Salary
Average Salary: $37,350
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $1,559,288
When you're a stonemason, the money you make is equal to the rocks you break (or carve, or install). As with any other career, your starting take-home pay will be a lot lower than what you're making by midlife. Your paycheck increases as your reputation improves, either because the company you work for wants to pay you more, or because you start pulling in bigger and better independent contracts, like 20% of the workforce (source).
Now, the downside to working with your hands is that there's not a lot of money to be had. Apprentices and quarry workers should only expect an hourly wage of $15, or about $25,000 a year. Your average stonemason can look forward to $25 an hour, with specialists making closer to $35.
If you're an artisan and work on a commission basis, you could make more; and, of course, if you own the place, you can make a pretty penny. You'll want to go to business school first, though; running a business without any training is pretty hard.
Fortunately, since you don't need any sort of degree to be a stonemason, you won't have any student loans to pay back at the beginning of your career (unless you spring for business school). That means you'll be able to start saving immediately. By the time your apprenticeship is up, you could have saved enough for a down payment on a sweet house and a sick ride.
There's also the added benefit of trade unions. If you end up joining a union like AFL-CIO or the Teamsters, you'll have a powerful ally looking to help you make the most money out of your skills and labor. Unions are controversial in some places; but for those who join, unions can be the difference between a struggle and a comfortable life. We'll leave that decision in your capable and incredibly calloused hands.