How do people afford to consistently show multiple horses?

[AskMyAccountant.17]

@Ponyplusaninch

I came out with about $90k worth of debt and paid it off in 3 years working a commission based position. I cried like every day and didn’t do much of anything because I never had the money to do it. But when I was done paying, I celebrated by picking up riding lessons again and eventually getting my horse (who was cheaper than my used car, my roof repairs, my new HVAC, and a plethora of other expensive adult costs).

Caveat on MBAs–y’all don’t go chasing those unless you have full scholarship (lol) or your company is willing to pay for it. I’ve seen too many people go get MBAs thinking it’s going to be life changing for their salaries, and the reality is it’s not. It’s great for networking, it’s great for being able to understand more how businesses function, and definitely helpful if you want to be an entrepreneur. But it is not an automatic 10% raise. So be careful what you’re investing in when it comes to your continuing education.

So I did get my MBA. Similar route, I work in P.E. now. I started in public accounting, then fund administration, and now I work for a large P.E. firm. I’d tell every horse person to go this route, lol. I have a lot of flexibility and can work partially remote. (Albiet long hours when I get done with the barn) But, I didn’t have my Masters or CPA right out of college, I just had my accounting under-grad. I didnt have 150-hours to sit for the exam so wanted the option. I started my MBA online while I was in public accounting. Mine wasn’t very expensive, under $20k at a very small school. I did it in 2 years, only because I got 2 C’s during busy season and had to increase my GPA or it would have been 1. ( I worked full-time) Did I learn anything? no. I already had all of the core business classes from my accounting under-grad. I did get a better job later though. I could also see someone who didn’t have a business major utilize those classes. So, I don’t regret mine.

I guess I also worked full-time in accounting at the same time as mine. So I didn’t take out any loans for living-costs. Just the core classes, and 20K may be a stretch. I think in total I paid closer to $15K.

For reference, at 30YO I was at 130k/annually before bonus? For some reason this feels like a lot less than I thought it would. But, I think for my level of education: state school under-grad, small MBA program I was pretty proud of that.

Now, we do have some finance members right out of their Ivy leagues making double out of college, but could they have my hours to ride? No.

The goal? Maybe marry one of them to fund the rest of this.

[Amberley]

@fivestrideline

it’s extremely hard to work your way into the horse lifestyle you’re talking about. Not without generational wealth backing you up. A good job (ie, top single digit percentage of earners) still won’t buy you a string of horses showing at WEF.

Oh I know some realtors who’ve done exactly that over the past 10 years as house prices skyrocketed. I think that gravy train has come to an end with the new rules though.

[Ponyplusaninch]

Oh yeah Corp Eng doesn’t surprise me re: being primarily back in office. That mentality is particularly prevalent with Japanese brands who have company presence in the US.

Here’s the one oddity I’ve seen/heard about in that sector of late: so these bigger Eng/manufacturing companies who need eng talent are all very much “you need to be in office”–that is the line that HR tells all candidates. But when they get in the door, the team leadership is more lax, and there is just this tacit agreement about how often engineers need to show up in person (not very often)

This is not every corp eng job. And frankly I don’t want to out where this is happening and ruin those people’s lives. But it is happening and likely isn’t being reported. I am curious to know how this plays out (more enforcement? move to hybrid? firings?).

I also vividly remember when VA DOT announced they were moving everyone back in office, and they lost a chunk of their workforce including engineers. There was debate about whether or not this was intentional (ie were they looking to shed weight and save money; were those that left already close to retirement). But it spooked a couple other DOTs to maintain a hybrid standard unless they wanted to spend loads of money on backfills.

Zoom was the same way. Irony of ironies, they wanted to bring everyone back in office, and there was uproar. They settled on a hybrid policy but that still ruffled feathers.

The tl;dr if you go and read all the social research out there, people want the CHOICE of where to work, whether that’s in office, at home, on a boat, at a horse show, etc. And if you give them a choice, a lot of folks do turn up organically for in office work. Being told that they have to turn up in office just grates people and makes them resistant.

[MHM]

@mika0116

He continued saying “if you make that decision I won’t hire you back because then you’d prove to me you’re an absolute dipshit”

I wonder how many other people have made what turned out to be a poor financial decision because they did not have a boss who was so upfront about the realities of the situation.

[mika0116]

As much as PE sort of destroyed my mental health among other things – I am exceedingly grateful for many of the men that I worked with (I only had 1 woman report into me during all those years, FYI).

My late father was a very morally grey person and was a absent / mentally ill parent.

So I have a lot of respect and appreciation for my IB/PE male mentors. Although their delivery could have used some work - definitely not HR appropriate and often very toxic towards women, but oddly well-meaning and they always championed my work, competency, and goals.

I am still invited to the Christmas party in Santa Barbara every year, despite leaving the industry 5 years ago, lol.

[greysfordays]

I think some of the best advice I’ve heard is figure out what you have some actual talent for and then practice to get into the top 1% of that. That isn’t usually your passion.

I ended up in finance bc I loved stock market psychology and I wanted a job that paid. I took a 12 year break from horses. When I went to business school, I graduated in 2009… and my summer internship was at Lehman Brothers. My other piece of advice would be… don’t do that

It was brutal finding work, I worked in the public sector, I worked in non-profit. When I went back into finance and I took a job that paid 1/3 what my executive non-profit position paid. It was a huge step back.

But investment analysis is a good fit for my brain. It’s not taxing or frustrating. But again, it is not my passion. Being a mediocre rider IS my passion and I’m really good at it too.

While I didn’t learn a thing in business school, I’m at my current job bc my best friend in business school let me know the firm I’m at had an opening. And I’ve been here 12 years.

As a Portfolio Manager, I’m the only extrovert on my team. I have always like presenting. Over time I’ve gotten good enough at it that I’m on TV once of twice a week a week and getting interviewed in the WSJ/NY Times/FT etc.

While being a gay lady makes me harder to fire, the real leverage I have is I’ve developed a skillset that’s unique and they pay me a lot of money for. More than I deserve for sure.

The point is there is real merit to figuring out what’s easy for you and working to get exceptionally good at it. And to not be discouraged if your path is winding. I didn’t have the ivy league investment banking background. But I found my way here and while I do not derive real meaning from my job, I never expected to. I find meaning in my relationships, my animals and my kid. And that’s plenty good for me.

[Annie10]

This has been a fascinating thread. My niece is 20 and floundering in college, mostly lacking motivation and direction. Next time we get together we are going to have a long chat and I’m going to give her this thread.

[tohorse]

I was on the L/S equity side of public markets and can echo a lot of what you said. And my background is fairly similar to what you described to be the typical candidate with a few extra decorations, probably because I was a woman so subtly but in a very real way the bar is a wee bit higher for us to be taken seriously.

And the travel, the toxicity, no time to ride and weirdly elitist culture. Although L/S/public markets performance is written on your forehead and frankly you just have more of trader type personalities which makes it more bro than brat.

Took me to get back into riding, then having a kid and then being called back into office to say “eff this” and walk away from a big package. Everyone including women on my team (and we only had Asian women! I was the only white FO woman on the whole floor) had a stay at home spouse so I realised there’s no way I’m making it up without my husband (who makes more) stepping back. And I saw no point in that so I quit.

Husband still in PE although taken more of a backseat recently (he’s older) so I still get a taste of it daily

[luvmyhackney]

I work in tech but on the Technical Program Management side, I make a decent salary but an excellent work-life balance compared to previous jobs. I’m fully remote and have a small farm. I’ve worked hard, put in ungodly hours, and had a bit of luck to make it this far. I average 10 hours a week on top of my job, just learning and staying relevant on new technology. Certifications and a good portfolio have opened doors for me, especially with specific technologies.

I have one horse in training that goes to 2-3 shows a year and fun stuff the rest of the year, clinics, off-site trail rides, etc. My other two equines get rides around the farm and kids can bomb around on them.

I could afford to show monthly at the fancy shows, but tbh it’s not that fun anymore. I prefer doing the XC derbys, clinics, small schooling shows, obstacle courses, etc.

[mika0116]

so much this ^

Everyone I worked with had a spouse who didn’t work and handled the kids - EXCEPT one who was married to a f*cking surgeon and they had an “open” relationship and oodles of family money on both sides to have 2 full time nannies for their 2 kids and mostly I think spent their lives weirdly torturing each other.

He was my MD a few times & used to make me come to his house (we lived in the same beach neighborhood of major metro area) to pick up laptops / printed deal decks all sorts of weird shit. I would often refuse to enter the home and would bring a male pal with me in the passenger seat.

He would do this to probably not to like actually start a romance with him, but his actions were mostly to “threaten” that he COULD “own me totally” or something and I better appreciate that he wasn’t more overtly pursuing me…

He would often perform vaguely sexual micro aggressions like standing way too close to me, “helping me with luggage” in airports (let me be explicit - helping me lift luggage into the overhead by standing behind me and pressing himself into me - with an obvious you know what going on), maintaining eye contact for disturbingly long times, walking me to my hotel room from bars and lingering at my hotel door often talking to me and cornering me against it, saving me red and purple Skittles and saying “my wife only likes the green, yellow, and orange, how exciting that my two current favorite women can split Skittles” (HUGE innuendos all the time).

We had a couple of men who also left who later would say “that man was an absolute sociopath” because apparently he did the same to the junior men. No one knows what his sexuality was (possibly pan or something). He was in charge of what deals we worked on and often was directly responsible for our promotions and bonuses.

He’s now a partner somewhere making millions a year being just, himself

Also uncomfortable that he was / is an EXCEEDINGLY handsome human being - Charlie Hunnam lookalike.

Ugh - all this to say the work was hard – the PERSONALITIES were often even harder…

[BostonHJ]

I am an agent and make good (but not WEF) money. I’ve been in the business 16 years and have a business partner that is responsible for all business development, and he makes WEF money, but he absolutely doesn’t have WEF time. We are a weekend focused business. Can we sneak away a few weeks a year during the quieter times? Totally. But to ride consistently, much less show consistently, nope. I used to have a smaller role in our team and had a horse - had more time, but way less money and it was incredibly stressful financially. I could now afford to have a horse and do a few good shows a year, but I don’t have the time. We’re not super nervous around the new RE commission laws because we’ve been around long enough to prove our value. It will be a real challenge for new agents.

We are in a very HCOL area so we work with some super high net worth people. Generational wealth and VC are the big sources of income. Everyone works so you might think on the surface their career is what pays the bills, but the family money is what got them to that point. An Ivy MBA goes a long ways. A good friend makes very solid money in corporate for a hotel group - he started at the bottom without a college degree and has worked his way up (way up). This is something you could try out as a summer job and see if you like the hospitality environment.

[GraceLikeRain]

@BostonHJ

Can we sneak away a few weeks a year during the quieter times? Totally. But to ride consistently, much less show consistently, nope.

Totally. To make WEF money I’d think you would need to be selling $100-140M in real estate as a starting point to have a commission that affords this lifestyle with multiple horses. It is really hard to imagine how anyone could accommodate clients at that level and casually slip off for days if not weeks at a time for the winter circuit. I would think that when someone with a $10M budget for a home wants to see a home, they get to see that home and they don’t get pushed off to someone else on the team.

I can very much see someone who is a “realtor” where it is 95% generational wealth and then they sell a handful of nice homes to family and friends annually and make a big show about how those homes somehow let them live this lifestyle. A lot of people are uncomfortable owning that truth.

I’ll never forget meeting someone who was in her early 20s in finance.She had just imported a mid 6 figure horse and heavily implied that her income had made the purchase possible. It was only after a few drinks that it slipped her parents were excited to make an “investment” in her “business prospect” and may have helped a tiny bit with the purchase price.

[ATXmom]

Citadel is a very difficult company to work for long-term because of their “pod” structure. They frequently cycle out pods depending on which sectors are hot, sending talented managers and their teams to the curb on a fairly frequent basis.

I think for quants AQR or Bridgewater for the larger firms are better choices. Bridgewater has a very specific culture that can be a challenge. Many smaller financial firms will have needs for a quant, even if it is not their entire strategy.

[ATXmom]

I haven’t been in finance for a minute but at the time I left, many firms were putting less focus on MBAs for analysts and moving towards CFA. Others that wanted to go MBA track did the executive MBAs and received partial or full reimbursement depending on the value of the employee

[phoenixrises]

Yeah I just threw out a couple of the bigger quant names as an idea that it exists. Which most people honestly don’t know it exists. I only know because I work for one.

[mika0116]

Deal side CPA who loves math and became a DS/ML & considered being a quant – TwoSigma / Jane Street are good options, but back to what I’ve said upthread… you really cannot do these jobs and ride regularly especially early career, hence my 7 years off.

Also, very small % of the human population has the ability (and desire) to have these types of jobs. When I was in PE I had many, many, many a peer /friend / former college classmate absolutely BAFFLED by not only the ACTUAL work I did, but also the workload / hours, etc.

Actuarial pass rates are at an all time low recently: https://proactuary.com/resources/decline-actuarial-exam-pass-rates-potential-impacts/#:~:text=Each%20one%20of%20the%20actuarial,region%20of%2015-20%.

[ATXmom]

100% - you cannot be a junior analyst for any financial firm and expect to have any free time in the beginning. Even senior analysts have very little available time for a sport as time consuming as riding.

This is an awful thing to say but if riding fancy horses and showing a lot is your goal, it would be easier to accomplish as the spouse…

[snaffle1987]

I’m sorry but if you are living in the manufacturing world as an engineer you need to be on site living with the product you are responsible for. I know from personal experience that covid remote work negatively affected my workplace at the time. People who needed to be hands on and involved with the everyday development of products and manufacturing were no longer involved at that level and it hurt the company in the long run. Teams no longer acting as teams, work not getting done, lack of supervision, i could go on and on and on.

I know there is a lot of pressure for remote work and all that with the modern generation today but after seeing it and living it; people just don’t want to work nowadays and have the mentality that an employer owes them the world.

If you are in the manufacturing industry and you directly impact the development and day to day operations of product development and production; you belong in the office.

Much like the new 80 million Starbucks CEO who refuses to relocate to corporate headquarters and instead wants to ride the corporate jet to the location multiple times a week. Uh no.

[Ponyplusaninch]

damn that is surprising to me re: those pass rates.

It was honestly very eye-opening to me when interviewing analysts coming out of financial firms and wanting to get more into start-ups. One of the questions I like to ask is “tell me about a time you screwed up at work–what did you do to fix it, and what did you learn from it?”

I had one person tell me outright they had never made a mistake because if they did, they wouldn’t have a job. I had another person tell me about a horrifying hazing incident that should have been reported to HR–they seemed totally unphased by it, and I was just sitting in shock on the other end of the interview.

Mad kudos to those in finance because that is a tough, tough environment to cut your teeth on and be successful (and still come out a fairly well-balanced person, too).

[Ponyplusaninch]

I don’t have enough knowledge in the field to have a strong opinion one way or another on in person work for manufacturing engineering (and therefore defer to your take on this!), but what I will say is that I raised an eyebrow about the new Starbucks CEO flying in on the corporate jet. That was wild to me when I read that in the paper.

I know that Starbucks will reimburse employees for travel expenses like commuter passes etc, but come on. Private jet? It’s just so out of touch with the actual workforce. Cannot possibly be helping employee morale.