Every trucking company website and all the recruiters say one of the best things about a trucking job is you can put away some serious money and build a nest egg if you want. Now that our kids are grown and gone, we sold our home, rented a fairly inexpensive place, and the cars are paid for. We start trucking school on Monday with the hopes of doing team long haul. Logic says we ought to be able to put a lot of our driving income away since expenses at home will be minimal. What sayest you experienced drivers? Does that really work?
That math works at my company. Team Drivers earn .31/mile Give or take an hour, mile etc. Just a ball park estimate. 8hrs at 55mph= 440mi 440mi at .31/mi= $136.40/day $136.40/day X 5 Days = $685 5 day work week $685 5 day work week X 2 Drivers = $1364 Per average work week. $1364 X 4 weeks = $5456/mo Subtract about 500-600 for expenses, break downs, tires blah blah and that's about right. anywhere to 3k to 5k a month. Depending on miles. If the miles are there, the pay is there. Remember this is a low estimate, not a complete estimate. Your first years pay will be closer to 2.5k/mo for the first few months. You kinda have to prove yourself to the company. Can you get there on time. Can you not mess up a load, blah blah. And if you jump to owner op, and you can get the miles, the pay scale really goes up!
But if you really want to make big money you've got to keep your ear to the ground! Lots of people get that first job out of scool and never really research their opportunities. I have nothing against the following two companies. I'm just making a point. They get out of school, head off to Schneider, and years later have only ever even considered Werner for a possible switch. Here's a bit of advice that has served me etremely well over my 6 years on the roads: When you can find a driver who does something you're unfamiliar with and he/she is NOT talking your ear off when you didn't ask anything yet, talk THEIR ear off! If someone can't wait to blabber on and on about what they do and who they drive for, I take very little interest. If they're that eager to convince me, it's usually because they're not yet totally convinced themselves but are working on it... If you have to pry a little to get details out of someone, you're much more likely to get "good information" (something that's unfortunately not the easiest to come across out here).
