How Much Money Should You Have On Hand?

How much money should you bring to orientation/training up until you go out on your own?

How much money should you have set aside when you are driving on your own for unexpected things like tolls, hotel stay etc.?

I'm thinking i should have at least $1,000 when i go to the orientation/training. And when i go out on my own always have $500 for the unexpected.

Sound good?

That sounds like a good solid plan. You shouldn't be paying tolls though, your company should have some system in place for that, but if you do you will be reimbursed very quickly once you send in the receipts with your paperwork on the jobs you have completed.

$40-$50 per week should be enough. That is if you're buying groceries before going on the road and you're not eating out a lot.

$40-$50 per week should be enough. That is if you're buying groceries before going on the road and you're not eating out a lot.

Yeah i don't plan on eating out hardly ever maybe once a week. I just went to Wawa tonight and spent $10 on a sandwich and a small macaroni and $1 bag of chips. That's just one meal of the day. This is why i think i read a lot of stories of newbie drivers claiming they don't make any money because they eat out all the time.

If i ate breakfast lunch and dinner out almost all week that would be like $150 a week. I spend about $250 a month for food now and i'm good.

If you don't have them already I would invest in a few appliances. crockpot, doesn't need to be huge, a skillet (the electric kind with the little thing that plus in) and maybe a George foreman... with those 3 things you can make just about any meal... possibly even some things that would normally require an oven but really you're going overboard at that point.

crockpot can make stews, pulled meats (pork, chicken, whatever), soup even nacho cheese!

skillet does everything a frying pan does and sometimes can be used as an oven.

finally the foreman can be used to do anything you would grill, hamburgers, hotdogs... even a grill cheese if you don't wanna use skillet.

those 3 devices won't take up to much space and all can be used at the very least with the amount of power put out by a cig lighter using a dc to ac inverter, this is assuming the truck you have doesn't have an apu and inverter for it.

You could also look into one of those small table top bbqs and have a truck stop bbq, maybe even make a little extra money, sell burgers and hot dogs $1-2 a piece. I'm sure the smell of a fresh bbq grill attract other drivers very quickly and while they can prob get a burger for a dollar in the truck stop fast food joint, yours will taste better and be more filling and be healthier probably.

That being said I request 25% of all profits anyone makes from that idea :P hehe

seriously though those 3-4 items should make cooking while trucking much easier and making a stop at walmart to get food will be much cheaper than eating out. usually I spend about $60-$70 a week on food for me and my mother, sometimes more, such as for thanksgiving, it's obvious why but the normal budget is about 60-70.

HOS:

Hours Of Service

HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.

APU:

Auxiliary Power Unit

On tractor trailers, and APU is a small diesel engine that powers a heat and air conditioning unit while charging the truck's main batteries at the same time. This allows the driver to remain comfortable in the cab and have access to electric power without running the main truck engine.

Having an APU helps save money in fuel costs and saves wear and tear on the main engine, though they tend to be expensive to install and maintain. Therefore only a very small percentage of the trucks on the road today come equipped with an APU.