Entry Level Roustabout Jobs

Does this sound laughable? That a general laborer type of job like an offshore roustabout should think and plan for retirement? After all, don’t laborers usually work until they drop dead from old age or exhaustion? But roustabout jobs are a different kettle of fish. Sure, if you were just starting out, you might take home as little as $25,000 a year. But with 10 years of experience and overtime, and if you work on a union-controlled offshore oil rig, $50,000 or more per year is quite possible.

With this kind of offshore roustabout salary, tax planning, financial planning and retirement planning are all quite viable. They are all things you can and should think about if you ever want to retire, e.g. by the time you hit 50.

Tax Planning

We will not get into the nuts and bolts of this issue here. Go to a good accountant for advice. But if you paid money out of your own pocket to get training for entry level roustabout jobs, you might be eligible to claim against the cost. If you had to pay for your own equipment, or bought spare equipment like hard hats or steel-toed work boots, etc., you might be able to make a tax claim for this. If the oil rig where you work and your residence are in different states, you might be able to claim for the travel costs, and you might be able to split your taxes in favor of the state which gives you a lower rate. If you work offshore, you may not even need to pay taxes. Check with a good accountant for the details.

Financial Planning

As a roustabout, unemployment insurance is your best friend. Make sure you have it, and pay extra for it if necessary. Make sure your terms include coverage for accidents / workmen’s compensation, and make sure it pays you if you ever need to leave the oil industry and need to retrain for your new job. And make sure it will give you a “paycheck,” i.e. unemployment benefits, if you cannot find an oil rig job for a while.

The oil industry will be here for at least the next century. You do not need to worry about that. Oil is just too valuable – it is needed for fuel, it is needed to make plastics, fertilizer, pesticides and many other industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals. But oil is also cyclical. When the price of oil goes up, the oil companies will hire workers and roustabout wages will go up like crazy. But when the price of oil drops, e.g. $10 per barrel in the 1980-s, roustabout recruitment took a nosedive as well. That is why you need a really good insurance.

It is good to have a high roustabout salary. But don’t spend all of it at once. Even if you are new, even if you are only earning $25,000 a year, try to save at least 10% of it. At the very least, put it into a savings account, or buy some CDs. If the shit hits the fan, at least you have something to live on while waiting for your insurance to kick in, and you have something for after the insurance runs out.

Take a part of it, and learn some useful skills. If you are married and your wife is not working, try setting up a small business for her to run. You can help her out in between your tours on the oil rig.

Another option is to learn day trading, e.g. forex, stocks, etc. As long as you learn the right methods, it is possible to make money if you play it safe. You can also do internet marketing, e.g. building websites and selling advertising space on them. It is sort of like building billboards on the highway, where your website is the billboard and the internet is the highway. Remember that most offshore oil rig jobs have you working two weeks on and two weeks off. In many cases, you have 26 weeks throughout every year to learn an alternative trade or skill.

Do you really need all these extra stuff on top of your (un)employment and life insurance? Maybe not. But you will not always be able to find good roustabout job openings. You may find the wages during a slump in the oil industry too low to justify the risk and effort you need to put in. You may get burned out for a while. You may get married or your wife may get pregnant or you may want to enjoy your babies growing years. You may want to take it easy for a year or two before heading offshore again. As an oil rig worker, you actually have the time and options available, unlike someone working in a normal office.

Retirement Planning

In the long run, roustabout jobs in United States are going to increase, what with the increased emphasis on the national security of energy. But even if rustabout jobs are guaranteed, do you really want to work so hard until you are 60 years old? Can you even last that long, working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, two weeks or three weeks straight without a break? You really need to plan for your retirement.

By the time you are taking home $30,000 to $40,000 a year, you can actually do a great deal with your income to prepare for your retirement. Talk to a good financial planner and work up a conservative investment plan. Set up a retirement account, be it 401(k), Roth, IRA or what have you. Find one that works for you and your family.

Roustabout vacancies offshore are a young man’s game. If you do not choose to go up the ranks, you need to think about how to retire on a senior roustabout’s wages while you are still young enough to enjoy your life. $50,000 a year is more than what many low-ranked white collar workers earn. If they can think about retirement, you sure as heck can as well.