Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiway61
Quote:
Originally Posted by Camstyn
I took driving lessons last February, worked for one company for 2 months, found a good company and drove their stuff for 5 months, and bought my own truck/trailers with 0 down, 100% financed, no money in the bank just good credit. That was one year ago. I bought all my equipment brand new, top of the line, and I put myself through hell for the first 8 months to survive. I was never late on any payment and I'm at a point now where I'm making a comfortable living and my hard work has paid off so I can run at a comfortable pace.
Would I recommend it to anyone else? Not the way I did it. It was succeed or die trying, and I almost did the latter. I don't know if I could do it again.
Wow, tip of the old Tam 'O Shanter to ya for pulling that off!
Any tips you want to share?
Thanks.. The biggest thing I can thank is good credit and lots of it, it's really invaluable. There are a lot of costly mistakes to be made, I made some, but having an extra long rope to hang from definitely makes it easier to survive when times were tough.
My only tip would be to be patient. I was lucky enough to find a great family-oriented company to run for who does specialized, high paying work. For 8 months I lost my health, my family life, my social life, I just tried to push myself to tbe breaking point but I never found it, I was too full of piss and vinegar and all I could think about was working and making money. The driving was the easy part. The hard part was living off of an average of maybe 3 hours sleep a night, often 0, sometimes 1 hour felt like a luxury. Eating convenience store food driving down the road because stopping to eat cost me time in the sleeper. Tarping, chaining up, severe mountain driving with 140,000lbs in weather ranging from -40 to 100 degrees. I ran 12-15,000 miles per month with an 8 axle unit, 90% mountain driving, all winter long. I wasn't smart about it, I did it illegally and unsafely but I succeeded. I cheated to a rediculous extent and was lucky I never got caught, or never hurt myself or anyone else as a result of it. Most of my problems stemmed from being impatient and wanting it all, and wanting it now. Looking back now I could have achieved the same results in a lot more relaxed manner and I'd probably feel younger today as a result.