Abandon Trainee

Agreed, and it opened up a wave of self righteous truckers that preach this self responsibility sermon, with no facts of the situation. All of us have succeeded, and it can all be taken away with one catastrophe, so the self righteous attitude should be chilled

 

Well no, not really. I have worked hard, saved, lived within my means, put my savings in multiple investments, and keep approximately 8-months to a 10 months worth of cash on hand.

Conversely, the poor souls you speak of are not there because of one bad decision, but multiple bad decisions over multiple years.

Like Robert Plant said
No no nobody's fault but mine.

 

And yet most of the times I've seen people struggling and we get talking about finances they are blowing money on stupid stuff.

The big one I see is the Rent a center places, buying a whole house full of furniture and a 42" TV to go along with their PS4 and XBone and such.

They could have gotten the furniture 2nd hand. No need for a TV, but if so get a $100 one at walmart. No need for the 2-3 gaming consoles.
Same people tend to lease new cars.
Then there are the stuff like Netflix, or the unlimited smartphone, or...

Well, I could come up with tons of examples.
And I lived in a trailer park for long enough to see how poor people live.

Here is my "sanctimonious" case though. I grew up in a shop rat house, so ok middle class life. I got stupid and didn't take advantage of it though. I got to where my life was making well under poverty wages and living in a trailer park barely able to make house payments.
I finally grew up, invested some tax returns into myself and got a job driving truck. In 5.5 years I went from trailer park on food stamps, etc. to owning my own house, buying my wife a new-ish car and having the middle class lifestyle for my daughter.

It took sacrifice though. Everything from running OTR, to the simple one of when the TV broke not buying a new one.

If I can pull myself out of the trailer park, anyone can.

 

Maybe that trainee spent all his savings burying his only child that committed suicide because his mom died a long horrible death due to cancer.

 

Everyone bought stuff they didn’t need or couldn’t afford when they were young.
It’s a part of life and the reason why we get wiser and more mature as we age.
Which is why they have age limits on interstate cdl holders.

 

A yet I've seen it from kids just starting life to people that have retired and blew all their GM bennies and was living in the trailer park beside me.
It's not just young folk. Heck where I lives I'd say the average age was around 45 Of course some younger, some older but all the same that would blow their full paycheck and then some by Friday night.

 

Yes and as hard as you ever worked, things still had to go in your favor...we work hard out here, but we can't control shippers and receivers on a daily basis, or traffic, or anything else that can derail a run. I'm not diminishing anything being said, but luck plays a pretty big role in our lives. All we can control is when we start or stop our clock and hope for the best afterwards.

 

Why are you saving your money ? To retire and die ?