Taking the plunge. My journey as an O/O.

I would say go to Landstar. Getting hazmat endorsement is not hard unless you have felonies or something. (If that were the case you likely wouldn’t be working at Crete in the first place...)

Long thread and I may have missed it but can you take the truck and lease it on elsewhere while still making the payments on it to Crete? Another good reason IMO why not to finance anything on a first foray into owner operator-ship. If it goes bad on you at least you can just park it and go get a job (or sell it much easier).

 

Well, you’re running out of money so you might just need to go back to working your Crete contract for a few more months to get some money rolling back in and confirm the truck is running good after the grand repair. Depending on how much you still owe on it you might just want to hang around long enough to get it paid off, but that might not be necessary if it will take a year or longer. (If you can do it in 6 months, maybe.) Buying a new one is out of the question right now IMO. Maybe in a couple years you can do that. I would try to get on at Landstar for your “Spring offensive”, so to speak, because that will be the only thing that will keep you from going broke long term is to get your average rate up. Doesnt matter how frugal you live or how lax your financial responsibilities are at home, running a truck costs more money than you realize (well, maybe now you realize it), and companies like Crete are just taking advantage of people who haven’t figured that out yet.

 

These guys are just trying to help you. Many of them have already been down this path and learned the hard way themselves. Now I think you have maybe had some worse luck that usual but now you know how risky running your own truck can be if you roll snake eyes. As a company driver you’d have called them up and said “truck’s broken, find me a new one!” And maybe you’d have been down for a few days not really any worse for wear. But, a good learning experience if nothing else.

 

Seems par for the course to me but I think Bob knows that. Bob, what pc games you play? Serious question...

 

You have to be the most patient person in trucking. That isn't a dig, it's a compliment. Kudos to you.