Freymiller pay update

I think there's a lot facts here. Everyone thinks that 80k and up is the norm but it ain't enough loads for everyone to get that type of money. 70k on up is doable, but you getting that money if you go home every 2 weeks. The highest OTR earners don't go home much. I do legit run 2700 miles on up almost every week, but I don't go home a lot, and I'm working with a company that has an out and back system that is highly effective in getting good miles. It's so much that definitely tells a story about drivers pay. When you talk about the upper 5 percent, I sometimes wonder if it's 1 or 2 drivers who make that in the entire fleet. Lol

 

####... I'm at 76K already home daily. Sometimes I work a 6th day because I'm bored at home.

 

70k? There's drivers making over 100k here. Please don't say you can't you need patience, run your clock, ask for better runs keep in mind if you a bad driver, a dm could give you a great runs and your screw him over by being late on your part not weather or any legitimate hes not gonna have you on the A team your gonna be bottom list, he or she they do play favorites if you a yes man or woman you can do well say no enough they gonna keep you on the back burner. Also while we chase miles here you can have short miles and multiple stops and still achieve the same money or better. I know one guy make 140k yearly he does a dedicated run on occasion he runs make up for others.... he's also on top 3 when you see those people ask them how to run better. The only downside I have with FM is there's no home daily for me which is something I want eventually.

 

I realize what I'm about to say isn't true to anybody who already had a home prior to 2022 (and especially prior to 2021), but traditionally, doing OTR had a huge benefit of being able to save up way more money by not having a rental agreement or a mortgage and just living out of the truck and having a family member/friend to stay with during hometime (or a hotel once a while as well). So you're at 76k for the year but how much in home property taxes, home insurance, heating/cooling, water bill, home repairs, HOA fees (if applicable), lawn maintenence (if applicable, including equipment/gas if you do it yourself), etc. etc. are you paying on average per year? That's to say NOTHING of however much your mortgage payment per month is.

Obviously in this economic climate you are still way ahead of the OTR driver living out of the truck because home values have shot up so much with ridiculous low interest rates, but traditionally it's reversed where you would've been able to get way more ahead in life financially if you lived out of the truck and did OTR and not have all the expenses associated with housing or renting.

I'm a reefer driver (although we do dry loads as well) and I looked at my YTD gross salary numbers several weeks ago and I think $80,000 gross would have been possible for me if I would have literally stayed out the whole 52 weeks per year and never taken time off. More realistically (as of several weeks ago) it looks like I'm going to be around $60,000-$65,000 gross for the year with probably around 12 weeks off total (averaging 1 week off per month).

What people need to understand when going OTR is you HAVE to take into account how much hometime you're going to take per year, then average that out per month. It's better to figure out what the average weekly pay is and then if you take 7-8 days off per month (like a normal working person does) you can just multiply the average weekly pay by 3 and then multiply that number by 12. That'll give you a more realistic forecast for your annual gross income.

One thing I've noticed (and I'm not talking about anyone in particular in this thread or in the video in the OP, I'm just saying in general) is that in the OTR sector pay is widly exaggerated and often times, the whole story isn't being told (for example 100k gross on a 1099 is WAY different than a 100k gross on a W2 with full health and retirement benefits).

That said, by all means, I obviously encourage every single driver, no matter what sector of trucking they are in, to find the best possible pay and in the best possible working environment/schedule that works for you. Higher pay is better for all of us.

 

Oh yeah man....I didn't take it too seriously when the recruiter told me that average but they gotta system and it works to perfection, provided a driver can keep that driver side door closed.