How much do you make?
 

I know this might be alot to ask but I have been on a couple forums an the money question seems to vary by alot. My question is how much money do you make, how much do you make currently an how much did you make your first year. A monthly figure along with what you make a year would be good to know, anyway thanks to those that respond.

That answer is going to vary greatly, as different segments of the industry pay differently.... a first year driver will probably make around $30K whereas an experienced driver will make much more....and it will depend on who one works for...and what kind of job it is. Pulling a "chemical tanker" pays much more for less miles than box, reefer or flatbed.

How much do I make.... 8) Enough to keep my very happy, and still get a lot of home time!! 8)

I make more than double of what an entry-level driver makes and I am home most every night.

I make less than half what my executive-recruiter father makes.

-p.

Re: How much do you make?
 

If OTR was paid by the hour it would be $8- $12 hour. Most companies pay by the mile.

The account I'm on has two parts to it. One guy runs through the night to pick up the materials and bring them back to the Pittsburgh area, and the other guy delivers the material in the morning. We usually run 2 week of one, then switch.

When I run a 525 round trip linehaul (drop/hook), I make $1050 for the week. Home everynight and weekends.

When I run local deliveries, I am guaranteed atleast $720/week and $27/hr after 40 hours worked. This past week on local, I made $1010.25

I'm happy and I aint going nowhere. I have a GREAT boss, pretty good benies, and the company treats everyone great.
This is only my second trucking job.

My first job was local for a small mom&pop company, I only made $13/hr, but was treated very well and was still better than going OTR and I still felt like I was rich compared to the $8.50/hr I got for delivering tires in a pickup truck for the previous 3 years before I got my cdl.

If you can keep your nose clean, it pretty much all depends on what you make of it. One thing I cant express enough though is, when looking for a job, remember that you need the company more than they need you. Show them that you are interested and are wanting to work. Make multiple phone calls if you have to. Otherwise, your just another application on the desk. Hope I helped. Hope nobody makes fun of my measley pay checks! :oops: (No seriously, I still dont feel like I make alot of money..I guess it's cause my sister makes $100K+ year, and I'm always compared to her by some people. :?

No easy answer to this question. Depends on what you are hauling, who you are hauling for, how long you have been doing it and how long you stay out doing it. Very basic rule of thumb, unless you are a freight hauler under union contract, is the more difficult it is the more you will make. If you are a steering wheel holder that does drop and hook you will be at the bottom. Move up the scale to different (more chalenging) loads and the pay goes up. I have, as an O/O, a four axle tractor and a 3+3+3 trailer and the gal who does my taxes says last year I cleared (after all exspences) $87,540.00. That was 127 days driving and another 31 days sitting in a hotel waiting for a load or waiting for a crane to unload.
Just have to go out there and do what you can do and build exsperiance to move up in the world.

Well now i drive dump trucks and get 18/hr. It aint a bad job but the OT has been slowly dropping off. At the rate i am working i will gross around 40k a year which i am not happy with :evil: I am going to talk to Boss Man 2marrow to see if any OT is coming up.


My best trucking job i had was driving tankers getting 19.10 when i left. Made around 51k a year and work around 45hrs a week to get it. It had alot of paid time like personal days and sick days. Sunday was double time and they also paid stand by time. Stand by time is when they didnt know if they would need you or not on a saturday or sunday and pay you 80 bucks just to be ready if they did. You had 1hr to get to the shop after they called you. Here is one of my pay stubs of that job before i got my rise i was only making 18.74/hr.


Oh yea i also got this job at 21years old with no OTR exp and never went to a driving school. So it can be done.


http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/3136/071432mh8.jpg

I will earn ~$40k this year with my mellow work 8-9hrs hosteling job. This is by choice.

If I wanted to be a work-a-holic $ whore I could be making $65-75K as an LTL roadman.

40-44K before taxes on avg

Simple question...

Not nearly enough.

I can't afford one of those HUGE MOTORHOMES I see on the road all the time.

Re: How much do you make?
 

On average, the national pay is between $35,000 to $42,000 per year.....company drivers.....

I'm on track to make $52,000 this year working an average of 9 hours per day (40 hours straight time, 5 hours of overtime). Home every night and off every weekend...except for Sunday when I haul mail for the US Post Office. That job pays an extra $16,000/year.

My first year driving OTR I made $36,000. My last year OTR I made $55,000, but that was busting my a$$ pulling a reefer and putting up with all the BS at produce houses, meat packing plants, Hunt's Point, grocery whorehouses, etc. Each and every week, my logbook said I worked 70 hours...just like a good little coolie. But my actual HONEST time spent on-the-job was more like 90-100 hours. And that was 48 weeks out of the year grinding it out on the highpay highway living the "lifestyle" at the Carney's Point hook.

So I made $3,000 more per year working OTR versus LTL. But that $3,000 cost me 55 more hours per week!!!! :shock: :shock:

On track to make over $52K this year working 50-60+ hours per week. I am a first year driver.

I gross $1200/week, work 50 hrs, 8:30 pm to 6:30 am, no lunch or lunch on the fly (my choice), mon-fri, no weekends, no holidays. All drop/hook, no customers. I'll be at top pay in a year and this run would be 1300/week. The only way it could be better would be if it was 8:30 AM to 6:30 PM!

I'm starting my 4th year driving with the same company I entered the industry with. I do the food distribution gig, to restaurants. I'll gross about $49k this year. It's a 100% employee owned company and I've also received about $23k in company stock, only 40% vested so far though.

My company ensures that I log what I work, and work legal 100% of the time. Total time spent on line 3 and 4 per week is about 52 hours, toss in another 20 hours for the sleeper and thats how long i'm away from home every week.

I'll answer the question without a bunch of mumble jumble: $45,000 for my 1st year as a company driver.

i will make 45,000 this year, just a little under really, an this is my first year. I drive 100% solo

My good friend Eddie says just under 61,000 he started training half way through the year. 1 yr experience.

My trainer, 20 yr vet, pulled just over 100,000k (not owner op) he took home most of that last year training for swift, this year he says he'll hit 120,000 training for crete. but hey 20yrs!!!!!

Of steve my friend, will be right at 50k he teams w/ another friend.

All are otr cept me, i'm home like every other night and weekends

I know my trainer at swift (30 years o/o), Pulled in $176k last year. Sofar this year he told me he isn't doing as good as last year but still over 100k mark as long as things keep moving as they are.

I did alright doing HHG. I think i did like 22K in 2 and 1/2 months in the 2 summers I first started. Last year kicked my butt with the housing slump, and I think i brought home 70 on 70Kmi, but only for 7 and 1/2 months.

I'm doing better now in special products, but I have to RUN.

I make more then some, and less then others. :lol:

The important thing is not what you make, but what you keep...........
Cheap, Frugal, Tightwad, should be viewed as character strengths, not weakness. 8) 8)

50% of my earnings goes towards my 401k and Roth.

more than i should, less than i need

The question is unanswerable
 

I make 40k a year. I leave sunday. home all day tuesday. Leave late tuesday home thursday am and off the rest of the week. The area im in doesnt have much for local and this gets me more quality hometime than even a local job (im not worn out thursday and friday when i get off as i dont work those days). I could make more i think working for fedex, yellow or estes local but you have to pry those jobs out of the drivers cold dead hands.

Ive talked to a LOT of drivers. The newbie company drivers get screwed hard. I talked to a pam the other day whos out 3 weeks at a time and clear way less than 600 a week. Probably closer to 4. I could clear 4 leaving sunday and getting home tuesday morning. Have talked to swifties, schneider etc and heard the same story. Star (red) too but those guys its usually been because they're lazy and legal.

If you work HARD and arent a whiney biznatch about your log you should be able to make 35-40 your first year. Wages are going up a bit finally If i were OTR full time out 3 weeks i wouldnt work for less than 65-70k a year and even then id be looking around for another job. After 1 year dont work for less than 33-37 a mile and a minimum of 2500 a week. 3-4k a week and .40 a mile if you're out 3 weeks at a time.

Sounds like Swift trainers really like to pull the trainees chain :D :D

Swift trainers
 

making 120+ k? riiiight. In 60mph trucks too...

Lets see so they get 5000 miles a week or so, 52 weeks a year with no time off for paid vacation.. at around .46 a mile...

Golly gee i believe that! I bet they tell their trainees swift is the BESTEST company with the BESTEST drivers too.

Re: Swift trainers
 

My trainer is o/o, makes .92 cpm. I saw his paperwork from his accountant for 2007 as I was with him at the right time. I also saw his paperwork for 2006. He really did make $176k, however a good portion of that also went to truck costs. Ohh and his truck is governed at 72, not 60ish.

Re: Swift trainers
 

.92cpm is chump change for an O/O. Grossing 176k isnt all that unusual either. Its decent but he ran a ton of miles to get it and his fuel and maintenance are through the roof. He's probably lucky if he made much more than a co driver, depends on his lease, I mean truck payment. :lol:

About 32k my first year with Swift
On pace to hit almost 60k this year with TMC.

Re: Swift trainers
 

He paid cash for his truck outside of swift.

Re: Swift trainers
 

My old boss who was an O/O said he wouldnt touch his door handle for less than $2.50/mile, and that was over a year ago before diesel was $5.00/gallon. Did your trainer happen to be a black/puerto rican guy who was very hard to understand and has been with swift forever? I ran with a guy a few weeks ago who was an O/O for swifty and told me a similar story.

Re: Swift trainers
 

And where did the money come from? An inheritence? He sure didnt earn it at .92 cpm!

Mat, any good business man knows he has to "expense" his equipment on a profit/loss statement. Fuel alone is running 65-70 cpm so that leaves him what? 25 cpm if he pays for nothing else. Again, company driver money.

His business is dying a slow death, he just doesnt know it yet. There's much to learn Mat, don't listen to just one source of info. You may want to run your own show someday but there's better opportunities than O/O for Swift.

CD, at 92 cpm he is going in the hole BT ! Lets see.... Fuel $4.70 a gallon average (low) and he can average (?) 6 mpg that is 78 cpm right off the top. Oil change and service @ 12,000, $160 = 2 cpm Tires, I figure 3 cpm into a tire account. Maintanance, I put away 9 cpm Hmmm, he is driving for about 4 cpm

Ah
 

You didnt say he was an O/o

172k isnt what he made. Its the Gross his business pulled in. What he made is what he paid himself after all that which im guessing is more along the lines of 40-60k.

Now the one and only thing i'll ever have to say good about some of these companies is that some of their drivers do ok on their leases. Suprisingly enough (because i listen to what people here have said about them) the only JB drivers i've ever met who were happy were the lease guys who ran the lease the right way. Then again who knows they may just not know any better.

We should put together some kind of guideline for newbies and not-newbies. Pulling dry vans i'll bet the average is something like:

Home every weekend
1st year - 30k
2nd year -40k
3rd year + increases slightly

Out 3 weeks
35-40k
40-50k
60-70k

Those are guesses and averages. You can definitely make more (i did/do) or less (LOTS of newbie company drivers do) and flatbedders/specialty guys of course make more. Plus people with dedicated/unusual setups are different. I'm home 3.5 days a week and make just under 40. I know guys who do local and pull 60k+

so far YTD- $46,479.02 gross/28,372.60/net

This week i had 2833 miles and 3.60 hours in delay pay. We get $.547/mile and $22/hr for delay i think. grossed $1626.51.

Could come home daily, but the freakin gas bill defeats the purpose. Once i move up on seniority (LTL), the gravy should really start to flow. I drive for a company. I grossed 81k last year, with the same company. I quit OTR in 1996, making .25/mile. I got hired for local P&D at $14.62. I've been here a little over 12 years, the last 3.5 in lnehaul. Good money is out there, but you have to find it, it doesn't find you through companies with a recruiting department. IF THE COMPANY HAS A RECRUITER HOTLINE NUMBER, RUN!!!! that means they cannot keep drivers.

You forget driving for Swift he get's fuel surcharges paid. He only ends up paying on average $1.50 a gallon with fuel as it is right now. Only reason he doesn't leave Swift is the security of the fact they are so large and always have loads. Personally if I owned a truck I would probably try to go under my own authority, not lease on to any of these major carriers.

Yes we know, all companies offer a fuel surcharge, its more than likely figured in the 176k. You may "survive" if you're lucky but you wont make big money pulling for mcmega carrier.

You're missing a big part of the equation, the fuel surcharge. Right now it's .59 cpm at my company. Also, usually being leased on to a company you will pay their cost for fuel. I talked to our fuel guy and the fuel discount from pump price is anywhere from .05 - .35 cents off, averaging out to .10 - .15 cents off most of the time. I've ran into instances recently where the pump price was 4.55 and our cost was 4.25 .

As for the topic my first calendar year (2005) after starting OTR the end of July 2004 was $ 54,000. The first 6 months was just as strong as that calendar year. I should be about $56,000 - $57,000 this year 8) 8)

Around £34,000 year.
You wanna know how often the wife blows me too?(Just kidding... :oops: )