My Husband and I are thinking about the trucking life...

What semi-retired said, living out of a truck for a very ill person is not a good idea. How is he going to drive 11 hours a day when he's in pain?

 

I've been living in my truck since April last year. I take a week off every 2-3 months and visit with family I have in a couple states. My truck has an inverter which means I can power a microwave and a little knockoff George foreman grill for cooking and I can also power my TV and PS4 for entertainment.

I have never felt the need to "get out of the truck" as I am quite comfortable in it. Even the time off I have taken was because of external factors such as jury duty or renewing my license where I had to get back to my place of "residence".

Before I hit the road I got rid of everything except for a few cherished toys that I put in storage. Not having household bills and spending as much time on the road as I did allowed me to put a minimum of $3k per month in my savings account. At the end of this past June I bought a house where I was able to put 20% down thanks to the amount of cash I was able to save.

The house is primarily for my parents and also as a long term investment for myself as I have no immediate plans of leaving OTR.

The point of my tale is to demonstrate that you can achieve what you are planning as that was exactly what I did and I have to say it was a pretty easy to do. Noone in this country who is physically able to obtain a CDL needs to be homeless or in significant debt. There is an "out" and the pathway is a relatively simple one.

 

IF you, the wife become a wage earner in trucking. Your SSI (And or SSDI... Max SSI monthly is roughly 785 and Max SSdI depends on your average earnings last 12 Quarters prior to your declared disability date. If your SSdI is less than 785 a month, your SSi Will be paid accordingly. If you make too much SSdI a month, you get ZERO SSI. Im also disabled and am part of the SSdI myself.

There is a program, in which you can work 9 months one time in your life time regardless of you SSdI check each month. Your earnings are also yours. It's a oppertunity. IF... you continue working for wages in trucking after the 9th month, your SSdI will be cut 2 dollars every one earned until you hit 0.00 for the month. It is possible since you have returned to actual economic productivity and are no longer disabled you will be reviewed.

Be very careful with this medical review. If you are found to be DOT Legal to drive a 18 wheeler for a living, there is a potential for a clawback from SSA for all of the SSdI benefits you have been paid in life. Since it is a federal, you have no defense against garnishment, account closure, tax refund interception, and all other assets that are identified outside of your defensive house and one car such as big yacht in the ocean for example. That will be taken and sold against your debt. You will never be free of this debt repayment to uncle sam. After you pass on, Uncle Sam will file clam against your Estate and there is good chance your children gets nothing.

If you are just a passenger, NOT earning wages while your spouse drives all the time for both of you... then there is no problem. If one of you or both is a VET taking VA Checks each month, there is no problem UNLESS you find yourself being clawed back by Dear Uncle Sam for the debt incurred recieving your SSdI.

Your tractor with sleeper is not classified as a RV for camping. You cannot depend on that sleeper as a house legally. Unless you put in a human designed for human use chemical Toilet with necessary kitty litter etc for human use only. You will have to do other things to make that sleeper livable for two people long term. 10% bleach, pine scented deoderant and anti bacterail disinfectant is your first defense against infections. Bad water is a real possibiity so you buy two cases of quart drinking water such as aquafina. 48 waters to start.

Trucking is a very, very intense form of work. You will LOVE that Hotel. (We do Super 8's ourselves due to it's concrete building for quiet) to get out of that truck.

Forget the gross earnings for the moment. A real much better question is how cheaply can you both eat and remain healthy and where will you source that food in bulk in a form that does not spoil on the road. You will need a cooler capable of reaching 32 degrees F regardless of the temp in the cab. If it's 75 degrees and you just have a normal cooler it will try to cool it 30 degrees so it's 45 in there. You can keep milk a few days max. Toss it after because it will spoil. If you have a food temperature chart used by Reefer people you will understand (With a thermometer inside freezer or cooler) exactly what foods to keep for how long.

You must learn that if you are given a load out of Memphis for Detriot, it's 650 miles loaded and 200 empty from Little Rock to Memphis. You leave out at 8 am, be there by noon. loaded by 6PM and now Detriot 650 miles by 6 Am next morning. You are in battle. The two of you.

Pay should be .50 cents per mile to the husband only. You are not a worker or wage earner. SO your SSdI income will flow to your bank the 3rd of each month. More than likely that will represent one weeks savings each month if you do not touch it. In 4 months you will have 4 weeks saved just from that income. So.. that's a VERY good thing. In 12 months you are looking at roughly.... 3 times whatever it is you saved. If it's a 1000 dollars each month income, in 4 months you should have 4000 in the bank. After a year you need to be at 12,000 saved. It's tax free so that's not a problem. After three years that becomes 36000 poof debt paid.

But hold on. You say you wanna buy a house. Let the debt go in bankrupcy and protect your 36000. It is considered a non recoverable income legally so after the Judge understands that is SSdI income, only your Husband's working wages minus 140 dollars each week is confiscatable for purposes of bankrupcy. It will destroy any chance of buying a house for 7 years without straight 100% cash. So 7 years times 12 months... 84000 flat saved.

You have a oppertunity here. But you two need disclpine that most people do not have. That means going to flea markets and thrift shops to buy VCR tapes for 25 cents instead of indulging in netflix.

Back to the Little Rock - Memphis - Detriot problem. Pay .50 a mile. 100 gross to memphis and 325 to detriot total income of 425. Take away 30% taxes... minus 127 and another 60 or so in small stuff withholding... call it 187 withheld Net will be 238 for this trip only.

The two of you must learn to eat on 10 dollars per person per day, 20 total. Rice and beans for dinner, eggs and bacon for breakfast. And a microwaved vegtable steamer from Birds Eye in a bag, plus a roll of french bread seasoned to your tastes. If you have a inverter installed by the truck dealer (With company approval) or better yet run a APU big enough to feed house power to your sleeper you can brew your own teas. Coffee is not recommended. Human intake daily for caffinee is limited to 400 mg. Otherwise you both enter withdrawl symptoms exceeding that daily. You can have tea all you both want. It's much calming to the mind and clears the cobwebs away without the shakes or interfering with sleep.

That is the other problem. If you cannot sleep properly in a moving truck. Forget the whole thing. It takes a couple weeks to adjust. Purchase 4 body length pillows, at least 4 mexican woven blankets (*You will see this in a quality Petro store and know it on sight...) and two retangular sleeping bags each big enough to house both of you and rated for -20. With everything just so in each of your bunks with the coming of winter plus the constant motion of the truck, your sleep should be pretty good.

end of first post

 

Other half of posting due to 10,000 letter limit.

The technology. Your smart phone, laptop etc. Should and must be put away three hours prior to sleep. Wear a set of blue light night glasses which will defend your eyes from the blue lights emitted by the oncoming cars. And technology screens will emit huge amounts direct to your eyes. Destructing your sleep clock. And resetting it. In a few days you both are in need of a motel and don't understand why with the accumulate fatique.

Back to the little rock Memphis detriot problem. If you trip planned at 35 mph you know the total of 850 miles plus 20% more for actual ground miles... 1020 divided by 35 miles a hour yeilds a 29 hour run. That's in driving time.

Get 11 hours for the first day from Little Rock, Loading Memphis and then stopping somewhere halfway to detriot for 10 hours required sleep.

6 am tomorrow will not happen, you will be late. Call dispatch for a new appt next morning. AND/OR have a team set rush to intercept your load and take it away into detriot. (Your payroll ends wherever that load comes off you. So you will have to refigure eveyrthing.)

Buy a Journal; about 11 inches by 15. Write EVERYTHING into that Journal each assigned trip. Begin miles, loaded miles, delivered miles, pay miles. Shipper physical address, Recievers physical address. BOL numbers. Fuel bought. Tolls. Problems during trip. Reefer fuel bought. (That's seperate from motor highway fuel) reciepts for eveyrthing. Trip number given you by dispatcher by which you will check you rpayroll slip and be sure that load is the actual paid load to you.

Never borrow money via comcheck or any other way from dispatch. You will see a 0.00 paycheck with a deducting if large enough means you don't get paid until that borrowed money is also paid off first. Potnetially a month or more without a pay. Stay out of the casino etc.

Make sure your company has some form of Pre-pass for tolls. Make sure that if you choose lumpers that it's paid for by company. With potentially 300 plus dollars involved to lumpers unloading you... that will be a deduction against your payroll if you do not have pre authorization from dispatch to order up a lumper service.

School? 4000 dollars more or less. If you sign uncle sam for student loans, Pay it back first before anything. Always first. It's so easy to pay him back in 6 months rather than 7 years being chased night and day with collections, judgements etc. due to marriage, his debt is also your debt. You cannot seperate the two. It's considered marital gain.

If your husband does something stupid. He will be fired. Because the company suffered a loss and he will be reported to DAC as a preventable loss. Literally his fault. Therefore the entire school cost, 4000 dollars or whatever will just become due and payable this instant. Youre fired then you owe this today. Pay me.

 

Chew "betel nut" which can be purchased on Ebay. I've been chewing it for years for back pain. Had to quit for awhile because my gums started stinging a little, but I'll be back in the saddle soon.
Here's betel nut stores in Asia:

 

Hmm, 10,000 character limit per post, you say? Got to be one of the 1st to tap into THAT feature. Thing is, and humblist apologies, I lose interest after 500 characters, but from what I think you said, you are spot on.

 

It's ok. Thank you kindly.

I love it when people are nice and honest. It's motivating.

There isnt really much to that post for those who have been around a while, it's literally a summary if not repeated material from like a year ago. Every time a husband wife team wants to escape onto the road, I try to tell them what's what and be consistent. SO you are not missing much.

I hope and pray you have a good day today. Never mind the 500 words. It's I think only the second time I split a massive 10K post into two posts. I could have made three. But mods would not be happy. So, please the gods live longer LOL.

 

Post 7 says he's on Oxy?Oxy what?

 

Don't know about Lyrica but I'm pretty sure Oxy(codone?) is not allowed for truck drivers. You would want to see if there is an alternative permissible medication that works before jumping into this. Best wishes!

 

If you refer to Oxycodone IR or ER and or APAP or generic variant. Basically any medicine for pain with Oxycodone in it has to stop. It is a schedule two drug and it will absolutely light off any trucking company drugtest for which you will be reported as a hot test. Doctors notes wont matter. You are still Impaired under common Police DUI tests that take into account this kind of medicne. I have been a pain patient 10 years plus and am on what I consider to be a low dose equal to about 140 mg/day morphine liquid equivlant. 24/7 If I was to undergo a field test next to a semi or a private vehicle I will fail it. The body just wont function properly.

The one way to make it function with some precision is to spend 10 days off any kind of drugs or medicine at all. I only need 4 to get my receptors back in order and 6 to get really sharp mentally. By day 10 Im ready to go bowl or do music etc because everything will come out right. Even computer gaming where it's some precision to compute large caliber shells to arrive at a enemy ship where he or she is expected to be within the 12 second flight time it's a mental exerecise that gets lost in pain medicine such as Oxy.

For hair tests you need a year. If not 18 months to stop it, clear all your hair and make it ready to give a clean test. You cannot even take one pill of any size.

The problem with Oxycodone is that in the drug structure, it's closest we have in pill form to Heroin. It will be out of your Urine in 3 days, out of your blood in 6. But remains in certain body tissue and hair over a year in some cases.

It is fortunate that Trump had declared a National Emergency based on Abuse of Pain killers or even abuse of illegal narcotics. And the removal of ban against Medicaid patients will allow them to seek a form of medically defended rehab where they are privded valium, vitaminesl etc etc etc for about 7 days until the body started to heal and the mind to come back to sharp.

I go through cold turkey end of each month. The first 30 hours is most dangerous. BP goes to 240/130 which is pretty much instant stroke and the temperatures loses control of the body. Goes to 102. Then the gut wakes up, you start puking. Once that's out of the way you move into sweats. You hydrate You can easily go through 10 gallons of gatorade in th ekitchen at 10 hours time. It wont be enough.

Eventually you stop losing fluids About the 10th day. With the recent Trump declaration any pain patient will be able to access certain trant options.

Bottom line. Stop that Oxy. Go to treatment to dry out 30 days. There are ways to do it without having to actually dry out. That first 10 days is the worst for some people. Me? It's day 20 to 45 when the bone pain reveals itself. That is where the alcohol kicks in at night. Since I don't drive, there is no problem.

At some point Hospice will be assigned my case. And if I survive it I'll be back here in 6 months time.