What to expect in the long run?

[pilots_wife]

So, after spending lots of money on flight time, equipment, low paying flight instruction, student loans, and now in the regionals, what can I expect?

By that I mean, whats next? How long will his salary suck, lol? What do most couples do as far as the living situations? Do you usually move to the base city of the pilot, or let the pilot commute?

Right now, he's living in another city, home maybe 1 night a week, and maybe not again until July. I'm still living at our home, working at my job, which pays a majority of the bills. (Ok, all the bills, exept he pays half the mortgage, and his other half of his paychecks goes to rent in the base city - and thats IT!) I'm paying all his credit cards, student loans, car payment, insurance, all the house bills...Is this normal for people married to pilots?

[Bigsweetie]

Well the answer to that really depends on what he wants to do with his career. There's alot of different types of flying out there and some of them have better schedules and pay than others...

There's really hundreds of options and/or scenarios here...

If he wants to take the "typical" route (which i'm not even sure what that is anymore) then, yes, the pay and schedules are gonna suck... for a LONG time. Every year it gets worse too! With regionals taking so much of mainline flying your DH can expect to retire at a regional not making nearly as much as if he retired with a major.

And a pension? Forget it. Hopefully you guys are saving for retirement on your own.

I'm sorry if this is downer news, I just want to be honest with you.

But that scenario can be different depending on what he does. He can eventually go corporate, some of them have decent schedules and decent pay scales, but he won't be flying the "big birds" most likely.

He could also go the cargo route, but expect "so-so" pay unless he gets on with FedEx or UPS. But that's about as likely as him getting a spot in Tom Cruises next movie LOL!

That's the route my DH wants to take and I try to be supportive and uplifting... we just keep praying for FedEx and leave the rest in God's hands. Deep down i'm not too hopeful.

As far as bases... DH and I don't chase metal. By that I mean we don't move from base to base with his career... he commutes. Although now he's based here at home which is nice, but he did commute at his previous job.

It's not really a smart idea to move to their base unless you're pretty sure he has enough seniority to keep it for as long as he wants. That's just our opinion though.

If you follow him to his base, especially when he's junior, you'll be moving quite a bit potentially. Junior guys can get shuffled from base to base pretty often.

Good luck, and we're always here to answer any questions you may have (if we can that is - there's no crystal ball for this stuff LOL!)

[Kristie]

like Tanya said, don't chase the metal....

If you have a good steady job and you want to stay where you are, then by all means - revolve around you job, not his...yours is the one paying the bills!

as far as regional salaries, they're gonna suck for a good while! When doug was moving up, the year and a half or two years (can't remember) that he was in the regionals was literally $10K years and i was the suga momma. I would have moved up to him at the time, but my job was "safe" and steady and if we lost it, we would have been in a heap of trouble!

The suga momma part of the relationship seems to be a norm the past few years esp for those pilots that are in the regionals and trying to move up. so yes, i'd say your right at the bottom of the totem pole...

one good thing is that it does get better, with time, it'll get better and you'll be better off for it because you'll remember what it was like to squander and save every penny for those bill paying days. to me, the low money and never home days, i think, makes the overall relationship stronger.

it really depends on your situation as to where you go from here...if your job is the type of job where it's easy to find a new job in a new city AND dh is going to be at his regional base for a few years, then it might be a benefit to move..but if your job is kinda hard to find then forgetaboutit and stay where you are...stay steading with the $$ situation!!

[rgphib]

When DH first got hired by Continental Express in June of 99, he was making less then 19,000 a year flying....now he is making okay money. We had hoped he would have been with a major after a few years with Express (actually, when he got hired they had a program where they were supposed to "flow up" to CAL in senority order......now that is of course gone) but then 9-11 happened and he is now still with the regional 7 years later.

For a few years, I was making more money then him...and I am a teacher. But we have always managed. We owned our first home (which was actually a home we only used in summer and fall/spring weekends....we lived with his parents in the basement they did for us as an apartment) when he was a 2nd year pilot and a few years ago we bought our condo. We have been able to save my whole paycheck for the past year and half and he pays for all our expeneses. How....I have no idea. He is so good with our money. We figure we might as well save now while we can. We still have hopes he gets with a major soon and know a paycut will be with that. Also, we have no kids so we are able to save money. We don't buy anything unneccessary and we never go out.....summer we spend at the lake and vacations we only go where we can stay for free Brendan just upped his 401K contribution to 18% so your DH should contribute as much as he can so you have a retirement fund.

Places to live.....we will not and do not live at an Express base. We live in NH right now and will probably never leave New England (unless he gets hired by CAL and then we would actually like to live in Guam for a couple of years....or more). Brendan wants me to be near family since he is gone 4 days a week....so we will stay where they are. I like my job and we like seasons. We debate moving back to Florida (we went to college there) but the only way we would do that would be if we could live on the ocean...and that is not going to happen on our salaries We have been lucky that the commute from Manchester to Cleveland is pretty easy. But since Cleveland is a shrinking base we are anticipating he will have to start to commute to Newark which will be really hard. He usually works 4-days. So he picks trips that start after 10am one day and end by 6pm 4 days later so he can commute home. We have been really lucky lately. He has been holding commutable lines....but he has been working every weekend which is when I am off! We can't win sometimes

We are really lucky that we have no more student loans. He didn't have any and we paid mine off 3 years ago (we bought a 2-family 4 years ago, sold it a year later and made 80K so we were able to pay off my loans and invest the rest to reduce our condo loan....his mom is a real estate agent and knew the 2-family was a really good deal.). We have one car bill and he drives my old car which was my parents car. We did buy our first car until last year. Before that I was driving my parents old car (98 Accord) and he was driving his 90 Volvo. We couldn't afford a new car on our salary with our mortages. You just have to pick and choose sometimes.

It will get better. It will never be what it used to be like. We always joked in college that he was a good "investment". That was when pilots made more money....but we all know that won't happen again. We just make due and save alot now so we can have more later. Which sucks, but we are happy (overall...) and healthy and right now that is all that matters.

[pilots_wife]

Thanks for sharing all your experiences! Its just so hard to think you're making the right decisions when no one you know has a lifestyle like this, you know?

His goal is to stay at the regionals for a few years and then go to the majors, and then his cream of the crop dream job is to fly for UPS or FedEx one day.

We have talked alot about moving to Orlando and me getting a job there. The thing is, I don't mind staying here, but he absolutely hates being down there by himself, and I think its just getting compounded because he's on reserve and hasn't been called at all, and he has all this time to think, and get stressed out about how much money he's making. I mean, literally, part of his paycheck goes to the mortgate (which I told him I'd pay more of his portion of so he could have alittle bit left over for groceries and stuff) and the rest goes to his crash pad rent - and thats IT. Its kind of discouraging considering we're only a couple years from 30, and he's making less money than if he worked at McDonalds, and paid out the a$$ for loans and flight time, and we both have masters degrees.

GRRRR.

[Kristie]

is there a job he can do while he's on the road?

[pilots_wife]

^^We've talked about that. But, it seems like thats not a good idea since he's on call 12 hrs a day. Any suggestions?

[Kristie]

not after that.. hahahaha

he's on call for 12 hrs every day? that seems a little excessive for a regional!

[Bigsweetie]

Originally Posted by pilots_wife

^^We've talked about that. But, it seems like thats not a good idea since he's on call 12 hrs a day. Any suggestions?

Does he have a laptop? Maybe he could do Ebay? They have companies that hire people to sell their stuff on Ebay. They handle all the distribution and warehousing, your DH just sets up the auctions and handles the communications.

Just a thought...

[pilots_wife]

We've really been looking into the ebay thing. We've been looking for someone like that. Its hard to make sure they're not a scam, you know? But, thats definately something we've been looking into.