Great opportunities for you young bucks out there...

[1000meterstare]

This will require that you move away from all your friends and families, but there is serious coin to be made working the oilfields in North Dakota, Montana, and to a lesser extent, Wyoming.  You can make like 60 - 70k per year with no college degree.  If you don't blow all your money and develop a savings/retirement plan you could do pretty well.  Besides, you would have enough money to shore up your preps and carve yourself a future.  It isn't easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.  Just something to think about. [URL=http://www.smileyvault.co 

[JohnyMac]

You are correct 1000meter. Just make sure you have housing figured out before you go. I read recently that some area's are so low on housing that you will pay $3K a month for a bed and roof over you. No kitchen or any privacy. 

IMO, if I was a young buck and signed up I would buy a tow behind trailer. Even if you bought a nice one on credit it would be cheaper per month and it would be yours. I am sure camping lots are expensive too but even if they were $1K plus the mortgage on your camper ($500- or so a month) it would be your roof over your head and an asset you could sell later. If it was your prime residents, you probably could take the interest off your income tax.

Just research things and plan before you go.

[hjmoosejaw]

Good Advice guys! I remember back when we were younger, the Alaskan pipe line was a big thing for a guy to head for. Sometimes I think, man, I should of headed up there. You would have to discipline yourself to hang on to that money. That would have been MY downfall at that age.

[thatGuy]

Light truck, light camper and a trade... that's a hard row to hoe buddy.

If you are really good with your money you can make a mint but everything costs more (both time and money) on the road and that is exactly where you are.

So if you could live on 20k which is at, slightly above or below the poverty line depending on where you are then you would be looking at banking 40k a year.

Shrewdly invested you could have half a million in 10 years. You could buy a nice spread up in the mountains for that kind of money but what about family and friends? Don't think that the oil field job is going to last for 10 years without you chasing it around.

What might be a better idea is to buy a house cash money on the outskirts of your home town after a couple of years. That way you have a home to go back to when it all goes to shit.

[JohnyMac]

To your point hj:

I had a very good friend who is now deceased; quit high school in the 11th grade and went to Alaska to fish. The first season he worked on a processing ship. The second year he worked his way onto a crabber (Alaska King Crab). Well when he came home he had a shoe box full of $$$$.

He bought a Porsche. He spent oodles of money on drugs, booze, women and generally having fun 24/7.

Well he totaled his Porsche one night. Another night I had to bail him out of a bad situation with some bad people. The women that hung around him were basically "crack whores" but from the good side of the tracks, etcetera.

One night he came over and asked me for some money as he was cleaned out and needed money to fly back to Alaska to earn some more. Rather than give him the money, I confirmed that he did have a berth on a crabber and then I bought him a ticket. Gave him a rather stern lecture as I drove him to SeaTac. Dropped him off at the curb and left him to do or not do the right thing.

A couple of months later I got a manila envelope in the mail from him. The envelope included the price of the ticket; which in reality I never expected to get back. Plus a one page letter basically thanking me and explaining that he was putting 95% of his earnings in the bank. His goal was to buy his own crabbing boat. I thought we will see.

Well jump ahead two years. My buddy was in town and took my wife and I out to dinner. He had nice gal with him who he ended up marrying. But what he wanted to share with me was a picture of a crabber he and another guy had bought.

So he was a 50% owner of a 90' trawler. He would spend 8 weeks skippering the boat and the other owner then would spend 8 weeks skippering the boat...Each alternating the skippering job every other 8 weeks during the different crab seasons.

So my advise to any young buck who does go to the ND oil fields: Have a plan and a goal! Live like a popper and put every dollar you can in the bank towards your goal. 

I will stop lecturing now.
   

[thatGuy]

I'll second what JMac said, without a clear goal this plan will lead a man to ruin!