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

Melton is a great choice. Not sure if it matters, but they do a hair follicle test in addition to the DOT urine test. If you've been a bad boy in the last 6 months, you'll want to delay signing on. Just sayin. When I was your age, you could have caught a buzz smoking my hair.

I think from what my research turned up when looking into them, their drivers average about 2500-2800 miles per week and have something like a 650-800 mile average length of haul.

I would also look at Maverick and see if you are in their hiring area, especially hauling glass. Those guys make loot and if you don't have a glass load(that you secure and tarp, on a flatbed) you will pull a normal flatbed load to keep you moving. I also understand that they won't let you stay out longer than 6 weeks at a time. I could have had information there.

And also I would look into TMC for flatbed. Those are the big ones I know of. I would recommend Swift for flatbed, but I am currently with my mentor and going flatbed, having yet to pull an open deck. You are like 99.9999% likely to not get a flatbed mentor. So far I've pulled dry Van a couple of times and then have pulled only reefers with my mentor. All of the Swift flatbed guys I talk to speak pretty highly of the freight, miles and pay(especially team miles and pay).

I know maverick absolutely doesn't run team. Melton does but not primarily. Swift loves them. No idea about TMC. But you didn't really express much interest(or any) in that idea. If it's something you would later want to consider, it's something you should probably consider now.

My advice is apply with all of them. I know Maverick will pay for school, pay you while in school and also pay you with your mentor. Melton I don't know what they pay in training, but I know their starting salary is the best and the benefits are excellent, of all the flatbed companies I can name off the top of my head.

 

System Transport is flatbed and hires 21 yr. old drivers and trucks have APU.

 

I saved up $17,000 cash my first year of trucking. Just had a small car payment and $200 room and board at my brothers.
Another year later I bought a house. That's a real drag on a guys cash flow.

 

Houses can be expensive. Bug man gets 6000 a year, revenuer another 500 or so total including vehicles, land scaping 1000.... kachink caking baclking...

I once added up the cost of 15 years home ownership and the resulting 6 figures disgusted me.

But hey... cheer up, it';s better to have owned than never to have owned at all.

 

Advice of staying in school and getting in your desired job market sooner is actually great. Depending on your choice of field of course. A masters in American literature is a little different than one in computer science. So, with that in mind... let's get to answering your actual question with my actual real world life because (except for going back to school part) that's what I'm doing.

First, I work for a mega. Almost 9 months in. Still work for a mega because the pay is better than anyone else out there as far as I've seen. Pulling a dry van anyway. In my particular situation.

I don't have rent. I do have car insurance ($25/mo), cell phone ($150/mo), health insurance ($170/mo) and storage unit ($70/mo) in bills. Cell could be much less and I've tried the cheaper options but to stay sane on the road I need the wifi hotspot and service everywhere and whatever, the difference isn't staggering.

I drive for a month at a time and then go home for 4-5 days. On average in a month I'll make $4k. I spend $300-$500 a month on groceries and coffee. The rest goes into savings. Generally I can manage $3k a month into savings. The monthly figure is an average. Some weeks I'm making $1500 and others $800. So it equals out. If I look at my gross pay for the year and divide that by the number of weeks I've been driving it comes out to $3966 for every 4 weeks.

Now that doesn't mean that I didn't have some initial quality of life expenses. I stay out for a while. I tried bare bones. Did not work. Got a gps and a tv and a game system and that worked for a while. Got tired of sitting on my backside. Got a bicycle and accessories. Got cooking supplies for truck and a fridge. Inverters to make electronic things work. A dash cam. Tools. Got a few other items that make life easier. Clothes that work well for being out here all the time. Shoes. Storage containers for all this stuff to make truck not look like a complete disaster. Etc etc etc

All that adds up so while I'm saving a whole ton now that I have everything I can, I'm also not sitting on 27k in savings. Closer to 20k. Which is still pretty darn solid for a first year driver with just under 9 months on the road.

But!!! This is a career choice for me. I don't intend to quit. 20k is nice to have and makes me feel all warm and fuzzy but it's not worth 9 months of getting ahead in the field you're interested in. Unless that field is less lucrative than this one.

Do what you will. Good luck out there.

 

How often do companies hire young people? I'm about six years older than the OP, graduated from a university when I was 23, and since then, tried getting a couple entrepreneurial pursuits off the ground, and had a slew of short term jobs, just trying to find out what I like doing. I haven't held a job for more than a year. In other words, I'm like a lot of millenials.

On the one hand trucking companies need young people as the average age of truckers I think is over 55 currently, and they're going to be screwed in a few years if they don't hire a lot of young people. But, on the other hand, trucking companies want to see ten years of work history, which most young people don't even have, or if they do then it looks pretty unstable.

Have trucking companies lowered the bar in that regard? Are they taking more risks with young people and understand the past few years have just been spent trying to figure out what works?

 

Brexit....double post.

 

Trucking companies hire as young as 18 for intrastate work and hire as young as 21 for long haul.
You may have to explain the past year by explaining your entrepreneurial pursuits if you don't have tax records to show that time.
Either way, plenty of trucking jobs waiting for you.