50+ yr old Husb + Wife want to form a team. Advice welcome.

You go get a CDL and start working. After you are confident in what you are doing get your wife on board and train her to drive the way you want it to. After that you guys should be doing just fine

 

Check out local Tech schools. You might be able to get your training at tax payers expense.

 

I'm with @DUNE-T on this one. Go get your CDL first and your wife keeps working, covering your nut. The process of you simply getting licensed and then driving for a living will give you insight on how to have your wife transition in, and then when she goes for her license you are covering your nut. Personally I would think that the one-at-a-time paradigm would alleviate some of the sheer terror that the great unknown brings.

I dig your plan. Sounds like you have a great situation there with the empty nest and an awesome wife on board with this change. Just suck up the turmoil that the next 12 months will bring you as you take your plan from formation to fruition. Regardless of what guys say on here...for the savvy, adaptable individuals out there trucking can be a very rewarding vocation. I wish you both steadying winds and calm seas!

 

You're in a good location for teams. Have you already chosen a company?
Here's some ideas:
Old Dominion - teams can earn up to $225K and this company does hire new cdl grads. May have to do some checking because some terminals may disuade you, but others will be happy to hire you as a team.
TWT Refrigerated Service - .60 cpm for teams
Danny Herman Trucking - dry van - no northeast or New York City.

 

FFE (Frozen Food Express) runs teams. They're headquartered in Dallas.

 

Best wishes, get as many pre-hires as you can then take the best offer.
Get all endorsements including hazmat. Even dry van or refrigerated sometimes pull hazmat.

 

Remember that there are tankers, flatbeds that offer less work than dry van and reefer. It depends on the dispatch. If you are sick of throwing boxes you will be unloading more of them.

A husband wife team is valuable but you will need savings, food and fluids in the truck, knowledge of your empty weight, fuel, two people etc so that when you are dispatched with a given load weight you will be able to understand if you are legal or not before you touch it.

You are going to roll once you two build into a team. And it's going to be very intense. Write down everything you do to the last detail on every load. And check em off as you are paid. If you go a month missing a few trips not paid, visit the DM in person show the evidence and get your pay.

You two will probably have to be with trainers a while.

There is one thing you both have to commit to. The appointment time anywhere in the USA 365, 24/7 regardless of weather, storms, closures, 9-11 etc. None of that matters. You will be there on that appointed hour. What you have to do is develop a awareness of the USA as a whole for example there is a developing slow moving ice storm affecting Armarillo-Omaha-MN and all points east to the atlantic until Monday as of tonight. This is a ice storm that is intended to cripple Oklahoma, Kansas etc.

One of you is a RN. You are going to see life and death, trauma certainly. Im not going to waste a post telling you it might be a hour before EMT gets there while the victim is being sliced in half to the spine with each breath being partially ejected by busted glass. That's pretty bad. And never mind the dripping gasoline around both of you as you hold the head up so she can breathe and scream because it's 4 feet above any kind of grass in the middle. as happened once to me. Her hubby was ejected 200 feet beyond at least several busted bones and no pulse no breathing. CPR did show up with a breathing mask for him But I don't think he made it.

That sort of stuff stays with a person.

You will need to pace yourselves. Dispatchers are going to be making demands on both of you and sometimes things do not go well. That would not be the time to fight. But you will. There are certain things you will both learn for example you go into the sleeper and close the curtain for peace and quiet until you are ready to be nice to each other again. The other must not disturb unless there is a actual fire or some really bad situation that is way more important than your little dispute.

Some areas of the USA have parasites and predators. Going to a market to deliver in south chicago is not a nice place. It's worth your lives to act a certain way and not be victims. One of which is keeping your big mouth shut. Your life story and information blabbing is more tools for a predator to take advantage of you two. Learn about hookers and why they do what they do. When she hears a hooker talk to you about a sex date or something for money, she has to understand you will say no and go away. Do not fight about that.

The food will be bad in some areas of the USA. Plan on having your own food and fluids again in the truck so that you don't need to waste time and good money in bad truckstops.

GO HOME now and then, do not even look at the truck or talk about it at home. If you are dispatched to get a load a few hundred miles monday AM, you are already rolling sunday afternoon. It's the way it is. You will be yelled at for being 15 minutes late. No excuses. Maybe fired.

If something comes up and the truck hits something, someone, damaged something or whatever... understand you two may be let go. Depending on the severeity and cost. Trucking is absolutely all about the profit, drivers are a dime per 50 each week. Basically disposible.

You will learn more on the road than you will ever learn in school. Your first year will be the most important. That will detemine what future you two have if there is one.

Good luck.