What do you consider good pay?

All good paying jobs come with a catch. That's probably why most of us end up on some basic regional or OTR gig hauling general freight. Companies like K&B with their high weekly guarantee are basically making people give up all personal life. Team driving for some LTL company pays great, but you're going to be living in a truck with another person you don't know in some barebones rental truck. Hauling fuel pays well, but then you are getting babysat by safety at all times.

And people only like to talk about their pay when it's great. Reefer drivers will show their paychecks after a 3300 mile week running coast to coast, but not the 2200 mile week where they made 3 stops in New Jersey. Same for dry van. Flatbedders will show all the cool things they haul and how little waiting there is, but don't show them tarping in 40mph winds. Fuel haulers show how well their 4 day week paid, but not the time they blew a steer while fully loaded.

My opinion is most carriers besides Megas are actually paying pretty close to as much as they can for the average driver off the bat to be sustainable. Their rates and driver pay are dictated by what the job entails. The real way to go about it is to either find a super enjoyable job, one that pays the most for what you're willing to do, or one that'll reward you with good benefits/pay/equipment on your own merits when you do a good job for them.

All the people who talk about how they should get paid 1.00/mi to swing doors solo OTR never pay that when they buy a few trucks and put a driver in them. It's not because they suddenly became greedy and hate drivers.

 

About four years ago, my minimum amount that I needed to average weekly to live on a truck for weeks at a time was $1000. With the times changing that’s went up to about 1500. It’s just a mental thing of where I want to be to justify living my life on a truck 26 days out of the month on average. However, I’m out for the full week. I typically will average about $2000, to $2200 per week. I fine with that. Everything I own is paid off, including my home and my vehicles, I’ve got a semi decent retirement account going, I could buy what I want when I want, and next month I plan to buy myself a new Indian motorcycle. So I can’t complain. Like I always say, if you’re good to trucking and you work hard and stay out of trouble in this industry, you can get in with a good company and it will be good to you.

 

You made a good point. If you’re in a truck for more than 3 weeks. Your checks should definitely be 2k or more…. Time and health wasted in the truck is something you’ll never get back.

 

So the way that figure was worked out, it was 120k in salary, and 50k in benefits.

But I can tell you I was way over 120k last year.