So Here's The Ordeal...big Time Newbie Here With Concerns

If you click on my profile and read my post history you will see I left a federal job after 18 years and had the same concerns. At prime you don't get paid while you have your permit which is a few weeks. They advance you 200 per week to cover food and you pay it back 25 per week until it is paid.

In training you get 700 GROSS while teaming with a trainer. The length of time depends on how hard your trainer runs the truck. You need 30,000 miles to go solo.

Once i went solo I was clearing roughly 600 per week... I had debts to prime for chains and locks for the truck.. and my 1000 cat fee. After a few months I was clearing over 700 per week. I posted a few of my pays and miles. My last three checks were 775, 871, 950 clear. This week is gonna suck at about 500 clear. I have health vision life and disability insurance coming out. I've been solo since feb. My health insurance drops from 60 per week to 22 per week once I'm there a year. I paid nothing for school as long as I stay a year.

The thing with trucking is you have to learn real fast how to make decisions on your own. Manage your time... fix the problems so you aren't bothering dispatch and you can get rolling. Form a good relationship with your dispatcher. Become reliable and you will get miles. Be late everywhere and he will give you trips with drawn out time frames to be sure you make it on time. My FM sees all the messages I send to road assist .... so if I need to fix the trailer I do it without bothering him and I get it done.

This week my FM went on vacation and the guy covering him gave me some "rookie runs". 1000 miles in 4 days. I messaged the guy and told him "hi nice to meet you, but FM doesn't run me like a rookie. Check out my history and please add some miles if you can" lol. The guy the apologized and told.me he needed that run done.. the very next one was more to my liking... 1100 miles in 2 drive shifts. Big difference.

Trucking is performance based and you will make what YOU have the potential to make. There are weeks I feel run down and don't run the loads in a day early just for the extra downtime. Sometimes I will ask for a later load than a load right away. My FM gets a sort of commission from my loads... if I'm rolling he is making money. If I'm siting he isnt. So guess what... I have showed him I can make him money.. and I NEVER sit without a load.

Good luck and keep read g this board. It helped me to be a great success. And I love that I made the change... I also have a 401k if that was on of your concerns. ;)

This week my FM went on vacation and the guy covering him gave me some "rookie runs". 1000 miles in 4 days. I messaged the guy and told him "hi nice to meet you, but FM doesn't run me like a rookie. Check out my history and please add some miles if you can" lol. The guy the apologized and told.me he needed that run done.. the very next one was more to my liking... 1100 miles in 2 drive shifts. Big difference

Great advice Rainy!

Scott any word on financial help for self paid class. Also my first yr grossed around 47k and that's driving anywhere from 1750-2300 miles a week. My vacation pay last week was my best weekly avg 3 months 6 months 12 months so it came out to like $984. All me numbers are gross, I don't want to guess your deductions