should Actually BuySkip the rolling box. Buy the twelve things you'll touch every day, spend where it counts, and let the company pay for the rest.
TradesUnion or Non-Union Trade Work and How to Actually ChooseSame trade, same skill, two completely different systems for getting paid and getting trained. Ask these questions before you sign anything.
TradesThe Lineman Paycheck Is Real and So Is the PriceSix figures without a student loan, a Class A CDL, 7,000 hours of apprenticeship, and a job that will absolutely kill a careless man.
TradesPrice the Job So You Actually Keep the MoneyBusy and broke is a pricing problem, not a work problem. Do the overhead math, use the divisor, and stop bidding against the cheapest guy in town.
TradesWhich Kind of Carpenter to Be and What Each One PaysFraming, finish and cabinetry share a name and almost nothing else. Pick the lane before you spend a dollar on tools.
TradesWhat It Actually Takes to Become a PlumberFour or five years of logged hours, a state exam, and work nobody can ship overseas. The honest version, including the parts that stink.
TradesHow to Become a Diesel Mechanic and What It Really PaysThe licensing, the apprenticeship routes, the tools worth buying first, and the hazards that put techs in the hospital.
TradesHVAC Work Doesn't Stop When the Economy DoesFurnaces don't check the stock market before they quit in January. Here's how the licensing, the pay and the on-call nights actually work.
TradesBecoming an Electrician From Apprentice to Master LicenseFive years, about 8,000 hours, one very tabbed code book, and a trade that pays you while you learn it.
TradesWelding Pays Well If You Chase the Right CertificationsThe test that separates a $22-an-hour shop job from traveling pipe work takes about six hours and most guys fail it the first time.</title> <dek>The test that separates a shop job from traveling pipe work takes about six hours, and most guys fail it the first time.
TradesHow to Land a Trade Apprenticeship and Get Paid to LearnThe application window, the aptitude test, the panel interview, and the six things that sink most candidates before they ever pick up a tool.