Making a Living

My wife and I both worked our way through high school part-time year-round and full-time summer jobs. I started to work as a musician at age 14 and continued until I was age 31. I worked 3 nights a week in high school and 6 nights a week in college and paid my own tuition.

When we married in 1964 at age 21, my wife worked as a Dental Assistant for $2 per hour ($4160 per year). My first day job after graduating from college paid $5400 per year. I continued to work as a musician 6 nights a week and made $5 per hour or $6240 per year. When we became parents at age 22, my wife stayed home to raise kids.

In 1966, we bought a home in St. Charles County Mo. For $16,000   A good family income was about $10,000 per year.

By 1967, my salary was $9600 per year for my day job and I was able to limit my band jobs to 2 to 3 nights a week and still made over $3000 as a musician.

By 1975, my salary was $20,000 per year. We had 6 kids and moved from St. Louis to Salina Kansas. We sold our home for $36,000 and bought a new one for $55,000.

By 1983, my salary was $40,000 per year and we moved from Salina Kansas to Atlanta GA. We sold our home for $85,000 and bought a new one for $133,000. My wife and oldest daughter entered Dental Hygiene School.

By 1986, my salary was $60,000per year and my wife was graduating from Dental Hygiene School and would make another $25,000 per year working part-time. We had three more daughters entering college.

In 1993, I started my own private consulting practice to serve the Atlanta electronics manufacturing companies. Our combined income averaged $120,000 per year. We had one son and one daughter enter college. We were able to pay for college and weddings. Our 6 kids all worked their way through school without loans, but needed $100,000 from us to subsidize everything. In 2003, we paid off the house.

During the 1960s, inflation started at 5% and rose to 7%. In the 1970s, inflation continued to climb from 7% to 10%. The price of new cars and boats doubled in 1978.  In the early 1980s, inflation reached 13%.  Inflation dropped back to 10% in 1986 and 7% in 1990.  After 1990, inflation settled down to about 4%. After the 2008 Meltdown, inflation was 2%. Investing in our homes over the years was critical to developing our net worth.  Our home is currently valued at well over $500,000.

In 2009, we began to receive about $50,000 per year in Social Security and other retirement accounts and we began to wind down our careers.

In 2011, I started the Tea Party and began to publish this blog and will continue to publish articles that track our progress in restoring US sovereignty by expanding the private sector free market economy and shrinking the government socialist footprint.

In 2017, we retired from our careers at age 74 to spend more time with the 6 kids, the 13 grandkids and the 2 great grandkids and each other. We are grateful to have had to earn a living when it was possible to do so. We are blessed to have Trump in the Whitehouse to restore the US economy for our kids and grandkids.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader