Truck Stops? v Grocery Store

Wal Mart is usually your best bet. They are easy to find and 99 % of them truck accessible. Be sure to stock up because you never know when the opportunity will arise due to location and time constraints.

 

In some areas of the country, Kwik Trip truck stops have good prices on basic staples like milk, bread, etc.
Use the Trucker Path app and you can get info on Walmart stores around the country that are truck friendly.

 

Stick to your diet mate its sounds like its very whole some and healthy it just means you'll have to stock up on supplies from where ever you've been getting them from, i made the mistake of eating all you can eat buffet's at FlyingJ's in 12 months i put on 14 kg or about 30lb eating naturally consuming more calories than i was burning was going to have that effect.

 

I haven't had that problem. Before trucking I rarely ate breakfast. And still don't. My diet now is Bologna sandwich for lunch. And dinner is 2 chicken breast sandwiches from wallyworld and a small bag of cheetos. Plus I park not out of purpose but usually a good distance from the main building (pilot, flying j, loves. So it's a little hump. Gotta stay active. Trucking is awesome hardly any physical labor (dryvan) but don't let yourself weigh 500 pounds.

 

70/8=8:45 Without a 34 that's how many hours you can work each day on average. Realistically logging all your work time will cost you $200-$300 per week so might as well figure 10 hours a day if you trim the logs. That leaves 12-14 hours down per day without 34's. If you're only down 10 you'll be down 20 or so when you run out on the 70.

I drive at night so walmart is no problem. I use TruckerPath and watch for Wal-Mart's along the way, check reviews to see if they allow parking. Also check satellite view, if it has planters skip it. Daytime is a different story. You don't want to go into a Wal-Mart during a busy time of day. Start at 2am-3am so you can get in and out.

You likely won't be able to afford food in truck stops. Trip plan. 5.5 hours in leaves you with 8 hours once the 30 is up that's the earliest you should take your 30. 8 hours the longest you can go without a 30. So there's about a 100 mile range you can plan to stop in. It'll likely take more than 30 so start early.

Get 3-4 months into a job and you'll get familar with the lanes as long as it's not a mega, i.e. less than 1k trucks. Once familar with a lane explore it even if it's just a bathroom break. Many are in the middle of nowhere but some are close to a bunch of stuff. Now which is which.

 

Ive been eating this month for around 5 bucks a day with stuff mainly bought at loves. I use my free refills and points i earn from fuel to help supplement my food costs. For example, today i had two boiled eggs for breakfast, sandwich with budding sandwich meat for lunch and ramen noodles for dinner, and all this stuff was purchased at loves. Its real hard to do, but you can cut food costs significantly at truck stops if you get a bit creative..

 

Others have certainly offered good insight.

I've been at this going on nine years, and like you, @Black Warrior, I pondered how to keep a healthy diet and all the other things you mentioned transitioning into this lifestyle (in my case, from the military). I've run the gamut from budgeting a weekly's worth of cuisine from Krogers at about $50 a week my first four years to simply subsisting on truck stop cuisine during my first four years OTR to working regional and then local three years, and I'm now back OTR and have been for almost a year. So I've seen things, studied things, and strategized things, and I can tell you two things I say to be true about this profession:

1.) It is not just a job...it IS a lifestyle.

2.) This lifestyle does NOT define who I am or how I operate.

So with those out of the way, and as it appears your two main points of concern are diet and downtime, let me hit some key bullet points and some of the things I've learned and done. (This all assumes you're intending to start out OTR--which isn't always necessary, but far more likely for a rookie.)

- A whole lot right out the gate will depend on what company you start out with. (By the way, where do you live? Knowing that will help, too.) Different companies a/run different lanes, b/ run the gamut from micromanaging just about every facet of your job to pretty much letting you do your thing so long as the freight makes its delivery on time, and c/ spec their trucks differently. I can't speak to a whole lot of megastars, but some spec their trucks basic barebones, meaning a bed and maybe a power inverter, but that's it; some spec their trucks with an auxiliary power unit which lets you run the AC or heat without the truck running; some companies spec their trucks with built-in refrigerators, meaning you won't have to keep burning money on 12v coolers or refrigerators which are likely to quit on you at some point. Some companies include all that plus XM satellite and/or DirecTV, some with all of that or just some of that. You may can tell a lot about how much a company truly cares about its drivers by the way they spec their trucks--but all that is where research comes into the equation. But that's just ONE aspect to consider.

- Most if not every mega runs the same kinds of freight, meaning they're all competing with each other for the same loads, the same lanes, which leads to a lot of undercutting of each other's ranges--which may reflect in how much you earn per mile or per load (most companies pay by the mile; some pay by percentage; some offer a choice of both). Some companies only run a particular region of the country, so if you're wanting to travel all 48 states, that's definitely a question to ask and a point to consider; on the other hand, if you'd rather keep it regional, say to the midwest, southeast, pacific northwest, the eastern half of the US or the western half of the US, there are companies out there that fit all those bills. Some people prefer to stay regional; some prefer the long hauls/running coast to coast (like me). There's advantages and disadvantages to both, mostly in sometime, depending on what primary lanes your company runs--but that's far easier to manage staying regional rather than running coast to coast. (Which also raises the question of what kind of home time you're looking for; some drivers need home every weekend, some every two weeks, some stay out anywhere from 3-6 weeks at a time, and some drivers choose to stay out and explore. Again, there's companies that cover all of that.)

- To your primary concern of diet. Here's what I've begun doing: because my current company isn't a micromanager, wherever I'm parked at for the weekend, I look and see if there's a Publix, a HyVee, or whatever the high-quality grocery outlet of the region is somewhere that I can drop my trailer and bobtail to; in certain select instances, I can find stores I can pull my entire unit into, park out the way, and not be in anyone's way (but one must be careful with that). The reason I prefer Publix and HyVee now is after eating on Krogers and Food Lions produce for almost eight years just because I had a discount card, and then shopping Publix and HyVee a couple times to compare, the produce is just no comparison; Publix and HyVee, in my opinion, have the best produce (but you WILL pay for it-it's true what they say: "you get what you pay for"), and I buy and eat organic as much as I can. (All of this is why I mentioned refrigerators: my truck has one, but I also have a couple produce bags and storage bins I keep stuff that doesn't need refrigeration, and a little Foreman grill to cook my fish and vegetables; thankfully my company's trucks also have 110 power outlets and APUs as well.) So that's how I manage my diet out OTR these days, although every now and then I'll have a Subway or some of that vegetarian soup Pilot Flying J offers at some of its locations.

- On that topic, if you live in or find yourself running in Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota or the Dakotas, Kwik Trip (not to be confused with QuikTrip--two different companies) actually sells a small but pretty decent selection of fresh produce; it's really the only franchise chain that does. I love KwikTrip for that. (Basically, the difference between KwikTrip and, say, Loves or Pilot is the different between Chik Fil-A and say, Wendy's or McDonalds, in terms of service and quality).

- I also keep a bicycle with me; I just rig it up to my headache rack and if something is within walking or biking distance, I just pedal myself right on over to whatever it is. That also helps keep me in shape (in addition to the fact that I do flatbed, which does help in that regard too .)

I know this was a lot, but these are some of the points I try to cover when I talk to guys looking to get into this business. It's more than just the money or the speed governor; you gotta look at the total picture as and yourself will all the factors you know about will be conducive to your quality of life out on the road; for my part, I try to share as much info as I can from more practical points, because in my mind, too much information ain't enough information, and the more you have, especially starting out the gate where typically people don't share all this kind of stuff with you, the better-informed decision(s) you can make.

Best of wishes to you brother!