Older male looking at trucking for most money and no touch

Pay for your own CDL up front if you are able. I found a medium sized company that hired me out of school that I felt was a much better fit than the ones that helped you get your CDL.
I am also an advocate of living in the truck. Your first year you are not making 80k, youre just not. Having low overhead really lets to pack away the cash so you can take advantage of future opportunity.

 

Oilfield jobs can pay a LOT of money if you're on percentage and the company actually pays you. Most company jobs are between 25-35% of the gross to the truck. If you want to look into that, my suggestion is to get your hazmat and tanker endorsements and your first company you probably want to be looking at a Schneider or something like that hauling tankers for at least 6 months to a year. Then get a job hauling salt water or frac sand on a decent percentage. The other option would be flatbed. I feel like flatbed would be a better skill to have for times when the oil fields go bust again. They'll need someone to haul all of those broken dreams out of the patch and you'll have the skill to secure those dreams to the trailer

 

I disagree on the DO NOT go O/O till year 2+....I did not..lol


But still you point out reasons why I chose to avoid getting training & experience from the Mega's.

I got my CDL privately, marinated it my back pocket for 6 months, got a regional/seasonal gig (home daily) for 6 months. Saved and paid CASH for my truck. Got my own MC - with 1.5yrs experience, and now I'm pulling power-only loads @ $25.0-$3/mile.

I do 1-2 trips a weekend with each trip grossing $2600-3000, and I'm off for 5 days.

No dispatchers to nag me, or lease-onto companies to take a cut.

 

They are poppin again. They could dry up whenever but they found a pretty serious vein and they are basically bottlenecked because they can't even find enough drivers for the volume of work they have. They are losing millions a day because they can't get enough drivers.

 

Not sure I understand the term "turn over the truck"

 

Oh...lol

Not soon. I'm not a MEGA.

My truck just hit 700K, all major work was already done (rebuit tranny, new turbo, new brakes, tires @60%).

It's a older volvo (1998 D12) so it's "reputed" to be easy to work on unlike newer volvos.

If I milk this truck for 3-5yrs, I'll be just fine.

So far, I've put $2500 work into it (new air tanks, new brake chambers, new leveling valve) - some of it done myself, the harder stuff done at shop.