Driving with toddler at home

Your child should be the top of the list. Get a local job where you can be home every day/night. One parent can do it all, but it makes child care and child raising much more difficult.

 

If you do a lease-purchase, you won't be able to take home time because every day you're at home the truck bills are piling up and sometimes you can never catch up.
North Florida is a good location for tanker work. Finish your contract with whichever company you have signed up with, then switch to tankers and make around $65K - $70K and not have to deal with the headache of being an owner-operator. There are a few owner-operators such as @nax that have made it a success along with having a young family, but most have a lot of stress in their life trying to be a small business owner with a truck, plus providing their young family with a high standard of living the family can be proud of.
Lease-purchase drivers are not owner-operators; they are company drivers that are paying the bills on a company truck.

 

the red one, cuz the blue on doesn;t like him

 

McKenzie Tank Lines is headquartered in Tallahassee and is just one of a dozen or more that will hire you after you complete your contract with your current company.

 

Do NOT, repeat, NOT let a contract blind you.

Also, please, please, please (yes, I said it to a stranger on the internet), DO NOT DO A LEASE/PURCHASE.

I paid of pocket for my CDL (streetsmarts helped get that training bill to $1200)

Then I did local 3 month gig (nites), saved up, never cashed them paychecks, lived on savings & side hussle. Found an old truck (1998). Paid cash for the truck. Got my own MC @ 1 yr CDL since lease-on outfits rejected me (CDL too new) & my "old" truck.

Got on loadboards, got setup with a CHR, and its been working since. I'm actually on vacation till mid-Aug (rates suck)

It's not as easy as I make it to appear....but, I'm from the school of hard knocks, so I take my lumps, as I keep swinging.

I'm never out, till I'm out, and so far, the ref has yet to count me out.

 

Get the endorsements; tanker/hazmat. The test is written and very easy to pass.The questions and answers are on this forum; scroll to top of this page and click on "CDL Practice Tests" and memorize.