Career change to trucking

I was a fire truck!

 

SAIA is an LTL company with a training program called "dock to driver" . theyare are a good company.

Saia - Employment



they have a terminal in Norfolk

 

You said you were around 24. I can tell you that it's really rare for someone that young to pull 112K annual. Now Norfolk or Suffolk etc should not yet be too bad for cost of living etc I would think. (Excluding Williamsburg,... whew..) That kind of pay should have been overflowing your bank no matter what you liked to do in life when not working. (If you have not yet bought a house etc.)

I don't go too deep in this direction because in that age group you don't (Collectively for the generation) understand that there is a whole lifetime pending. You have been very lucky to be where you are. Now if you are very careful in your choices you can parlay this into something that will make you happy.

But I caution you Trucking is a mistress who is feast and famine. When the good times are there a week, you save without exception because next week you might have nothing through no fault of your own impatiently waiting to do something. I would like to think by now those kinds of days are gone for the most part.

 

Awesome share! Good company in my book.

 

If YOU do the research and find a certain driving job it is possible to earn $100k or more per year. But those jobs are not just lying/laying around waiting for someone to grab it. Those type of jobs are hard work using almost all of your 70 hours per week and require extreme dependability from the driver and the company. Yes you can do it. Most people do not make that kind of money. I am one of them. I'm not interested in working that hard.

The types of JOBS where drivers are making $100k plus per year that I know about are team driving for a FedEx contractor and being gone from home almost all of the time, driving/living in the oil patch doing a lot of off-road driving or driving on lease roads are might as well be off-road, and a few other specialized driving jobs. Nobody I know hiring onto a big national trucking company is making that kind of money as a company driver getting paid cents per mile CPM. So, you shouldn't expect to make that kind of money (outside of teaming) by answering ads on Craigslist.

 

Dude you can easily see 100k in 3 yrs. Im 2 and a half yrs in looking at $90k plus this yr running linehaul at OD bottom of the pay scale

 

Well... OT is intoxicating if you have it. I remember it myself.

Most people let's use a thought that they are never happy with 1000 or say 5000 or even 10,000. They will find a way to spend that whole month. Fritter it away. IF you are NOT a wasteful money person and are careful, within a little bit of enjoyment for life's sake and your morale on time off with spending, always building sayvings. Who is to say that by 40 or so you will find yourself with so much set aside you wont have to work again for a while. Or scratch like most people in the rat race to their little cubicles downtown?

If you think to work 5 days a week on 75K a year, I can tell you right now that you are still doing so much better than someone who has to work 70 hours a week pushing a 18 wheeler down the interstate. Most people cannot get to the doctor across town in 10 minutes to appt time, and here we are doing it across 2700 miles of America to the minute if necessary.

I rather take the 5 days on 75K annual, you can be sure of that. IF the work is motivating, not mindless and actually has a purpose other than "You want fries with that?"

 

You could get up close to that but in specialized hauling and after a few years experience only. You will definitely not be working 40 hours in trucking either