Wife And I Want To Be Truckers.

I used to live on the road , crossing the USA from NY to So Cal 6 times a year from February well into December. All kinds of roads and weather pulling my load behind me .Thing was , I was riding my motorcycle and pulling my service tools behind me and living in a tent .I made my living doing service work at BMW motorcycle camp-outs and picking up odd jobs between week-end events . It was a GREAT life ! Sometimes very lonely and cold and dangerous.Got to see so many good and bad things. The new wife and I would like to get out of the land-lording / property management life style ( ?) that I have been immersed in for the past 20 years.We are thinking about doing Team Driving and maybe even buying a truck.A friend says he is running his own truck by himself and earning $150k /yr after expenses... I'm thinking the wife and I can earn more. I'd really like to hear from some folks .We would like to haul 9 month per year and RIDE the old BMW the rest of the year.She is mid 40's and I'm late 50's. LOTS of years left to live ! Any advice / insight would be appreciated.

Redd, all the big outfits do team driving - some specialize more than others . . . go to the various websites and do some investigating - I'm sure you'll find a match . . . the two links at the top of TT pages about Schools & Jobs will give you tons of info bout the various big outfits that train and then hire . . . you could literally be driving your own rig with your wife by April of '15 - no fooling . . . good luck . . .

Jopa

(Haha . . . April - no foolin' . . . that wasn't even on purpose . . . )

Hey Jopa- thanks for the reply.I'm reading all I can find . I'll check out your advice .

A friend says he is running his own truck by himself and earning $150k /yr after expenses... I'm thinking the wife and I can earn more. I'd really like to hear from some folks .We would like to haul 9 month per year and RIDE the old BMW the rest of the year.She is mid 40's and I'm late 50's. LOTS of years left to live ! Any advice / insight would be appreciated.

Hello Redd, welcome to the forum!

Let me just preface this by saying I'm skeptical about your friends claim, and I'm quite confident that you can not earn "more" while only running nine months out of the year. Your friend may very well have thought he made 150 grand, but the thing about business, and particularly about the trucking business is that you've got to take in consideration an average over several years. The reason I bring this up is that having owned six trucks at one time, I learned some hard lessons about how expensive it is to keep those trucks on the road. When one makes 150 grand after expenses one year and then the next two or three years he only nets about forty thousand a year, then he is really only making around sixty grand a year if you consider the average of those years where his expenses were high.

I try to discourage anyone that is new to this business from becoming an owner operator. The hidden perils are literally lurking around the corner waiting to make a ruin of you. There is good money to be made working as a team for a large trucking company, but that would limit you from being able to spend three months out of the year running across the country on your bike. Every person's situation is unique, and if you want to have more freedoms available to you then being an owner operator may be an option for you, but be forewarned that it is not a bed of roses with money being thrown at you all the time. It takes hard work, dedication, and commitment. Truck driving is more of a lifestyle than a job, and it seems to me to be a lifestyle that suits you.

My advice is to get a job where you and your wife could team drive for a company and see if you even enjoy the lifestyle. Get yourself some experience and after that first year I am confident that you and your wife could be earning around 100 grand together per year. Never consider the amount of earnings to be what lures you into this business, but rather the enjoyment of the lifestyle that it entails. You will not be disappointed if you approach it in that way, but if you think you are going to make a small fortune as an owner operator I'm afraid you will be sorely disappointed.

Welcome Redd!

First of all there is no chance your friend made $150k after expenses running his own truck. Ain't happenin'. There are three things you can count on in life:

1) Death

2) Taxes

3) Owner operators lying about what they make.

For 20+ years I've been telling people to stay away from buying or leasing a truck and for all of the claims I've heard of people making good money doing it I've never once been shown proof of it by anyone. I've never been shown bank statements or (even better) tax returns. Only lots of big numbers spoken with nothing whatsoever to back it up. Ask your friend to show you his tax returns from the past couple of years and then you'll see what he really makes after all taxes and expenses. If he cares enough about mentoring you into this business as an owner operator he'll have no concerns about giving you the nitty gritty details about revenues, taxes, and expenses.

It's going to be extremely difficult to find a gig that will give you three months off. What you would probably have to do is put in great year or two with a company and establish yourselves as a safe, hard working, reliable team. Then you might be able to tell them, "Look, we're taking three months off but we'll be back. If you want us back when we return - great! If not, anyone would be happy to have us. It's your call." And that's true. Husband/wife teams are highly coveted in trucking. You might be able to find opportunities like that, but it's highly unlikely you'll find that without some good experience backing you up.

Are you really certain you want to be cooped up in a tiny truck cab 24/7 with your significant other? Every time I tried being in business with mine the relationship ended. May sound all romantic and wonderful at first.... update us after about 6 months.