The hard choices in life

It's not how much you get paid, but rather how much you will be spending.

Retail food breakfast approaches 20 dollars for one morning meal, twice that for a evening dinner. More if you dared to stop for lunch. Showers are ten dollars in my day, I faint to think what they might charge today...without a fuel ticket. Truck parking daily if you are in certain areas of the USA. Tolls... if your company is not prepass or transponded electronically, the Geo. Washington Bridge is a hundred dollars per passage in NYC> Count on at least two passages for the day in and out. CASH. That you will have to turn in with forms to get that money back.

Then there is Hunts Point, if you go in several times a week it's what" 25 per truck toll? at the gate? Then lumper fees beginning at 60 per stop. Potentially hundreds.

Never mind what you make. You worry about that come Januarary when it's time to reckon with Uncle Sam your taxes on gross.

The last year we ran, its 65K as a team to husband wife joint filing, 25K into expenses that year on the road, 20+ into taxes and what was left was easily absorbed by the house and lands with bills to same. Poof. All gone. Savings? 14K ready for the new year for which we are not running anymore. After leaving the road pernamently, not by choice...

14K out of 65K which was gone in the first 6 months of our year dealing medically and making repairs for two people.

 

I to am in Iowa and use to be in manufacturing. Hourly though. Seeing as how things are drying up slowly but surely John Deere's been in the layoff hot streak, Alcoa went with a semi-autonomous workforce after the recession and eliminated tons of salary supervisors, layoff's in other locations, and now split the company into two entities. Supervisory positions I'm hazy on but know being walked out the door any day if your not chummy in office politics would suck.

Depending on your schedule/savings I'd invest in a community college or some kind of education in the field. The one I took was 4 hours a day 5 days a week for 3 weeks. Then 6.5 hrs a day for 7 weeks (driving). 10 week training program.

Workforce investment act will have the course covered and a few additional expenses (books, drug screen, dot physical) Something worth looking into at the unemployment office. You'll have to jump through a few extra hoops but nothing to major.

Me personally I know I wont be making what I was when I was employed out of the gate. Eventually I'll make more but for now, just got to roll with the change.

 

Almost all companies advertise 50-80k because that is what it takes to get meat in the seat. Problem is few pay that 50-80k to any driver let alone new driver.

Most that advertise the yearly sum of 50-80k only do that because all their drivers earn significantly less. Most also advertise that yearly sum, because they pay piece work. They would be ashamed to advertise what they pay by the piece (Cents Per Mile) and they might be put out of business by the labor relations board if they advertised what the piece work pays out by the hour.

These companies often depend on the prospective employee to have poor math skills. Most of the time adding up their piece work pay would have to be a miracle of ultimate proportions to come up with the sum they get away with advertising.

 

You kinda answered your own question. There is no "driver shortage" like they mean, but rather a shortage of people/drivers to work for wages that are pretty much the same as 20 years ago and a life in a plastic prison. I would think very seriously about working for cpm pay scheme companies in today's climate. No offense to ANYONE, but these companies are scraping the bottom of the barrel to fill seats and you will have to deal with the likes of them everyday

 

I don't know what kind of pay you are used to but I wouldn't say $50k sucks. Especially when you consider that you can earn that with just a few weeks of training. Many 4 yr college grads won't ever make that.

Realistically I expect to stay around the 50-55k mark for 2 or 3 years until such time that I have enough experience to move into private fleet or specialized fields where it can pay closer to $80k.

Again, if you are used to earning much more than that then yeah, $50 or even $80k would suck.

 

There is no driver shortage just a shortage of drivers willing to put up with the BS of OTR driving. If there really was a driver shortage how come every single terminal of every mega gets at least a dozen recruits every Monday morning? Then another 12 the next week and so forth for the whole year? It's a constant revolving door. Don't think this is like driving your car for a vacation. That's relaxed pleasure, this is stressful highly regulated work. The driving down the highway listening to music is the fun part. Then you have to deal with never-ending headaches like traffic, finding parking at night, looking for empty trailers, finding shippers/receivers, being treated like feces by warehouse staff. Is all that worth it for maybe $40k a year if you're lucky?

Are sure you want to be away from home and family 2+ weeks at a time? Only to come home, catch up on a little sleep, do your laundry, and head back out? Lastly, your Qualcomm (elog) will be your new boss. Remember that clock will always be ticking down so you better plan your day accordingly.

If you really want to try it do so but I'm just trying to paint a realistic picture of what to expect being an OTR driver. Something the recruiter will never tell you. Honestly, I don't think I'd recommend this job to my worst enemy.

 

$45k my first year working for a beer distributor, doing a little but of everything my first couple months until I got my own route. Then just bumping docks, unloading, a quick count and I was gone. At almost 2 years I switched to an LTL doing P&D work the range on that was $52-$62k. Got hourly, Overtime after 8hrs a day and good benefits. Easy work but the hours moving around got to me because I never say my kid. Now I'm with a flatbed company, make about $50 (slight cut) but I decide when I start everyday, work M-F and see my kid so it's worth it. Although if I was willing to loose some flexibility I could go to one of the other Unionized LTLs in the area and start out around $60, the food service guys around here are making mid $60's which I've considered. That job is like marathon training, but their upfront about it and they will pay for it!

Question will become do you actually WANT to go over the road? Or do you just think there's more money doing that. With few exceptions I've always found the local work to pay more money for less work. There are some guys OTR making some serious money, but there not the norm.