Making 100,000 per year?
 

can you take home 80,000 to 100,000 per year after taxes driving truck? Some of these companies say you can. I want to know what you all think. 8)
Anne Marie

The first year driving a truck a new driver will probably take home $30,000 to $35,000. The second year an ambitious driver may earn up to $50,000.

$80,000 to $100,000 may be possible for a team. To earn that much each driver will be working at least 70 hours a week.
(EDIT: These figures are before taxes. This is your gross pay)

Rule #1: Recruiters for companies LIE.
Rule #2: If a recruiter seems to be telling the truth, refer to rule #1.

If your an o/o you can make 200k a year , just with the expenses taken out it will still probably be well under 100k . There are rare exceptions but you can make 100k a year , my friends dad works for Wayne Dalton Corp and takes garage doors up to Nova Scotia and back to Ohio every week and is home weekends and makes around 105k a year , of course he has 26 years with this same private company . Wal-Mart drivers can make close to 100k , same with Yellow,ABF and UPS drivers . I was in Nashville the otehr day and a guy with 7 years with Yellow showed me his pay stub , he runs very hard , but has made 46k this year , that puts him on pace for around 90k . Other guys with bids make anywhere from 60k to 80k a year . But any common carrier you can't make 100k a year . Let's do the quick math 40cpm at 150,000 miles a year is 60k , and that is running hard .


Oh yea you said 80k to 100k a year after taxes , noway , nohow . The more you make the more they take .

I agree Rawlco ... the first year will be closer to $30,000. ... and that will depend on how many miles your dispatcher gives you and if your on time with you loads and many other factors. .... Most newbies DON'T start out at 40cents a mile .... closer to 28-32 cents a mile .... your first couple of years will be the time your proving yourself. If your serious about being a truck driver... anything is possible .

Re: Making 100,000 per year?
 

Not likely, Anne Marie. For you to net that much after taxes you will need to gross $120-140M per year. That is not likely to happen driving a truck. If you are in a niche' area of the business it may be possible, if you own the truck. I have known of drivers who have grossed over $120M/yr before taxes, but those were in niche' markets and are not the norm. Most will be around $40-65M/year with a few years experience. I would be interested in knowing which companies are telling you that you can earn that much money after taxes.

Well two of the companies are Forward Air. They said gross 140,000 to 180,000 and take home 80,000 to 100,000, thats as an owner operator. And Quality Carriers said gross 200,000 take home half as an owner operator. But my husband has driven for 17 years. I dont know, just not sure what to believe.

Ooh, as an owner operator that changes the situation a little. GMAN gave good advice on that aspect.

I seriously doubt that you will clear $100,000 if you only gross $140,000 to $200,000 and taking fuel, truck payment, insurance, maintenance, misc expenses, taxes and such out of that. For leasing to a company like those a better estimate would be 25% to 35% of your gross. If you are really sharp and have good luck you could do better. If you aren't a business person it may be better to stay a company driver.

A good tool to use is the ooida cost per mile spreadsheet available at:
http://ooida.com/trucking_tools/CPM/cost_per_mile.htm
to figure your costs and such. There is a lot of information available on this forum in the Owner Operator section about how to estimate costs.

Forward Air advertises paying $0.93/ on their website. For your husband to gross $180,000 he would have to run almost 200,000 miles a year. Quality advertises $1.15-2.92. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I seriously doubt if you will clear 50% after expenses and taxes. Fuel expense alone will run $50-60M for every 100M miles driven. Then you have insurance expense, maintenance expense, equipment payments, etc., 8)

Re: Making 100,000 per year?
 

An owner/operator might gross that much, but net income could be less than that of a company driver.

Those morons at Forward Air are full of it , the comapny drivers at Forward Air are with Landair , they advertise in newspapers that they make 70k a year , so full of it , makes me physically ill .

Both companies are owned by the same guy, or was. From the low pay they offer owner operators, I seriously doubt that they would pay their company drivers that much money. At Landair, they only do oil changes every 50,000 miles. If they cannot or won't do proper maintenance on their equipment, they certainly are not going to be willing or able to pay their drivers that much money.

$$$$$$
 

The only way you would make anywhere close to that kind of money is to be hauling white powder in the trailer. And I'm not talking about flour.

Most likely it would be pretty tough to make 100 grand a year as a company driver......but it can be done. We have a few of them here.
Not only do they drive they actively recruit. Like most companies we pay drivers 500 bucks for anyone they recruit. So do the math. Say a driver in ohio is making 44 cpm and getting only our average miles, 2700 a week. .44 x 2700 x 52 weeks is 61 grand a year. If he recruited 1.5 drivers a week (yes it could be done easiely for a go getter) that would mean hiring 78 drivers a year....78 drivers x500 = 39,000.
39,000 + 61,000= 100,000 a year.
Now with that said.....Can it be done? Yes.....Is it done? very rarely

Is it possible? Yes! Is it common? No!
And it's absolutly impossible, with the companys you've mentioned! :sad:

This kind of reminds me of the movie with jonh candy ( Armed an dangerous) when they are going through new hire orientation , and the Hippe inquires about the pay-scale.....you would have had to see the movie to understand this association , But it fits real nice with what most comanies , and their earning potential promises....

I know some o/o in the fuel business grossing 200,000 plus...but that's hauling Ethonal. I, myself, haul fuel and ethonal for a local company, and I'm a company driver making about 52,000. Not bad, considering before I worked for them, I was OTR with JB Hunt....glad those days are over, as short as they were. Talk about imposible. :roll:

Dragging up old threads learning all sorts of info from many in the know, good reading.

That said I am lucky enough to earn well over a 100K a year as a company driver on a dedicated 5 days a week, under 500 miles round trip per day. Surely some will say that's impossible, most likely the sames names that state the excellent living they are making in the industry but you will not if you attempt it. Regardless I consider myself blessed to have my position and it is not typically what the industry pays people to drive a truck.

While not the norm, others I know make the same. Our company has not hired in years and with the influx of new drivers willing to work for peanuts the future may not be as bright, time will tell. Our company is still winning bids on lanes however as others dry up so employment levels have been relatively flat for years.

For the newbies out there reading start turning the wheels to gain some experience and then settle in for more cash once your over the hump!

I think your stretching the truth a bit driverboy.What are you hauling ?

Re: $$$$$$
 

Thank you for the laugh!!! I needed it. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I call BU%#&@*T !!

If you are strictly about the $ you are in the wrong line of work.

Yes you can make good money driving once you get some experience, but barring a working you arse of 80+ hrs/week with zero time off in some profitable niche you are not going to break $100k/ year. Anyone who tells you otherwise is attempting to sell you a bill of goods.

Short of scanning my weekly paystub and posting it on an internet forum there is no way to prove to the naysayers my wage, nor do I have any desire to.

Regardless to those newbies reading these threads, it is possible to make over a 100K/year as a company driver, I'm doing it. Those that state it's not possible are not making that much, that would be a given. Have to offer some glimmer of hope to new drivers turning to the internet to see what trucking is all about.I do not see the lure of working for peanuts in a dangerous occupation, I would rather work retail/restaurant for similar money and safer worker conditions than 80,000 lbs. rolling down the highway.

Day-cabs, sleep in my own bed, 8-9 hour run depending on how smooth the day goes, minus the blizzard part.

i love that movie

John candy Wat you haulin here
Truck driver : ROCKET FUEL YEEEEEHHHAAAWWWWW

all this while plowin through traffic

I was talking to a driver for McLane Dist. and he said that he knew of 2 drivers there that were making over 100k a yr. But they have 2 drivers in a truck and they have several drops in one metro area usually. And the work involved in some serious labor. He told me the drivers get commission off of several factors including weight and the price of the delivery. The drop he made at the store I was at was 50.00 and they were there for about 30 minutes and on their way. Thats per driver and they were both unloading even though on their logs one was bunked (whats the use in even having a log book if you lie that bad)? Anyway, I believe that they can make that much as a company driver because I personally dont want to handle that much freight.

I know a guy who drives for McLane also, makes good money too but he usually starts work at 10 pm, delivers to fast food joints in all kinds of weather, delivers to New York City regularly, hard physical labor but has a company supplied and paid lumper.

My team-mate and I haul dedicated freight for "a large retailer" and we earn about 95K per year each. ( They also pay the premium for my family insurance plan... so you can add another 15K to the 95K) We drive 5-6 days a week running routes to locations 400-600 miles from our terminal.

I spend 3-6 hours at home 3-4 days a week - the other couple of days we turn and burn so we don't see home.

We worked our way into the job by consistently saying YES for a couple of years to questions like:
Would you like to work your day off? Would you like to come back a couple of days early from your vacation? You have 3 hrs left to drive, would you run this load across town instead of going to your kid's baseball game?

After we had spent two years building up our "good will" account with the powers that be, we went in and convinced them to give us one of these elite jobs.

My point is that we were very intentional about the whole thing. Nobody is out there handing these type of jobs out to just anybody. Chances are, you are going to have to pay a few dues. Also.. you need a solid work history, clean driving record, and some good solid references.

The jobs are out there. Good Luck.

Well I guess recruiters lie, but sometimes you have to in order to shut people up. When someone calls up our company they ask how much can they make. I tell them that it depends on them. I don't know what their work ethic is. So I tell them that anyone who gives them a number is lying to them and they seem to get upset at that and keep insisting for a number. At that point I won't even hire them.



[QUOTE=
Rule #1: Recruiters for companies LIE.
Rule #2: If a recruiter seems to be telling the truth, refer to rule #1.[/QUOTE]

Quality Carriers are liars, I was leased to them for 4 months and almost went to the poor house, it's not unusual to get negative paychecks from them..
in my current lease, last year I grossed 110,000 but you have to take expenses out of that, to take home 100,000 , I would guess you need to gross at least 190 which isnt likely to happen, even a niche market isnt going to take a newbie

I'm a UPS feeder driver and will make just over 90k this year. I work about 53 hours a week. The overtime, and extra pay for triples (only do triples once every couple of weeks) and double 45's really add up. We make an extra buck an hour for pulling triples or double 45's. Only have to pull it once and make that rate for the whole night. I make two round trips from Northern Colorado to Denver every night. Work is nice and I like working nights, so its a good run. Put in a lot of years as a package driver before I moved to feeders, but its worth it. It's a pay your dues company and with 23 years in I've paid mine and now I'm doing really well. So much better than package cars. We do have mileage guys in Denver that will make 120k to 130K.

If you want to make $100,000 driving a truck you will usually need to get into one of the niche areas of the industry. Cars is one area where drivers can earn from $75-125,000/year, but it is hard work and you will be out in the elements. Another is LTL. Some of the LTL carriers will pay in the $80,000+ range. Then there is heavy haul and oversize freight. It usually takes a few years to get into these specialty areas of the industry. Everyone pays their dues.

I'm with Conway and one of the low guys on the board. Our top guys running line haul pulling doubles do pretty good, they run 5 days a week, home every night, longest run roundtrip from our terminal is 416 (213 each way) miles and their hitting around $100k. The next few guys under those guys don't run quite as far and hit $90k. It's not easy work even for a senior driver all though they don't have to work the dock as long as the guys under them.

I was talking to a guy who's been here 9 years and he was saying he ran line haul a couple years ago and hit $83k. As a new guy at our terminal running line haul you'd probably be around $55k and work way way harder than the senior guys. But that's 5 days a week, home every night.

Lets not forget some fuel drivers out there, not all of us but those that hussle, work days off, take the extra load at the end of the day, willing to go out of town and in general have good work ethic will top out just over 80K this year.. :)
Also home every night as well...
Timberwolf

I bet I'm not the only reefer driver sobbing as I read this thread. :( ;)

LTL is not for everyone. Your early years are a mixed bag of covering vacations, dock work, waiting by the phone, layoffs, irregular hours. Generally feast or famine. The job gets easier and ironically more lucrative the more seniority you get. Our top guys have set schedules Mon-Fri, home every day and routinely make 100k. I just took a bid run working aprox 45 hrs/week which will pay me around 80k. Took me 7 years to get it. I've made over 70k the last three years as a cover/extra board driver working basically on call. Most of the work is Mon-Fri. Weekends are volunteer basis. Most road work is nights. New guys start around .40/mi and scratch and claw their way to 40-50k. Top rate is .66/mi and takes 3 years to get. Then its all about what your seniority will get you. Must have doubles/triples endorsement, hazmat, clean background and CDL. 80% of our guys make 75-100k. The bottom 20% make 40-60k. No one quits these jobs so its hard to move up. Well, bottom guys quit when they're starving. Otherwise it takes a retirement, illness, death or firing.

There are other specialized areas of this business where drivers can earn up to or more than $100,000, as you can see from some of the others who have posted. You don't start out with these high wages. Like everything worthwhile, it takes time to get to that level. Most drivers are content pulling a van around and earning $40-50,000/year. Others make the decision to get into some of the more specialized areas or to get with one of the major LTL carriers. It isn't easy earning top money in this industry. Any time you get into the higher income earners in this industry, you will work hard for your money.

I've been looking long and hard for one that pays like that with those hrs. I'm am an experienced fuel driver and haven't found one to pay that yet. My last fuel tanker was driving 3000 miles a week and hit just over $50,000 for the year driving for Petroleum Transport.