Comments By Jacob H.

Thanks for your answer! Sounds like $50k or more is realistic then. I'm ok with then nickel and diming me. I can live off the $700 gross no problem since I won't have rent or a family to support.

I've spend at least 70 hours on here reading the forum (great forum by the way!), and have learned enough to confirm that I want to drive a truck. I almost started driving a truck instead of going to college, but I finished high school at 16 and needed something to do for a few years, so I went ahead and did college and got my bachelor's at age 20, about 2.5 yrs ago. I have a good job now, in an office, I make about $36k a year working about 47 hours a week average as an student HR Director. Since I work for a college, I get an apartment for $105 a month and its in Florida so there's no state income tax, so my paycheck goes pretty far. I worked at a prison for a while, and then came back for work for the college and have been getting frequent promotions ever since. It just isn't something I want to do long term.

As of last week I have a Class B CDL with schoolbus/passenger endorsements. I will be getting $12/hr to drive a shuttle we have that takes college students from campus to the mall and wal-mart and I can make $50 cash and get a free dinner driving for any of the student outings we have, which is nice too. I did this partly because 40 hours a week doing my normal HR responsibilities is not enough for me and I get bored on the weekend, and partly to see if I was any good at driving big vehicles. I worked about 70-80 hours a week at the prison, and I loved the hours. Turns out my CDL trainer and tester both said I was a natural and they felt very safe. I passed all my tests the first time around, and feel very comfortable driving these full size school buses, even in crazy city traffic.

Now that I've kind of introduced myself, I'd like to get a up-to-date answer to something that I know has been asked and answered many times, but I have a slightly different condition to the question. I'd like to know how much I could potentially earn at Prime Inc as a new driver in a lightweight truck for the refrigerated division IF I stay out on the road. As in, I don't take home time but a few times a year, maybe every 3-4 months. I know that isn't for everyone, but I have no family, I'm not a very social person, and I honestly would rather work all day than have an off day. It is in my nature. Plus, if I am getting burned out I can always up my home-time down the road or take a local job sooner than I am planning.

As best as I can figure, I think Prime's lightweight truck drivers are making about 42 cpm before fuel bonuses. That means averaging 2500 miles a week (which from what I read is the low end of average for good Prime drivers) 50 weeks out of the year my salary as a driver would come to $52,500 per year. So I'm just kind of wondering if that is realistic, once I'm done with training for a few months and get in the rhythm of things to expect $50k a year or greater. To me that seems very obtainable, though obviously it shouldn't be expected right off the bat.

I'm not wanting to get into trucking just for the money, but I would like to go into it with an informed expectation of my earnings. I'm planning to start the process of going to a truck driving school at a community college near my parent's farm in the next year or two, at the most. I can pay cash for the class and I have enough in savings to stop working for a lot more than a couple of months. My current position is under contract, so I have to either re-sign or decline every January, but once I 'decline' to stay another year, I still have to stay until the upcoming July, I don't leave right then in January. I'd like to stuff away some more into savings, and pay off my car (on track to pay it off Dec of next year which is 3 years early). That way if I enjoy trucking, I can just sell my car and put that money in the bank too. I'm blessed enough to have been able to work through college to graduate debt free and I payoff credit cards and bills every month. My only debt is my car, which I make double payments on.

My long term plan would be to put enough in savings to pay cash for a house and car and get a local CDL job driving gas tankers or maybe doing LTL. I think this would take me about 15 years since I'd be maxing out a 401k and Roth IRA at the same time. I'm going to buy a nice house if I buy one at all, so it will take a while to save for.

I just don't want to be disappointed and end up making less than I expected. With my math, honestly I think it is possible to earn over $60k/yr at Prime if you get your average miles up to about 2700 and get a fuel bonus. The hours, regulations, paperwork, lifestyle, etc. all sound OK to me as long as the pay is OK too.

Am I delusional, or do you think I have a pretty good handle on what to expect?