Comments By Solo

I donated all of my belongings to Goodwill and Salvation Army, and have been living out of my truck full time for nearly 4 months.

I have $917/month in recurring bills and currently avg gross $1800/wk.

The truck has satellite Radio as well as Satellite TV.

I have unlimited 4g internet for my laptop and tablet.

Purchased a dometic fridge to hold heavy whipping cream for my coffee and almond milk for my cereal.

Bought a sleep number mattress and pillow and literally look forward to sleeping in this thing every night and sleep very comfortably. I literally can't even fathom going out and buying a house or renting another apartment and pay for all that unused and wasted space.

The best financial decision I've made.

Another thing to keep in mind when sitting for long periods of time is the risk of blood clots. Blood that pools, as in the feet, has a tendency to clot. It's a good idea to do leg exercises while you are driving every once in awhile.

This is crazy. I already do each and every one of these subconsciously, and pretty much in the order, she showed. As I was watching this video I was like..wait, I do that...ok, cool. Then the next exercise and so forth...too funny.

I also kick my legs straight out under the dash and flex/stretch them and also stand up off the seat.

As for the butt issue, I'm in the same boat. I'm about 155-160lbs, and my butt has 2 pressure points w/ this Peterbilt seat. I purchased a seat cushion from Costco hoping it would alleviate the issue, but in fact, all it did was put pressure on my hamstrings, so I tried lowering the seat as mentioned a few times above, but to no avail.

I then purchased a double-sided purple seat cushion and it actually made things worse as it wasn't big enough to fit the dimensions of these large truck seats and rolled my legs inward and caused groin discomfort.

So THEN I purchased the super-duper-deluxe purple seat cushion as it was large enough to cover the entire truck seat....only to not provide any relief of 2 pressure points I get when just sitting in the seat w/ no cushion at all. All I can deduce as it pertains to the purple seat cushions is if you're a bigger person, then you might have enough weight to get proper support cushion...and that aside, it's so dang slippery that it slides all around the seat, especially as you exit the truck.

So $300 in seat cushions and I'm no closer to being comfortable than I was day one.

Back to the drawing board.

I have a mail forwarding service set-up out of South Dakota, and have both my moms and dads homes addresses set-up, so should I plan to take a 34 at either of their places, I have have the mail fwd'ing service send my mail there. If I know I'm going to either address and order something from amazon or the like, then I'll just have it shipped to my moms or dads.

I also set-up a PO Box right down the street from my main Termainl in Iowa. So for instance, I'm here now for service, and swung by my PO Box this morning and collected my Amazon (UPS), and FedEx pacakages, as well as regular first class mail.

Cost of course to have both a PO Box and Mail forwarding service, but well worth my time in exchange of the cost incurred.

My results for both my TWIC and HM took ~2 hours.

I opted to call the 800#, instead of waiting ~1-2 weeks for the paper notification, and the lady was really nice and informed me that both had been reviewed and granted and that the following day my DMV would have the results transmitted.

Years past you would have to wait for the letter to arrive in the mail and then deliver that letter in person to your DMV to obtain the HM endorsement on your CDL.

This is about the ONLY thing I like about my auto-shift...it's smooth backing.

It backs just fine in normal operation, but there are times that I will turn the Hill Assist feature off, and I can feather the truck back as needed.

But lurching (in rev) is something it has never done loaded, empty, or bobtail.

Another 3 loads, another $2k.

Wanted to give an update w/ regards to pay. Everyone ultimately isn't trying to work for free/peanuts.

This week's gross is $1812.45 and that was only 3 loads.

This current week (paid next Friday) will be over $2k gross and again only 3 loads.

These are based on 32% pay, and I should be going up to 33% for May, so a 1% raise.

26% my 1st month

32% my 2nd month

33% my 3rd month (we'll see)

Between March and April, I've driven 21,447 miles @ combined $.57cpm (not including tarp or bounce/deadhead pay)

I went from paying $23k/yr in rent + utilities to $0/yr moving into my tractor. My insurance on my car dropped by 50% since I never drive it and placed it into "storage" for insurance purposes (It just stays parked at the terminal)

I'm avg 3300mi/week w/ TMC Transportation thus far and we're planned off a 58mph avg with trucks governed at 62mph, which means you had better get efficient at your securement/tear down really quick and hope you're not stuck at sucksville, Silver Grove, or Wire Mesh (or the like) for 8 hours+.

That being said, TMC's policy is not assigned time-sensitive loads to rookie drivers for at least their first 6 months.

There have been loads where the miles and truck avg of 62mph + Atlanta Traffic simply equaled not making an appointment. I've macro'd my FM and has not been a problem changing the appt time.

Where it DOES become a problem is when you running off and doing you're own thing (take 12 hour reset instead of 10, or whatever the case may be) and show-up late and not involving your FM and creating a chargeable ETA change.

Point being, involve your FM sooner, rather than later.

I have to be in Grand Rapids and drove through that mess as well, but I pushed through at 55mph. I told my trainer yesterday that I've not seen wind or rain like that in quite some time, and I'm born/raised in Florida. It was pretty gnarly stuff.

Thankfully I made it to Charleston, MV and SHOULD make my con Sunday night.