Can You Make 6000 A Month As A Local Truck Driver?

What's up! I have a question which I can't seem to find on this forum or the Internet for that matter, okay well my mother in law was telling me I should work and drive trucks for a living (I'm a correctional officer at the moment) so I started reading and reading and reading. My brother in law just started working for Swift 7 months ago and works locally now. He spent weeks away from home until he found a local gig with the same company.

Sorry for the little story, but my question is he is telling my mother in law that he is making about 6000 dollars a month and that's he's on salary pay... 😕 I just want to know if this is true. From reading I hear you can make a lot of money by team driving, oil rigs, ice road trucking, and even working for Walmart but I still haven't even read anyone making 6000 a month unless you have your own truck.

Another question is my mother in law says she knows an independent truck driver and she asked him how much he made and he said 250k a year... Look, I don't drive... I can only tell you anything about corrections because that's what I do but trucking, that's a completely different hustle than mine. So I leave my question here. Thank you and drive careful out there.

1. Can you make 6k per month? Withing the 1st year? 2. Can you make 250k a year being a truck owner?

1. Can you make 6k per month? Withing the 1st year?

Personally I think everyone is just dancing around this question and not answering it because we would all like to think that it was possible. My answer is NO you cannot do this, not within the first year. Even if you can do this somewhere (maybe after a few years of experience), you are gonna have to be very good, and working like crazy (probably six or more days a week) with a lot of physical loading/unloading of goods.

2. Can you make 250k a year being a truck owner?

I say NO to this question also. Hector, I owned six trucks at once - I never made that kind of money. The key word in your question is "make." I don't want to get into arguing semantics, but truck drivers, and especially owner/operators seem to have a great difficulty in differentiating between revenues and profits. When I told you I had six trucks at once I was often times depositing more than 100,000 dollars a month in the bank. (Disclaimer here, I was not in the trucking business - I was in a manufacturing business which just happened to have it's own fleet of trucks) That sounds like a lot of money, but it wasn't money that I was "making." I had employees to pay, and a host of wolves at the door wanting what was theirs before I spent it on something else. That's the way business operates - the creditors come first, the bills must be paid, and all that money that goes toward that is not money that you are making, but rather money that you are spending (expenses). Fuel, tires, maintenance, insurance, taxes, repairs, more taxes, payroll, payroll taxes, local taxes, county taxes, state taxes, fuel taxes. The list of expenses can go on and on, and on...

There are some really great paying local driving jobs, and in fact I think it is one of the best ways to make the most money you can with a CDL , but it will involve a lot of physical labor. Some of the food service companies offer great pay packages, but you have got to be a hustler who can start his day at about three or four in the morning and give it all you've got until about five in the afternoon - then you've got to be able to keep that level of high performance up for six days straight, and do it all through out the year. That's tough, but there are some guys that do that sort of thing. What we usually find in those job sectors is that people burn out pretty quickly. It is usually not sustainable for a career, but people will bust their tails and do it for a few years and then move on to something that is not so physically demanding. Unfortunately many folks leave those types of jobs with an injury that has nagging effects on them for the rest of their lives.

Even grossing 250k in a year is stretching it a little for an owner operator I believe. If you are really good you might gross that, but it will be very tough to do on a consistent basis.

Questions to answer:

1. Can you make 6k per month? Withing the 1st year?
2. Can you make 250k a year being a truck owner?

Hector, nothing like checking the facts, right? I drive for Swift as a Company Driver. That means I do not own my truck, but I drive as an employee. My average GROSS pay for the last four weeks is about $800 per week = $3,200 per month. I started driving last February (all for Swift), and I figure this is pretty close to some "average" company driver pay.

If your brother-in-law is a lease/operator or owner/operator, he will be paid much more, maybe even $6,000 per month. But then he must also pay for his own fuel and tires, and those truck payments, too. So his bottom line, after paying for the business part, will be pretty close to my paycheck.

To keep that $250K in the apples to apples category, that $250K is just about $20,800 per month. As an independent driver, that guy may own other trucks and have other drivers working for him.

Questions to answer:

1. Can you make 6k per month? Withing the 1st year?
2. Can you make 250k a year being a truck owner?

Hector, nothing like checking the facts, right? I drive for Swift as a Company Driver. That means I do not own my truck, but I drive as an employee. My average GROSS pay for the last four weeks is about $800 per week = $3,200 per month. I started driving last February (all for Swift), and I figure this is pretty close to some "average" company driver pay.

If your brother-in-law is a lease/operator or owner/operator, he will be paid much more, maybe even $6,000 per month. But then he must also pay for his own fuel and tires, and those truck payments, too. So his bottom line, after paying for the business part, will be pretty close to my paycheck.

To keep that $250K in the apples to apples category, that $250K is just about $20,800 per month. As an independent driver, that guy may own other trucks and have other drivers working for him.

Thanks for he reply, so he CAN make that much if he invested in his own truck then? Hmm but is salary even an option payment? I read that companies pay per mile unless you're like a manager or something but first year driving, salary? Idk

Thanks for he reply, so he CAN make that much if he invested in his own truck then? Hmm but is salary even an option payment? I read that companies pay per mile unless you're like a manager or something but first year driving, salary? Idk

I haven't heard of any salary truck jobs at Swift, but being a local driver with lots of short runs within the same town, that may be. IDK, too!

I haven't heard of any salary truck jobs at Swift, but being a local driver with lots of short runs within the same town, that may be. IDK, too!

Haha I need to ask him. He lives in California, does working in other states make a difference in pay?

Okay, here's the deal. The $6,000/month might be possible, but is this person being paid a percentage of the load or paid by the hour? Is he a company driver or an owner/op?

It's possible, but he is probably putting in 12 hour days. I calculated it at $25/hour for 12 hours a day, for 20 days. No over time, but you get weekends off. It's possible, but is that a starting salary, or is that for a MORE EXPERIENCED driver?

You need to ask these questions. You need to ask what are the hours? What is the salary based on?

I get paid a percentage and take home (after taxes) between $600 (on a slow or short week) to $1,000 (on a very intense or heavy week). I took home over $1,000 for two weeks in a row. That is actually unusual for me.

That's another question. Is $6,000 a usual salary or is that at a height of the season?

Dave

I don't think your mother in law has accurate information, or all the information

I don't think your mother in law has accurate information, or all the information

That is what I was thinking. Maybe the driver is a "regional" driver that is NOT home two or three nights a week.

Dave

I don't think your mother in law has accurate information, or all the information

That is what I was thinking. Maybe the driver is a "regional" driver that is NOT home two or three nights a week.

Dave

Yea I need to ask him and I'll post it here to keep you guys updated.

Ask for proof in writing! lol My UPS Bro never would tell us what he made per hour. My dad would get frustrated with him over it, like it was a big deal. Well our lifelong friend he got in UPS drives also and he showed me his pay stub!

Mystery solved, except my dad was already gone to ever know how much bro makes lol