How much can I save up as a 22 year old trucker if I live on the road?

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I'd choose a company that's set up for driver comfort and extended periods of time on the road. Trucks with Diesel APU, Direct TV, XM radio, refrigerator/freezer. Many companies offer this or have the hookups on the truck to add these amenities.
APU is an auxillary power unit that gives you electrical power when the truck engine is shut off. With the APU you can operate your computer, Xbox, television, etc without draining the truck batteries.
Many states, municipalities, trucking companies, have strict idle laws which means you can't idle the truck except in extreme cold or hot weather.
One example is Jim Palmer Trucking. Can make .45 cpm there plus accessorial pays.

 

Can you take any of your graduate classes online? My bachelors will be complete in 2 weeks, and I'm knocking out this semester completely online. You always have a decent amount of downtime on the road, especially if you're doing resets away from home. Might as well kill the time knocking out credit hours. If you're bills are light(you said you lived at home), and you go with a company setup with fridges and an apu like Chinatown mentioned, shouldn't be hard to put back 20k in a year after training.
I work for a low paying carrier for the flexibility they offer, live alone, pay child support, and I'm still putting about 200-250$/week into savings. Odd benefit of driving that no one mentions is that if you take a per-diem pay package it lowers your taxable income, which also lowers your required loan payments if you're on paye or repaye consolidation plans.

 

I 100% second the recommendation for Jim Palmer. I don't work for them, so I get absolutely nothing for recommending them to you. Hell, they didn't even hire me because of things I did to screw myself early in life. But every single driver I have spoken with that works for Jim Palmer is averaging 3000 miles per week, and very easily hitting their fuel bonus as well. Not to mention, the recruiter that I talked to was actually refreshingly honest about the rigors of otr driving and that it's not for everyone. They wanted to make #### certain you knew what you were getting yourself into. On top of that, their training program is top notch. They aren't a CDL mill and they aren't looking for steering wheel holders. If you like them on fb, you can see countless photos and posts of them personally wishing drivers a happy birthday, by name. Wishing drivers and their spouse a happy anniversary, by name. They post a shoutout to drivers on their anniversaries of working for the company as well... You guessed it, by name.

I work for a mega carrier, and right now I'm on a dedicated Target fleet, hauling reefer. I talk to my DM every single day. I talk to dispatch every single day. There are maybe 20 trucks on this dedicated fleet. That dude still doesn't know who the #### I am. At Jim Palmer, they know you by name. You aren't just a driver code to them. They pay very well for drivers starting out and if they were the ones who trained you, you can bet your ### you will be ready to go solo by the time you go solo. They take 5 students and there's an instructor per student at their school. At Swift, there were 25 students in my class at one of many regional schools. That was 15 trucks and trailers, with two instructors on the straight line backing course, two instructors on the secondary backing course. It was 4 people to a truck with one road instructor. It was a line that took a school that lasts 3 week into a 5th week just for me to have my turn to test for my CDL, because there was a log jam of students testing out.

Again, if you do anything, I recommend flatbed. TMC, Maverick or Melton are all great companies to start with(and end with for that matter) on the Flatbed side. If you do go mega, Prime or Swift do have good flatbed divisions. Prime has better training, but Swift has more diverse freight and pays a bit better.

If you do anything other than flatbed, I recommend Jim Palmer, hauling reefers. And if you want to make a ####load of money, don't mind the very real possibility that even a minor accident could burn you alive, there's also tankers with a hazmat endorsement. I've seen double and triple fuel tankers out there too. China is the guy to talk to about that crazy ####. I have the endorsements but fortunately most of those companies probably won't hire me. I don't have the skill or the balls for that kind of risk lol

 

I did not want to confuse the young one. Some companies claim the Per Diem and rightly so.

Im not certain if a 18 year old can file a full 1040 with itemized deduction required of Per Diem being 150 miles from home each service day.

Our last year in 2001 we both claimed 306 days with logs to prove it out of 365 days. Total came to around 13 and change thousands of dollars to throw against taxes incurred on 65K income. That did not include further withholding that was also figured in that year. In any case the Govermnet made out pretty good once we paid off the 46,000 in college loans that were essentially worthless except for being able to say wife's the first in family's three generations here into America to graduate both the US Marines and College with a 2 and 4 year degree. And myself turned into a hobby monster building computers but not for a living. Smart phones and tablets took care of that.

 

You could company truck anywhere for three years & buy houses in needle exchange areas.
I've bought many houses from these areas and sheriff sales. (Dirt dirt cheap) Rent them out.

Screw going to school you are wasting compound interest time... I don't do stocks hardly anymore but you are young enough you can. At least get an IRA going.

Few years of trucking and you could be making $3000 a month before expenses in rental income with the houses PAID for. Plenty of money for a comfy modest life with everything paid for.

To hell with school. Go hold a steering wheel while you still can. (The local teachers hate me when I give advice to the kids). Enjoy your 47k a year and paying off that 4 year degree dingaling!

Hell I made 47k in my rookie year of driving xD

 

I got one better. When I started work out of school my parents labored until blue in the face talking about pensions, retirement bennies etc etc etc for being a working stiff catching the downtown bus at 7:03 each morning for 50 years. Ugh.

What they did not know then was America was fixing to ship jobs overseas. All of that outside of Government and Police/Fire service etc went bye bye. Poof. Now people fight to be paid 15 flipping burgers. Ive done dishes myself in fast food as necessary to build a few thousand cash before hiring onto a company so I am debt free and not borrowing anything, especially when dispatch gets to losing a nut and starves me out for weeks only to find it bites em in the ### for fuel costs etc. Idlsing. The last one that tried it decades ago paid almost 10K in fuel. But he was a 1 billion company loading 320K trailers a year. Im just one of me so it's a wash.

 

Hehe....so that was you idling out of spite along with me some of those nights.

Make em pay son.
Make em pay.

I don't think I ever turned the truck off when Conway released their fuelopps swag scam. A pissed off driver doesn't help the bottom line.

 

Not sure, but think Jim Palmer now hires 21 yr. old drivers.
Melton is a good choice for flatbed. Their trucks have APU.