I join the ruling class

[rob in cal]

I've been working as a delivery driver for the a pizza, pasta, grill type establishment for 13 years, and saved a lot of my income over those years, as I'm thrifty and find it pretty easy to save.  After years of asking, the restaurant owner finally agreed to sell me some shares of the restaurant, and I now own 10% of the stock.  Now, I'm still a delivery driver, but also an owner, so I'm kind of a hybrid person, both part of the working class and ownership class.
    It looks like my ownership stake is covering about 50% of my family's basic income needs, so the nice thing is that I really only need to work very part time as a driver to cover our other needs. I'm still working more than that to have a nice monthly cushion and extra savings, but its nice to have a foot in both economic camps.   To further my role as an honorary member of the capitalist caste, I'm pumping most of my savings into stock index funds.  Anyway, I'd be intrested to hear others on this board who are both workers and owners of their workplaces.

[CLARENCE 2015!]

I was a homebuilder for 25 years and was both a worker and owner... the first thing I'd recommend is to speak with an accountant or financial advisor so you aren't double taxed with corporate and personal income tax...there's some paperwork that makes this simple nowadays but be careful!!!

[Beet]

Congrats, man. But you haven't joined the ruling class yet, because you still need to work to cover your needs.

[rob in cal]

Yeah, I figure I'd like to have about 250k in stock/bonds/reit accounts and then I'd be all the way there, or if I could ever buy more shares of the restaurant.  Still, its nice that my wife and I work a total of about 33 total hours a week (me 28, her 5) and thats so much less than most people in our area.  This gives me free time to do important work for the community such as broaden my knowledge about why the Correze area in France votes Socialist, or who won last nights Latvian legislature by-election.
   Concerning taxes, last years went smoothly and am still waiting on this years K-1 business income form. 

[Sbane]

If you don't mind me asking, what part of California are you in? I think Northern California, correct? Not the Bay Area though I am assuming?