re: Starting a new career in your 40’s. Have you done it? Ideas and advice needed.

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Career change means you give up experience which means you also give that up as a negotiation tool when discussing salary.

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I encountered a couple of places that did this when I interviewed after I switched from sports media to construction management....granted I was 28 and not 40+ with a family.

It took me a few interviews, but I eventually got on with a smaller firm and actually got the salary I was asking for. It can happen I’m sure, but it likely won’t be quick.

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Boondock Saint

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You should break up your email so spam crawlers can't pick it up.

ETA: Or remove it now that you have the info you need.

Be a healthcare administrator

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Say you'll open a Powerhouse Gym, sell memberships to said gym, and then never open said gym ever

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Blast from the past! I forgot all about that. I knew one of the guys involved and was a piece of crap from the first time I met him in high school.

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I don’t mind driving around all day. I’m honestly just looking for a way to make $80,000 or more a year and am very open to considering a lot of possibilities.

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Well if you don’t mind driving around all day then why not be a truck driver? They make surprisingly good money.

I basically changed careers twice. After high school I got married and spent the next 10 years starting a family and working my way through UF doing carpenter work. I graduated in 1979 with a degree in civil engineering. Out of college I was hired by Tishman Construction who had just completed building the World Trade Center and were the Construction managers for Disney's EPCOT center project. I hated it at Tishman I was pretty much hired as a professional liar. My job was to lie to Disney executives and tell them we were on schedule and under budget. I was lying to people a whole lot smarter than myself and getting caught almost daily. One day I just walked out.

That was my first career change. I had taken and passed my State General Contractors exam shortly after graduating and I was able to secure a small construction loan to build a spec house. I sold the house, then another, then a couple more and was soon on my way to being a successful custom homebuilder. Then in 1985 at the ripe old age of 35 I had a massive heart attack. I continued building until 1991 and had 4 more heart attacks. My cardiologist suggested I shut down my business and find something a little less stressful.

Thus my 2nd carrier change. But all I knew was construction & civil engineering, what could I possibly do that was not stressful? I spent a year and a half pretty much unemployed looking for a new career. One day I picked up a newspaper and saw that Orange County was hiring building inspectors. The job was a bit under my qualifications but I figured it was better than going hungry and I couldn't think of a less stressful job in my field. I mean what does a building inspector do....Drive around and look at shite.

I hired on with the County never expecting to stay more than a few months. I absolutely loved the job. 25 years later I retired with a nice pension and $1.5M in my stock portfolio. Couldn't be happier with my choices.

I knew him in HS too.

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If you don't mind me asking, what kind of money were you making per year?

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My last 2 years I made about 79K one year and 85k the next but I had like 7 different FEMA certificates and we had a lot of hurricane duty those years. First responder pay is handled by FEMA and it is a bit more than our regular pay scale. I think our normal pay scale was around $30 per hr. I suspect Florida's pay scale is a little higher than most states because we all have to be licensed by the state.