There's a lot of misleading information out there. On this site I once saw a carpenter say he was making more than he used to make as a $300k software developer. But I had some carpenters working for me and somehow I figured out they made around a tenth of that. In reality some of the outliers making a ton of money are wearing many hats as sales/marketing people, employing and managing subcontractors and employees, perhaps running their own website and SEO, and to truly get the gravy train running they nail some big sale where they sell some huge contract for an overpaying corporate client.
My dad has run a skylight installation business since 1979, and at least over the past 30 years, has kept a payroll of about 10 employees.
His business grosses about $2M per year, apparently after payroll and supplies he nets $500k. He was claiming something like $300k back when my mom stopped working in the late 90s.
For some odd reason, my folks have next to nothing to show for it, at least not to retire comfortably as he's about to turn 75. They dson't live extravagantly aside from going on a few nice vacations a year that might total $30k. The condo they rent is $3500 month. They mostly eat at home or family style restaurants. They have a couple used Audi A4s w/ lease/insurance/gas maybe $2k total per month. You'd break even making maybe $180k
Even being extraordinarily bad w/ money, there is no conceivable way my father makes more than half what he claims.
My purely anectodical experience with this is that when people that own these kinds of businesses say they make $500k a year they mean in their best year they made $500k. What they don't say is that for every year they made $500k they had 4-5 years where they were just barely scraping by. Construction is incredibly cyclical and there are a lot of lean years. I've also found a lot of them aren't great at managing the financial side of the business. A lot of the time they don't actually know how much they're making.
I've asked repeatedly for access to financials and to get more insight into my parents' retirement accounts and have met resistance, which is frustrating as I may have financial burden for their care coming up soon.
It's been discussed many times, he's had it appraised and it's not as much as one would think - high 6 figures at best. Would pay for ~5 years at their current spend rate. But yes, that will likely happen and with their retirement savings and social security they'd have to move to a LCOL area.
Basic point is, if my father had truly earned the income he claimed for decades against the lifestyle lived, they should have a retirement nipping at 8 figures; living out retirement in relative luxury and going on fantastic vacations on the regular. Instead they will have to economize and there may be a point where I have to kick in financial assistance.
