Is there any money in trucking?

So your currently at well over $30 bucks an hour and home every night and want to drive a truck? Will it be possible for you to return to your job if you don't like trucking?

 

My question is why do you want to drive truck? You have a good job, making more money in less time than the vast majority out here and you get to live your life.

I make mpre money driving truck than I can working a single job, with my skill level. BUT I would make the same or more working 1 full-time and a partime job vs the same amount of hours logged in my logbook and I would still be at home with weekends off.

Hopefully you want to drive because you WANT to drive. If not, I think its foolish to wall awau from that gig.

 

Most all truckers clock in way more then 40 hours. Usually most guys fill out their log book every week and then work half as much again to make what they take home.


This is what the official stance is on truck driver wages:
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes533032.htm

You will see less then 5% make over 62k but every supertrucker you meet will tell you how they cleared that by the first half of the year and paid off their truck at the same time.

Ignore the hourly rate average. A large portion of trucking is piece work without overtime. The desk jockeys that work at the bureau of labor haven't yet figured that out or how to divide by hours worked with overtime.

 

Tankers

 

In my whopping 2 years experience, otr driving is a 60k per year job if you work your butt off and take little home time. There are jobs that pay more, bit now you're talking specialty, like oil field or heavy/oversized.

Starting out, if you can make better than 50k per year, you are doing very well. As you get more experience, 60k is easily reachable. A few people do 80-100k. Those are a tiny percentage.

 

I myself made 95k gross last year(plus a $6500 tax return)driving, about 45-50 hrs a week. So yes decent money can be made out here.

 

As a company driver? I find it hard to believe,not for 45-50 h a week.

 

Yes as a company driver. 45 to 50 hrs of actually driving/loading. I go out for 3 to 5 weeks at a time but do a fair bit of sitting. N this year I will break 100k as I got a raise.

 

Good for you, man, but you absolutely must acknowledge that driving jobs paying that well are about as common as unicorns.

Also, you don't get to add a tax return to your gross just because you gave it to the government and they gave it back. That's not quite how it works.

 

I work local LTL, I net about $1300 every two weeks after taxes and 401k contributions. This is usually around a 50 hour/week. Hours fluctuate but average annual pay is right around $57K GROSS. Home daily and off weekends. Hope this helps