Posted by If you are just starting your working career you are probably not thinking about retirement. But once you retire it is interesting to look back on the statistics from a lifetime of work. I started earning money back in 1978 working part-time as a dishwasher and then as a night truck loader for Coca Cola. That was back in high school, so I am not going to include those pathetic earnings in my career stats. I got my first full-time job in 1984 when I was 22 years old. I had just received my associate degree in architecture and was ready to start earning money, but jobs in that field were difficult to find. I finally got an offer from Menards, working in their corporate office as a store planner for about $8 an hour. I figured it would be good experience that would lead to a better paying job. I often worked 60 hours per week and got to travel around the Midwest supervising new store setups. My biggest mistake was staying at that low paying job for 7 years.
After that, I never stayed at a job for longer than 5 years, until my last job, where I ended up staying for 9 years. I had survived many layoffs over my career but was finally caught by one late in 2019. Before that, there were a few company takeovers and one company that went out of business. So, it wasn’t without turmoil. In total, I worked for six different companies over my 36-year working career. My total earnings over that period were $1,582,928 for an average annual salary of $43,970 and an average hourly rate of $22. That’s about as good as one can expect with an associate degree after working 36 consecutive years. Now, after four years of early retirement, my income numbers are back to where they were when I was working at Menards. I plan on waiting another 3 years before I collect Social Security. That will put my annual income at about $36k, which is what I was earning back in 1996. It is sad that there was no retirement party to celebrate my working career. I just remember driving away from work for the last time with a feeling of relief that it was finally over.