Are employment opportunities in trucking incredibly strong right now?

Thin air. I got to thinking what a person would need to save to retire on $50K/year, $1000 seemed like a nice round number.

$360K in the bank will do it if you only live another 7.2 years... today. In 30 years that will be worth 3600 of today's dollars, you can take the family out for dinner with it.

 

Interesting thread with a lot of good points. I spent much of my 20's driving interstate with a moving company and it sucked! Lol. Work all day, drive 200 miles, sleep a couple hours in a non air conditioned cab over. So I got into sales and management and it sucks!
Some times as a driver your manager or planner will screw up and you don't make much foa a week or so. My boss raised our prices to 20 or 30 percent higher than our competition and I haven't made a sale in a month! That sucks! So yes driving can be tough but so can most jobs! As an example an old friend is a pilot. Spent 12 years with a regional airline making 30k or less, now makes about 80k with a major carrier and they max his hours!

 

When I ran for Congress I suggested the privatization of Social Security. The blue hair brigand Attacked me. However.

If you make $50,000 per year and save 15% of your income which is the same as social security, and invest in the stock market which returns 10% historically over the long haul and do so for 30 years. You will have a nest egg of

$1,299,559. If you have a nest egg of that amount and stop working at 53 years of age you can expect to live on $10,000 plus a month. That is adjusted for inflation so it is in current dollars. $625 a month is easily done. Starting early is best but starting now is better then nothing.
​

 

Or it's because trucking is exactly as dangerous as driving to work, maybe? An that's why we're not payed for how dangerous our job is.... This is not a dangerous job. The common trend in this country makes being a teacher more dangerous than trucking.

 

If you put that money into a 401k that averages 2.8% return/year (not really growing just keeping up GDP expansion) it really looks more like 700k; there are some TVM calculators online that are free so you can look at different scenarios.

 

Just to clarify...commercial fishing is NOT a "very well paying job", it has the POTENTIAL to be a very well paying job, just like so many other jobs do. Do not believe everything you see Deadliest Catch, or hear from a truck driver on YouTube. Yes, I have a decade, or so, of commercial fishing experience in Alaska.

BTW, crabbing, as most "hear" of it, takes place in the Bering Sea, not the Arctic Ocean, FYI.

I have zero experience as a professional truck driver, however, after spending months on this forum reading and researching it is clearly evident that some make very good money at it, yet I am wise enough to understand that many do not, as that is evident as well, however, a great many earn a living at it. Truck driving is one more vocation that offers the potential to earn good money, and just like commercial fishing, among other jobs, all the right pieces must fall into place for that to become reality.

 

Perhaps I was misinformed, but I've been told those crabbing guys make about 50K for a few months work. I've also been told it's about the same for the ice truckers. Bust your hump for about 3 months a year and take the rest of the year off. If that's the case, a lot of people would go for that. It's probably not that easy to get one of those positions though.

 

Yep...you've been misinformed.....big time.. Those fishing jobs have the potential to pay big $$ , "if" you catch the tonnage..IRT's is a Reality show...get it......

 

Operating/riding in a motor vehicle is the most dangerous thing most people ever do. The leading cause of death of children 0-18 is motor vehicle crashes.

"Hazard" is a measure of potential for injury.

~220M motorists report to police ~9.5M crashes every year. There is no telling how many more crashes are not reported.

 

I'd say running into a house that's on fire is more dangerous, but what do I know. Driving is a somewhat skewed statistic, because everyone drives. If you have a few million cats on the road at any given time, of course there's going to be fatal accidents. Someone in the next hour is going to either be killed or seriously hurt in a crash, but odds are that it won't be you.