The journey begins - purchased a truck.

Amazon.com

This is mine. I love it

 

I really wish I could give you a direction to go in, but I can't. I want to, but the thing is the answers you are looking for are locked inside you, not me. More than once I parked my truck out of aggravation, and a month later, not over two, I was ready to go again. Maybe you just need to take a step back and let your mind wander around in your head and think about what you might like to do. Maybe long term, maybe short term. As a suggestion only, I wouldn't sell your truck just yet because you have a nice setup, and you might just decide to crawl back in it in a few months. You have my phone number if you need it.

 

I agree. Parked mine about a year ago. Currently just started my 3 rd job. First local job was for a guy I worked for 30 years ago, at a major LTL. He had 20 local trucks and quite a few decent direct customers. Big names. It was good. Only lasted 3 months. Cash flow problems. After 20 years he’s done. Second job started out good. Slowly got worse. No freight. Less than 40 hrs per week. Took a lot of time off due to family illness. The job served me well considering my needing so much time off, but still ended up hating going in every day. Barely scraped by this year. Probably end up grossing less than $50k. for the year. Just started another new job. Finally found one worth having. Steady 12 hr. Shift , 5 days per week. Working 7 pm till 7 am. After one full week, I’m wore out. I’ve gone from exuberant to wondering if I’ll soon hate this job too. I’m not selling my Truck yet. It needs work regardless. Everything’s on hold till spring. I may lease on somewhere. Maybe doing local work. Maybe sell it. However if I get frustrated enough working for others, I may run it under my Authority again. That was my original motivation. Trucking has changed, so have I. It’s kinda like the beautiful girl in high school you once were infatuated with you no longer recognize. Inevitable over time.

 

Wow! That’s nice! Good price too.

 

I don’t think that one comes with the charger. Probably why it’s such a good price

 

Know the feeling all to well brother.. hate to see other people go through this ####.. if I can offer you any words of wisdom with my worthless opinion is that when I finally decided to park my truck last year after bleeding all my money out and excersizing every last financial option I had and finally decide I am done for now...
I took time to think, to relax, to do some soul searching to sit around in the house and lick my wounds for a bit and wonder where everything went wrong... spent alot of time with family and just enjoying the simple things in life again rather then worry about the nonstop endless amount of bs this industry seems to provide...I picked up some old hobbies of mine just to get my mind completely off anything involved in trucking.. and that's when I left this forum as well.
after some time I thought there's no way I could go work at the corner store or in 1 of the 3 restaurants in my town here... I'll go back trucking again, and went and got a company gig ... it ain't perfect by any means, but not only can I just focus on driving which is a good mental reset but it has helped me realize why I still do this. Because I simply enjoy it... and I can't wait til I got enough money to put together to get back out there on my own.
I'd like to think most of us on this forum are the same way, just this business has a way of separating a man from his soul for the time being when things don't make a lick of sense, like they do now...
I said all that to say keep ur head held high as much as u can, and don't feel bad if you got to take some time to leave and go into your cave like I did, sometimes it's just what a guy needs

 

Isn’t that just so #### sad? I remember when $100 was really something. Especially when I was a kid in the 90’s if I got $100 man I felt on top of the world. Nowadays they really need to make a $500 bill and I think they would have by now if it wasn’t for wanting to go all digital.


Anyway! Lastly, I feel the same way… with the election going the way it did, I would hang onto my truck if I was you Blair. I’m not saying things are going to change over night, but change is certainly coming and things will start getting built again and big freight needing hauled.

 

Blair it's the crappiest time of year for open deck. I dropped my pos LS step and have a dry van. It's ok.

Thursday I got unloaded and spent 4 hours Friday making 20 or 25 phone calls. No one owned any of the freight. Best part, I call, 45 minutes later they repost and still don't have it. I got load to NC from PA. I make 2 calls here and have a drop and hook to Detroit.

You know open deck doesn't get better till March, typically.

I did see a stretched LS double drop loaded down here. He is stretched and tapped.

I was thinking 6 years ago i was taking home 9 to 12 k a month. Which was enough to pay down debt and stock pile cash. I'm paying down debt, but not saving anything. I will this month but January probably going to suck hard.

 

I worked two local jobs. Hours plus the commute, were too much. 65 to 70 a week. Plus a little under 2 hours commute a day. Running dry wall into the chicago every day paid well. Clearing 1350 to 1600 a week take home. But no time for one self. So if a 20 year company shuts down. It just reinforces things are bad.

 

As someone who was an O/O for 8 years and then got off the road for a local driving job for a company. All I can say is don’t sell you’re equipment I did and 2 years later went out and bought another truck because working for someone else after being self employed is not easy as some say it is at least for me it’s not. Working local to make a descent income one needs to work 60+ hours a week leaving very little time for my family just a few hours a night basically and the weekends that’s if you’re not called in to work some of those as well. All that being said come spring time I’m hitting the road again.