Younging preparing to be a trucker

I started out kind of in the same shoes you are in. Trucking for me was a way to bridge a gap of not wanting to finish college, hated it, did one year and knew what I didn't want to do. Turns out I liked to drive trucks. In the beginning it was absolutely awesome travelling the country behind the wheel of a big rig. However, I am getting to the "been there, done that" point. You can make decent to good money in trucking, no problem there, but the time trade off for an OTR driver is wearing me very thin. I am told by my bankers that I am way ahead of other people my age, financially, but to me I sometimes feel that I have missed out on a part of life. Sometimes I wish I had put trucking on hold and maybe done it later in life. Can't go backwards though. I am now running my own authority, for now just me and my truck and trailer. I do make more than I ever did as a company driver - but I have more risk also. It would be nice to be able to have my own drivers and just work the dispatch and do the office paperwork and only occasionally drive. The main goal for all of that - to make more than I ever could doing the actual driving. That being said, even if I get to a point I can make say 250k a year, I will have had to put up/borrow/take on LOTS of risk literally a boat load of money to keep that machine running.

I have friends that finished school or a particular trade and they are making into 6 figure range. They did not have to put out nearly the amount of money I will have to if I ever want to "get rich" (haha) in trucking ...

That help at all? lol ...

 

Sounds like you've already done 3 times the prep and study work, most who come into this line of work will ever do in their lifetime before they perhaps wash out. That's a good thing and it would seem you're well on to your way of starting out on the right foot, once/if you decide to pull the trigger. But I might recommend to you at this point that you don't become entirely focused on trucking. Keep aware of other aptitudes and likes you may develop or realize at this point in your young life. Don't let another potentially better avenue go un-tried because you THINK you've made up your mind.

While it's "never too late to try something else in life", it does become more problematic as time quickly marches on, with or without you. You're never going to be as young and prepared for any high reward challenges as you are today.

 

Careful. It's an easy trap to fall into. Do you have something, right here and now, to fall back on after trucking? If not, how do you intend to go about tackling that? It would be one thing if you'd been in a trade previously and knew you could get into it if trucking didn't work out for you... say, if you'd been a mechanic, equipment operator, welder, etc....
Also, you need to be mindful that local jobs often aren't a 9-5 schedule the way office jobs are, and that's also dependent on what you get into. If I'd wanted to take classes when I was driving and operating equipment for a road builder, forget about it. Working for an aggregates and landscaping materials provider, I was able to take classes at night at the local community college. If you're looking to go back to a traditional college setting and maintain a local driving job, you've got an uphill battle ahead of you. Local driving jobs aren't necessarily hard to come by... but good ones are.. and the guy with as much or more experience than you and an ability to be available anytime he's needed will have a serious one-up on you when it comes time to hire for the limited number of good local driving jobs. Of course, you could go for nighttime jobs, on top of school and studying, but that's going to burn you out. I'm not being theoretical here, I'm telling you straightforward.
I'm going to be blunt with you and say that, with your plan to drive for such a limited time and to have an expectation that you'll simply pick up where you left off without missing a beat, your expectations hinge on the unrealistic. Maybe this isn't the gig for you.

 

I'm gonna be unusually brief. I'm not known for my brevity. LOL. Gotta pretty much agree with WitchinhHour. I think it's great you are interested in trucking but . . . I'd get my education first THEN look into trucking. Maybe go ahead and get the CDL and piddle around local while going to college. You seem to have a pretty good head on your shoulders and I suspect you will do very well in college. Trucking is more of a lifestyle than a "career", though technically it is both. It's been OK to me, can't really complain I guess but as Texan said, I have seen more of life pass by my windshield than I have actually lived it. I got into trucking during college as a way to make some quick money and college gave way to rolling the wheels. Plus I really wasn't into what I was studying. I got hooked on the road and the money was OK. Woke up one day at a rest area and realized 15 years had just zipped right by. It went by so fast. My kids were grown and had kids of their own and where was I? OTR somewhere. Kinda stuck with it now, though. I tried going back to college and working as a driver and it was just too much for me at this stage of my life. I probably could have handled it better if I'd been young and didn't have all the obligations I developed over the years that in the end won out over me wanting to get an education and maybe change careers. College will just have to wait until I retire from trucking. I will never fully retire. I'm a workaholic (which comes in real handy in trucking - 70 work week with a 40 hour paycheck is pretty common). I can not imagine life without some kind of job to do. I recommend getting your education as your primary and make trucking a secondary (plan B). Live life first - then see America from a truck or keep it as an option if you lose your regular job. Diesel is darned addictive, and it's a tough life. It's great if that's what you're into but I don't know that I'd rank it real high on the things to choose as a career in one's; "the world is my oyster" days. It's hard to explain but if my son or daughter told me they wanted to drive a truck I'd tell them the same thing. Get your education first. It gives you SO many more options and while not impossible to get later in life it's exponentially more difficult and the exponent gets larger with each year that goes by. Don't worry - trucking will always be here (until they invent the hover train LOL) but you are only young for a short while.

Either way I wish you a full and happy life and career; whatever you choose.

 

It will be much harder to go back to college once you get your desired 1 or 2 years of trucking under your belt. By that time, you will be earning probably in the 60k range, and will think to yourself why go back to school? Your goals may change once you get into trucking also. What happens if you decide you want to try other aspects of trucking, as in van/reefer/tanker/flatbed/heavy/etc.? What happens if your goals change and you want to become an owner operator? Those will all likely put school on the back burner once again. And as you get older and your tastes become more expensive, or you get married and have kids, buy bigger house, etc, you will NEED to make at least that 60k to keep it all rolling ... it is easier to get your schooling done when you are young ... Trucking should be the 'fall back on', rather than the primary objective ...