Advice-Swift training and employment

Personally, I didn't care much for the medical. In fairness, I'm retired military so I have family health care already.

Pay: Take my report with a grain of salt cause I was in a dedicated fleet. An average take home check was about $500-600/week. Some were lower (breakdowns, short miles), some a little higher. Note: Thats from the 6 mo mark after going solo. The 1st 3 mo were misserable on pay. I didn't start doing well on pay till I'd been at it a year ($700-850/week).

Backing practice. While you can get the very basics using a U-haul trailer (turn toward the problem etc), really nothing is going to compare to backing a 53' trailer. The semi trailer handles different than a little 2 wheeler. A semi's 5th wheel allows for a lot sharper angles than a bumper hitch does. Most schools you go to will allow for a ton of backing practice and often will work with you if you need extra.

 

Welcome to the team, FuzzieB. If you have questions about the Phoenix program, I believe your greatest resources are going to be Wyldfyur and TexasNana. These two ladies both went through about a year apart with Wyldfyur being the more recent. I'm sure either or both of them would be happy to answer questions. I may be able to help with questions about Swift in general.

Good luck to you in the program and, as I always say, don't forget to have fun.

 

You'll start off with 1500-2000 mi a week for a good average. Figure that at .25cpm, and you can figure on about $375 and $500....or $1100 to $2000 a month...but that is before taxes and insurance.

having a growing family, i'd be hard pressed to drive over the road, being gone for 2, 3 maybe 4 weeks at a time. Not being able to get straight home if one of my kids had to go into the hospital or something. Odds will be, you'll need to get home for one of your kids concert or something important, and you'll end up getting the shaft by planners or your DM when you're 1,000 mi from home, needing to get home, and they send you in the opposite direction.

best of luck to ya.....