Living within a budget within a truck

Your father is correct but it isn't outrageous to have $3 grand a month expenses if you want to live any kind of normal life. Meaning modest house and decent vehicle.

 

I think your budget of $150 a week is a good thrifty budget for living on the road.

 

It depends on where you live. What you'd consider normal for expenses in Southern Cali would be pretty darn high in Central NY (not NY city...). Not everyone is supporting a family with a 4 bedroom house, new car and a stay at home wife either.

I still don't understand why people think a job they qualify for with a 3 week course is supposed to immediately be able to support a single income family with multiple cars and a house, right out of CDL school.

 

Believe me, I know all about this... painfully. My household budget about 10 years ago was well over $7000 while I was running two businesses, and I was dog paddling as best as I could with my arms tied behind my back!

Since that debacle my wife and I learned some lessons, our kids are now on their own, and we have dramatically downsized our lifestyle. Chase05 is correct to note that having expectations for supporting a full blown house and car(s) for the family back home on a "starter job" in this industry is asking way too much of any new trucker. If your family can't get behind the program to be happy with less for a period of time, then the pressure on you to "bring home the bacon" will become overwhelming. That's how it was when my household budget out of control, everyone in the family had to have everything and I didn't have the cajones at that time to say "NO!"

Living on credit is a curse. Stay within a budget. Forget about buying every goodie you see advertised, only buy what you need, buy a few things that will last for a long time. By applying these principles my dad drilled into me that I forgot for a spell I'm saving way more money today than when I was making and spending a small fortune. Much happier, too.

I remember back decades ago a lot of my friends went commercial fishing in Alaska for a season or two, and some did it for a few years. One thing I remember is that they were making quite a bit of money and had nowhere to spend it for weeks or months at a time on the boat. The best of them saved that money, came back to the Seattle area (where I'm from), and paid cash for houses when the market was low in the early '70's.

Especially for young and single truckers they also have an opportunity to do pretty much the same thing. Have a minimal budget on the road for food and telecommunications, the essentials, and save the rest. Pretty soon you have what my dad called, "EF You money" or at least money that you can use to buy that house, or if you are inclined, to buy that first truck and be an O/O.

Have a plan. Work the plan.

 

The large packs of chicken breasts to grill and baggie up most of it for meals later in the week, 4 paks of yogurt and boxes of oatmeal packets for breakfast, greens for salads, a few bags of stir fry vegetables and pre cooked rice to throw in, a few Lean Cuisine frozen smaller meals... there is plenty of good things to buy for life in the truck and to stay away from the crap that fuel stops sell.

I carry a small propane grill in the truck for the chicken or steaks or salmon if I feel the mood... I've actually lost about 15 lbs in 6 weeks eating this way.
Its not hard to do at all you just have to get a little creative, you can eat well and healthy...like I said I haven't had a meal at a truckstop table in years, that's not to say that I haven't bought something to go and ate it on the road but I really try not to.

 

I do percentages. I live on the road on 20% and have it put on my comdata card. I have the rest (80%) put in my checking account and wife pays bills. I have found that this meets me needs...

 

Your trainer is begging for clogged arteries and diabetes , and probably already has both.

 

It can with proper planning. Proper planning is not a mega-refrigerated carrier. Of course, some will always be in debt because they live for the moment.

 

Of course. But some people on here have nice homes and whatnot, don't do much research, heard there was money in trucking, then make a big fuss when Swift doesn't pay big money, lol.

On the bright side, I hopefully won't be one of those suckers. I've got my CDL test tomorrow, and a job offer lined up for a 39CPM regional gig (I actually wanted OTR! lol). Between mileage and accessories, I'll hopefully be pulling around 50K (with no stupid wife or kids ). Man I hope I don't do something stupid in the morning...