Ever spend a lot of your money for your job?

0patience

I have to replace a bunch of tools for work.
And one of those is a new auto dark welding helmet.
So this time, I will go with something that will hold up to the abuse.
Going with a carbon fiber jumbo view auto dark welding helmet.
So I know what I want and I go looking. They are very proud of those helmets. LOL!
So I find one at the reasonable price of $275. ouch.
So I can buy one every year for about $100 or spend the money on a quality one and have it last 5 years.

This is one of those situations where cheap doesn't cut it. LOL!

My tool purchase this next couple months will run me almost a grand.
Can't wait until I retire and no longer have to buy tools.

Does anyone else have to invest a ton of money into their jobs?

First_Warrior

My big lathe was a $10,000 investment.The lathe paid for itself over the years. Just bought a $500 belt sharpening system for carving and turning tools. Had to swap motors in my bandsaw this winter and that 1 1/2 hp motor was $250. The well, pluming and septic system for my studio ran me around $8000.The replacement windows for my studio were $5000. My finishing shed was $2500. On and on it goes.

onestrangeone

YES. I have about $30,000 in my tool trailer alone and don't even want to total up the shop. I hate working with cheap tools so I get good quality stuff, even so things wear out or break, my 15 year old $2500 wet saw has developed a flat spot on the arbor recently, $325 for a new motor and it will probably take 3-5 hrs. to swap and re-tune. My list of expendables runs $300 -$500 monthly.

raisindot

This totally pales in comparison to your stories of spending thousands for tools, but my wife, who works in a non-teaching, non-union library-aide job in a local school system and gets paid less than secretaries, was told that everyone in the city now has to get fingerprinted due to a new state law. If that isn't bad enough, the state is making employees pay for it--$35--themselves. Talk about adding insult to injury.

0patience

You guys who've spent big money.
Are you self employed or for someone else?

As a mechanic who works for someone else, the industry's standard is that the mechanics buy their own tools.
That is slowly changing, but I have $50k worth of tools on my service truck.
Add to that, certifications, licenses and diagnostic programs, it escalates really fast.
$2k for Cummins software, $1k per year for Volvo, Mack and Ford software and on and on.
You start to wonder who is on the short end of the stick.

jgibv

when i was doing freelance video, yes. lots of $$ on equipment
camera + audio equipment, powerful computer, video editing software, hard drives, etc.

luckily i could get about 4-5 yrs out of the camera + computer components before having to upgrade/replace.

but i'd buy new hard drives every 6 months or so, and keeping up with the latest software version/yearly usage license took a good chunk of change.

Hayblet

While it's small potatoes by comparison chefs knives can get expensive

ExpendableYouth

College count?

WaltBasil

My wife is a high school teacher. They say teaching is the only job where you steal office supplies from home to take them to work. ;-) We generally buy all supplies needed for her students for the year. When my son was still in the house, I HATED having to spend extra for supplies. Especially when it was a private school. I'm paying for it. Include everything. Don't come back to me in a few months expecting me to raise money for this or that. Hated that ****. I'm already paying tuition. Add everything in that cost and call it a day. Every summer we spend several hundred dollars for everything her students could need, and then buy other essentials as the year goes along. Especially paper. Cases of paper. The school doesn't provide enough. Also card readers and punch cards for her tests. Much easier than trying to grade 210 papers at night.

onestrangeone

0patience:

You guys who've spent big money.
Are you self employed or for someone else?

As a mechanic who works for someone else, the industry's standard is that the mechanics buy their own tools.
That is slowly changing, but I have $50k worth of tools on my service truck.
Add to that, certifications, licenses and diagnostic programs, it escalates really fast.
$2k for Cummins software, $1k per year for Volvo, Mack and Ford software and on and on.
You start to wonder who is on the short end of the stick.

Self employed, I expect my guys to provide there own hand tools and I supply the more expensive stuff, I keep at least 3 of almost everything.