RPF0353-Get_Rich_Driving_a_Truck
00:00:00.000 | I'm always on the lookout for interesting ways to earn a living, ways that you can do
00:00:06.860 | things that other people dream about doing for recreation and actually make money at
00:00:10.500 | it.
00:00:11.500 | One of the things I've considered in the past was being an over-the-road truck driver, especially
00:00:16.800 | if you can do it as a couple.
00:00:18.380 | I've read stories about retiring couples that go on the road together and they see the country
00:00:22.280 | and they make a lot of money while they're doing it.
00:00:24.740 | Well, sadly, I've never had the opportunity to do it.
00:00:28.020 | Today I've got Ben and Deb Martinek who have graciously agreed to come on and share with
00:00:36.280 | us what it's actually like.
00:00:54.620 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.
00:00:56.360 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.
00:00:58.020 | Thank you for being with me today.
00:00:59.020 | This is the show where we work hard to give you the ideas and insight and knowledge and
00:01:03.080 | skills that you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while also building a plan for financial
00:01:08.720 | freedom in 10 years or less.
00:01:10.920 | Yes, we want to get there as quickly as possible and wouldn't it be great if you could take
00:01:15.400 | a retirement lifestyle and just do it now?
00:01:26.880 | Frankly I think there are tons of these types of opportunities that are out there and truck
00:01:30.340 | driving is just one that I've thought would be pretty cool, especially if you do it full
00:01:34.280 | time.
00:01:35.280 | But never having done it, I can't give you what it's actually like.
00:01:39.040 | So today we're going to talk with Ben and Deb who've actually done it.
00:01:42.040 | Guys, I'm sorry I flubbed your name there.
00:01:43.720 | It's Martinek, right?
00:01:44.720 | Yeah, it's Martinek.
00:01:45.720 | Okay, great.
00:01:46.720 | So tell me the story.
00:01:49.520 | How did you guys wind up – I shouldn't say living in a truck.
00:01:53.640 | I don't think you did that completely.
00:01:55.680 | But how did you wind up working together as a co-driving truck driving team?
00:02:00.960 | Well, it started – the conversation started before we got married.
00:02:05.900 | We both have graduate degrees but in areas that aren't very high paying.
00:02:12.400 | And so we knew that we had this mountain of student loan debt from going to graduate school
00:02:16.000 | at a private university and we weren't quite sure what to do about it.
00:02:21.720 | And so we knew we wanted to spend time together, make a lot of money to pay off that debt.
00:02:26.640 | And the only option that seemed to come forward – I mentioned it just one day to Ben when
00:02:31.240 | we were engaged.
00:02:32.240 | Well, maybe we should do truck driving.
00:02:34.720 | I come from a long line of truck drivers myself and not knowing at the time, but Ben has always
00:02:39.960 | had a fascination with large machinery or equipment like that.
00:02:44.560 | So he took me seriously and started looking into it.
00:02:47.480 | And the more research we did, the more we realized that you could make a lot of money,
00:02:51.240 | especially as a husband-wife team.
00:02:53.260 | And so that's what we set our sights on a few months after we got married.
00:02:56.560 | Honestly, it was kind of a surprise to me that they even had team truck drivers.
00:03:00.960 | I thought, wow, maybe – I don't know if they'd even let us both drive the truck.
00:03:03.720 | I mean, what a novel idea.
00:03:05.840 | At least it was when we first started looking into it.
00:03:07.800 | But I was really floored to find out that, yeah, it's very common.
00:03:11.960 | And actually, husband-wife teams in particular are a very highly-priced commodity in the
00:03:16.560 | trucking industry for many reasons.
00:03:19.160 | But yeah, it's probably some of the best-paying work you can get as a truck driver.
00:03:22.800 | Let me jump right to the money just because I want to get an idea.
00:03:25.220 | How much money could a couple make if they were to pursue this type of work?
00:03:29.120 | Well, it would depend on your setup.
00:03:31.920 | I mean, because you have basically either company drivers or you have what are called
00:03:35.160 | owner-operators.
00:03:36.160 | I mean, are you going to be your own trucking company or run your own truck or are you going
00:03:40.400 | to just run somebody else's truck?
00:03:42.480 | If you're company drivers, I mean, within nine months from the time we graduated from
00:03:46.920 | truck driving school to the time we came out with a second company, we were making $100,000
00:03:51.640 | between the two of us.
00:03:52.640 | And probably, I mean, if we had pushed and done more miles, we could have maybe made
00:03:56.760 | it as high as $110,000 as company drivers.
00:03:59.400 | That's with folks who don't have any financial responsibility by and large.
00:04:02.640 | I mean, everything's covered by the company.
00:04:05.800 | The only thing you do is drive the truck and move the freight and go from spot to spot.
00:04:10.600 | As owner-operators, if you take on more financial responsibility, either between the fuel cost,
00:04:14.920 | which is a big one, or you're obviously maintaining and keeping the truck, you get a little more
00:04:19.680 | liberty in the routes you choose and when you decide to run and when you decide not
00:04:22.840 | to.
00:04:23.840 | But that does have more promise.
00:04:24.840 | And I mean, it's just like anything.
00:04:26.920 | I don't think you could immediately step into this.
00:04:29.520 | But once you learn the business, I don't think it's out of the realm to think you can make
00:04:32.480 | as much as $125,000 to $150,000 as a team truck operator.
00:04:36.320 | And that's probably just as a general average.
00:04:38.400 | I think the more exclusive you get, the more specialized your routes become.
00:04:43.440 | And the better either contractors or carriers or shippers you work with, yeah, it could
00:04:48.520 | get considerably higher than that.
00:04:50.320 | - So the basic idea of the team driving, as I understand it, never driven a truck, so
00:04:55.240 | just kind of give the intro and I want you to explain it more deeply.
00:04:58.000 | The basic idea of why a team can be so valuable is by putting two drivers in one truck, you
00:05:03.160 | can run much closer to 24 hours a day than one driver because of the federally mandated
00:05:08.240 | rest times and the amount of time you're allowed to drive, the number of miles that you can
00:05:11.320 | do.
00:05:12.320 | If you've got two people that can drive and you can split out and one can sleep while
00:05:15.080 | the other drives, you can put a lot more hours.
00:05:17.400 | And so it actually can be a very valuable resource for the company.
00:05:23.600 | Is that accurate?
00:05:24.600 | - Absolutely.
00:05:25.600 | Essentially, you can be driving 22 out of 24 hours in a day.
00:05:29.880 | And our biggest claim to fame as far as our fastest load that we moved was 2,900 miles
00:05:35.520 | from Los Angeles to the Washington, D.C. area, I believe, that we did in just 52 hours, the
00:05:42.600 | two of us.
00:05:43.600 | That was really a lot of fun.
00:05:44.920 | We stopped, I think, a collective amount of two hours and 45 minutes.
00:05:48.920 | - That was the truck not moving in that 52-hour period.
00:05:52.400 | - That includes our inspections that you have to do and then stopping for fuel and then
00:05:56.480 | restroom breaks.
00:05:57.480 | So in two and a half days, not even, we only stopped for three hours total.
00:06:03.680 | - Wow.
00:06:04.680 | So obviously, if you like being together, this gives you just a tremendous amount of
00:06:09.840 | time to be together.
00:06:11.960 | What else?
00:06:12.960 | Describe to me how you would run.
00:06:14.360 | You said you weren't in the truck full time.
00:06:15.760 | You would stop and go other places.
00:06:17.720 | Describe to me what the lifestyle was like.
00:06:19.240 | - Well, again, it's largely going to depend on whether or not you're a company driver
00:06:23.280 | or not because if you're an owner/operator, there's a lot more freedom into how you run.
00:06:27.400 | - So which were you guys?
00:06:29.560 | - We were company drivers the whole time.
00:06:31.560 | And honestly, if I were to do this as a long-term vision, I would eventually go as an owner/operator
00:06:35.160 | without question.
00:06:36.160 | And towards the end of our time there, I was giving a lot of serious consideration to maybe
00:06:39.680 | doing just that.
00:06:41.440 | But as company drivers, I mean, as long as you have the hours, you're expected to run
00:06:45.120 | and move freight.
00:06:46.120 | And then how busy you are just depends on the company and how well they're doing and
00:06:51.880 | how many loads they have available to you.
00:06:54.120 | And I think there's a lot of factors that come into it.
00:06:56.400 | I mean, you have both loaded and empty miles.
00:06:59.280 | And so you might come to a location and deliver a load, but there might not be a local spot,
00:07:05.480 | a nearby spot that has another load going out and you may have to travel a long distance.
00:07:09.000 | I mean, we went as far as, one time it's crazy to think about, but we went as far as a thousand
00:07:12.720 | miles to pick up a load.
00:07:14.720 | It was from Denver, Colorado up to the Los Angeles area.
00:07:19.280 | So depending on the company and their willingness to run you empty to go pick up another load
00:07:23.720 | would depend on how regularly busy you would be.
00:07:26.400 | But yeah, I mean, I'm trying to forget the question.
00:07:29.640 | I'm forgetting the question.
00:07:30.640 | Well, it's kind of a day in the life of what trucking would look like for us.
00:07:34.440 | Ben usually took the shift from about 2 a.m. to 2 p.m.
00:07:38.880 | And we tried to keep it at not stopping until you've driven about 200 miles.
00:07:43.740 | So about every three and a half to four hours, we would stop for a 15 minute break, refill
00:07:48.520 | coffee, go to the bathroom, stretch the legs a little bit.
00:07:52.240 | And then once we would switch over, we would take a little bit of a longer break at that
00:07:56.160 | time, fueling up, likely getting a bite to eat.
00:07:59.280 | And then I would drive from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. roughly.
00:08:03.080 | So we basically each take a 12 hour shift.
00:08:06.680 | And depending on how hard we had to run, we wouldn't take many breaks.
00:08:10.040 | But if we had a little bit more flexibility or if we had finished with a load and we had
00:08:13.200 | several hours before the next one would be ready to be picked up, we'd find a truck stop,
00:08:18.600 | take a shower, get a bite to eat, maybe take a walk.
00:08:21.920 | You know, if it worked out on Sundays, we'd try to find a church somewhere to go.
00:08:27.000 | Otherwise it was just pretty, I mean, you're at liberty of the schedule of the loads that
00:08:31.520 | they give you, but you could find a lot of fun things to do in the meantime, though,
00:08:35.480 | too.
00:08:36.480 | Yeah.
00:08:37.480 | You know, it depends on the locale that you would stop at.
00:08:38.480 | I mean, as you got to know the area of the country, because I mean, you really, over
00:08:41.520 | time you have to know the country very well.
00:08:43.240 | And so if you knew you had time on a load, you would have a spot in mind of like, oh,
00:08:47.760 | we either have friends here or this has a nice truck stop where there would be easy
00:08:50.560 | access to other, maybe public transportation.
00:08:54.000 | And so we're going to do a long layover here and use this as a chance to go and do some
00:08:58.320 | visiting and have some fun.
00:09:00.360 | So, you know, it just depends, I suppose, in terms of your freedom, just how busy of
00:09:06.600 | a time of the year it is freight wise.
00:09:08.520 | You know, as you move towards Christmas, freight picks up.
00:09:11.640 | And so really from Thanksgiving to Christmas, it's really intense as truck drivers, at least
00:09:15.800 | over the road.
00:09:16.800 | We would normally run 6,000 to 6,500 miles a week.
00:09:20.920 | I mean, almost no time to stop at all.
00:09:22.520 | I mean, we were always running freight.
00:09:24.400 | But right after that, January, February, March, it'd be really slow.
00:09:28.200 | I mean, it was almost like a 50% reduction from in that point in miles.
00:09:32.080 | And so you'd have a lot more freedom then to do some sightseeing if you wanted to.
00:09:36.540 | So you're really only paid per mile, whether you're a company driver or an owner operator.
00:09:41.800 | Is that correct?
00:09:42.800 | Correct.
00:09:43.800 | Well, it's really by you're paid by the load.
00:09:45.320 | And then they figure out how much to pay you by the load by the miles.
00:09:48.080 | So but yeah, I mean, there's not like a daily calculation where you drove so many miles
00:09:51.600 | today, so you get paid.
00:09:53.280 | You ran this freight, you finished this load, now you get paid for it.
00:09:57.080 | So you said graduated, had a lot of student loan debt.
00:09:59.800 | What happened for you financially during this period of time?
00:10:04.400 | We were able to pay off a lot of our student loan debt.
00:10:07.420 | That was the main objective.
00:10:08.760 | You know, it took us probably seven months or so until we were finally at a spot financially
00:10:14.160 | that we weren't hurting so bad.
00:10:16.160 | You know, we weren't just making it from month to month.
00:10:18.240 | And we were able to make some progress on the debt that we had.
00:10:21.520 | So it was certainly slow going.
00:10:23.280 | But that in part was due to the fact that we started in the industry as inexperienced
00:10:27.120 | drivers and you need to cut your teeth before you get that pay raise.
00:10:31.960 | When we first started out, jointly, we were probably only making like $38,000 a year between
00:10:37.840 | the two of us.
00:10:38.840 | It was really bad.
00:10:39.840 | But thankfully, after we had enough experience, we were able to get on with a better national
00:10:44.880 | company that paid much – the highest rates in the industry actually and that's when
00:10:48.920 | we were able to make about $100,000 a year.
00:10:51.560 | When you were doing this work, did you live in the truck full time?
00:10:55.380 | Did you maintain a house still that you would go back to and how did you work out that mix
00:11:00.500 | of working versus not working?
00:11:02.280 | Yeah.
00:11:03.280 | So I mean long haul over the road drivers I think pretty commonly are out four to five
00:11:07.840 | weeks at a time and then you get a day off for every week that you're out.
00:11:11.320 | So that's called your home time.
00:11:13.120 | So we did keep an apartment.
00:11:14.680 | We had – we're from the Midwest but Deb had spent some time previously out in Central
00:11:19.520 | Oregon and wanted to go back and I figured, "Well, what the heck?
00:11:22.240 | You know, we're going to be over the road truck drivers anyhow."
00:11:25.080 | So we just up and moved back to Central Oregon and we kept an apartment there throughout
00:11:29.240 | that time which actually for tax purposes you need – I mean if you're going to be
00:11:32.600 | able to write off the per diem and some of your pay against per diem cost which can be
00:11:39.240 | quite substantial.
00:11:40.240 | I mean when we were over the road, I think close to 30 to 40 percent of our income was
00:11:43.440 | able to be a tax deduction due to per diem but you have to have a home domicile for that
00:11:47.920 | to qualify.
00:11:48.920 | So we had to have something of a residence.
00:11:51.600 | Otherwise the IRS would have considered us just permanently transient employees.
00:11:57.440 | Explain some of the details of the compensation because – and kind of how much the costs
00:12:02.040 | were to maintain the apartment and not because to me, the big opportunity that I see – I
00:12:05.800 | know there are some people who want to do this type of lifestyle for their career and
00:12:09.400 | if they can do it, great.
00:12:10.880 | I don't see how – I couldn't do it but I could do it for a few years doing something
00:12:16.040 | like you've done and I would – I could see ways that I could put it to good use.
00:12:22.160 | I think it would be interesting to do for a few years and then move on to something
00:12:24.920 | else.
00:12:25.920 | But the financial calculations would seem to me to vary hugely depending on an owner
00:12:31.120 | operator versus company and then how the pay is structured and how much your other expenses
00:12:35.440 | were.
00:12:36.440 | So explain how the compensation is structured and your overall expenses, how much you're
00:12:39.600 | able to put away due to the trucking lifestyle.
00:12:41.880 | Yeah.
00:12:42.880 | Again, there is a lot of variability there because you could easily spend a lot of money
00:12:48.640 | being over the road.
00:12:50.000 | So I mean we took cost saving measures in hand.
00:12:53.480 | We would – we had a small little mini fridge cooler that we kept in between our seats,
00:12:59.440 | just plugged into what do you call it, one of the power points in the truck and we would
00:13:05.120 | stop for groceries once a week at a Walmart and fill up on different types of fruit, sandwich
00:13:10.320 | meats, milk, those sort of things.
00:13:13.400 | So we did what we could where we purposely kept ourselves to maybe just $10 to $15 a
00:13:17.640 | day we would spend on other eating costs.
00:13:19.600 | Because again, I mean if you're eating out breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, I mean
00:13:24.240 | one, you really don't need to because physical activity wise, at least as over the road truck
00:13:28.240 | drivers is very minimal.
00:13:30.200 | So you can easily overeat and start gaining weight and that was something we actually
00:13:33.320 | did have to spend a concerted effort to keep our weight in check because we both started
00:13:38.160 | gaining some weight.
00:13:40.040 | But yeah, I mean if you're thoughtful about it, I mean our data cost for everything was
00:13:45.200 | just about $10 a day between the times we would go out to eat and then our coffee.
00:13:50.360 | We would grind up our own coffee and had a metal French press and then a large thermos
00:13:55.480 | that we would just top off the thermos with hot water at a truck stop and then we just
00:13:59.800 | made our coffee in-house.
00:14:01.320 | And that was probably one of our biggest expenses or could have been one of our biggest expenses
00:14:05.160 | because it really, the coffee is super helpful.
00:14:07.920 | And I mean it was probably just $0.15 a cup for us versus about $1.50, $1.75 that it normally
00:14:13.200 | was at a truck stop.
00:14:15.200 | So I'm trying to think of some of the other cost saving measures.
00:14:18.320 | I mean we would buy, like other people, we had a membership to Costco.
00:14:23.400 | So we would buy in bulk and try to get a month's supply of food ration wise and we would work
00:14:29.600 | our way through that throughout the time that we were over the road.
00:14:32.000 | And I'm trying to think if there was anything else, if you have anything else that comes
00:14:35.360 | to mind, just I think being thoughtful and considerate to our expenses and trying to
00:14:38.640 | keep things low.
00:14:40.080 | Well and then our household expenses too.
00:14:41.960 | We still had to pay for the rent at the apartment and utilities and our cell phone and all those
00:14:47.120 | things but we actually worked out an agreement with the apartment complex because they needed
00:14:51.960 | to keep people in their apartments and we used that as leverage to reduce our rate $100 a
00:14:56.520 | month for about a year, which was really nice.
00:14:58.640 | But I'd say those expenses were probably about $7.50 a month and then you add in what we
00:15:03.320 | had for our extra meals or fun things.
00:15:07.720 | We weren't shy about treating ourselves on the road though either because we were living
00:15:12.160 | this nomadic lifestyle for lack of a better term.
00:15:15.380 | We wanted to enjoy ourselves and not scrim so much that we were just, everything that
00:15:21.840 | we made was going towards the debt.
00:15:23.080 | We wanted to enjoy ourselves too.
00:15:24.600 | So we definitely did that.
00:15:26.400 | Yeah, there were splurges.
00:15:27.400 | I mean when you had the opportunity, I mean the thing is, you didn't always have an opportunity
00:15:31.040 | to go out to a nice place to eat.
00:15:32.400 | So usually when that arose, it's like, "Oh, let's do this and we need to take advantage
00:15:35.680 | of this."
00:15:36.680 | I mean, because you have longer layover periods too.
00:15:39.120 | So I mean just in terms of the hours that you have, it's probably worth mentioning,
00:15:43.320 | you have, you know, each day you have roughly 14 hours of time clockwise to do up to 11
00:15:50.240 | hours worth of driving.
00:15:51.240 | And so whenever you either hit that 11 hour mark of driving or that 14 hour period of
00:15:55.300 | on duty time, you have to stop for at least 10 hours before those two clocks will reset
00:16:00.680 | and you can start again.
00:16:01.680 | So and again, with that 10 hour period, I mean that was enough that when the other person
00:16:05.320 | came on to start their driving, they would do enough work that by the time they were
00:16:10.600 | ready to finish, my clock had reset.
00:16:13.480 | And then you can do up to 70 hours, I think, in an 80 day period of work, at which point,
00:16:19.480 | even as team truck drivers, we'd actually would burn through that.
00:16:21.760 | So you'd come to a point where our total hours for the whole week would be consumed.
00:16:26.120 | And then in order to reset that clock, you can either start picking the hours up as the
00:16:30.080 | days roll off and roll back on.
00:16:32.360 | I mean, that can be a little complicated, but you learn it pretty quick.
00:16:35.360 | Or you just do what's called a 34 hour restart where you have to be stopped for a total of
00:16:39.520 | 34 hours of off duty work before you can start driving again.
00:16:46.680 | So with a team operation, actually, it's only about 24 hours because 10 hours of one person's
00:16:52.440 | clock can be spent in the truck while it's moving down the road.
00:16:55.800 | So you'd have, you know, once a week, roughly a 24 hour period where there wasn't anything
00:17:02.000 | going on.
00:17:03.000 | And so we would be strategic about like, okay, where do we want to spend our restart at in
00:17:07.560 | order to either do some sightseeing or, I don't know, have some fun or this just would
00:17:12.240 | be a nice truck stop to relax at or.
00:17:14.200 | Or have a nice meal.
00:17:15.200 | Yeah.
00:17:16.200 | Yeah.
00:17:17.200 | Honestly, the meal is having a nice meal was like, I mean, that was like the highlight
00:17:19.200 | almost from week to week.
00:17:20.200 | Where do we want to get our nice meal at?
00:17:22.200 | So.
00:17:23.200 | Yeah.
00:17:24.200 | Sounds.
00:17:25.800 | Sitting in a vehicle driving constantly can be very wearing.
00:17:30.600 | And even if you've got a bed, you can sleep one at a time.
00:17:33.280 | I could imagine the anticipation of that day off and having a nice meal or being able to
00:17:38.400 | do something really fun.
00:17:41.560 | Explain please, Ben, what you were saying about the per diem cost and how that's taxed
00:17:45.640 | versus the other aspects of your pay.
00:17:48.400 | Sure.
00:17:49.400 | I mean, I know some of the details of this, but it's been a little while since some of
00:17:52.200 | them are kind of fuzzy.
00:17:53.200 | So I mean, for most people, if you have to, if your work causes you to be away from where
00:17:57.920 | you live for an extended period of time, the meals and the lodging expenses of that can
00:18:03.600 | be written off up to 50% associated with that as a tax deduction for anyone who's regulated
00:18:08.920 | by DOT regulations, the Department of Transportation, it's as high as I think it's 80%.
00:18:15.900 | So as long as you can confirm that your work was taking you away from home, which this
00:18:22.820 | would be for 30, 40 days at a time, each of those days, I'm trying to remember what the
00:18:29.200 | cap amount was.
00:18:30.200 | I mean, I think they allowed it like $150.
00:18:32.080 | So like 80%, and this is just typical IRS stuff, is like 80% of $150 or something every
00:18:37.440 | day per driver was a tax write off your income.
00:18:44.240 | So how much is a standard mileage rate when you're a top driver at a good company?
00:18:53.220 | Well, I mean, this is five years removed.
00:18:55.340 | At the time, it was $0.48 a mile is what we were making.
00:18:58.100 | I think things have adjusted with inflation.
00:19:00.420 | They're probably closer to mid-50s now.
00:19:03.020 | So, yeah.
00:19:04.220 | So let's just use $0.55 per mile.
00:19:06.060 | And how many miles could you generally do in a day?
00:19:09.820 | We would shoot when we were...
00:19:11.700 | So you don't necessarily every single day run a load.
00:19:13.940 | I mean, it all just depends on how loads line up.
00:19:16.420 | But when we were on a load and running, it's probably at least 1,200, 1,250 miles a day
00:19:20.300 | is what we would run.
00:19:21.300 | For each of you or...
00:19:22.300 | Total.
00:19:23.300 | Total.
00:19:24.300 | An average of 5,500 miles a week.
00:19:26.300 | So that $1,200 would come out...
00:19:28.100 | 1,200 miles would come out to $660 earned in a day between the two of you.
00:19:33.460 | And then what you're saying is that if you could have, let's say, up to $120, $150 a
00:19:38.980 | day, so let's just say half of that would be as a per diem reimbursement, then the idea
00:19:44.300 | there is that's not subject to tax.
00:19:47.020 | Subject to income tax.
00:19:48.700 | And so you've got about $300 to $400 for that day of work that would be classified as ordinary
00:19:56.180 | wages as a company driver.
00:19:58.220 | And as ordinary wages, then that's the money that'd be subject to income tax.
00:20:01.980 | So even though you might be earning, say, $100,000 in a year, if we just use that with
00:20:05.660 | ratios, you're actually going to be reporting income of like $55,000 or $60,000.
00:20:10.700 | Is that accurate?
00:20:11.700 | Yep.
00:20:12.700 | That's pretty accurate.
00:20:13.700 | So yeah, the IRS is presuming that you're spending a large amount of money in both food
00:20:17.580 | and lodging costs every day, and that's what they're giving you the tax deduction for.
00:20:21.540 | But in reality, I mean, we were spending like 10 bucks a day out of our own pocket to cover
00:20:26.980 | the cost.
00:20:27.980 | I mean, lodging was provided by the truck in the sleeper cab.
00:20:31.340 | And then, yeah, we weren't spending anywhere near what they were wanting to offer to us
00:20:35.460 | as a tax deduction.
00:20:36.460 | Are there a lot of team drivers who do this full-time and don't maintain a place to live?
00:20:43.740 | You know, I don't know if that's so much the case.
00:20:45.620 | I mean, there are plenty of guys that we came across, older couples.
00:20:49.460 | I mean, there's a large number of married couples, one out there, especially I would
00:20:52.740 | say most, a good percentage of team truck drivers are married couples.
00:20:58.220 | But I mean, I suppose it depends from couple to couple, but I mean, I heard of folks who
00:21:01.860 | would be away from home for three to four months at a time.
00:21:03.860 | I mean, they were really, they just lived on the road and then they just came home.
00:21:07.500 | Home was like a vacation spot for them.
00:21:09.580 | I maybe get a new fresh thing of clothes or something.
00:21:12.620 | I mean, I couldn't believe being away.
00:21:15.420 | There were a few times where we were gone for as long as 10 weeks from our place.
00:21:19.300 | And that felt like a really long time.
00:21:20.900 | I can't imagine being three to four months away from home before coming back.
00:21:25.140 | I mean, it'd be like going out to sea or something.
00:21:28.500 | How did you know when it was time to quit?
00:21:30.700 | Yeah, well, I'll let Deb chime in on that.
00:21:34.060 | Well, I was experiencing some poor health issues that weren't related to trucking, but
00:21:38.380 | were kind of exacerbated by it.
00:21:40.660 | And so we had weighed our options and realized that if we were going to get off the road,
00:21:46.380 | now was the time.
00:21:47.380 | It would be better sooner rather than later.
00:21:49.300 | And so we started looking into what our options after life on the road would be.
00:21:53.620 | And through a lot of providential design, actually, we came across Bismarck, North Dakota
00:21:58.820 | and decided that that seemed to be a very appropriate fit, which seemed really strange
00:22:05.500 | because we were, in all of our time on the road, we had often made lists in our minds,
00:22:09.820 | you know, like, "Oh, if we ever move from Oregon, this is where we'd want to live,"
00:22:13.700 | or "This is definitely where we wouldn't want to live."
00:22:15.740 | And Bismarck, North Dakota had never been on that list.
00:22:18.460 | Nowhere in North Dakota had been on that list.
00:22:21.220 | But then it just seemed to, everything fell into place.
00:22:23.700 | And there was a lot of peace about that decision.
00:22:25.540 | And so we had decided it was shortly after Thanksgiving one year.
00:22:30.500 | And then by Christmas time, we had put a deposit on an apartment and moved to Bismarck in early
00:22:36.620 | February and haven't looked back.
00:22:38.460 | So it was really good timing for us to get off the road in a lot of ways.
00:22:42.060 | We didn't see it all at the time, obviously, but it's worked out very, very well since
00:22:46.380 | then.
00:22:47.380 | You stole the next question out of my mouth.
00:22:49.620 | I was going to say, in seeing all these areas of the country, what did you learn and what
00:22:55.020 | are your perspectives about different areas?
00:22:57.940 | And since you started the answer with Bismarck, what is it about Bismarck that you like compared
00:23:02.500 | to all the places that you've been?
00:23:04.220 | Well, it's hard to get a real feel for the community when you're out on the road.
00:23:09.740 | You can get a feel for just the area driving through.
00:23:14.460 | One of my favorite places to drive, this is often a question that people ask, "Where did
00:23:17.660 | you like to drive the most?"
00:23:18.660 | And the answer is always Nebraska, always Nebraska.
00:23:21.580 | And I ate in Nebraska because there's very few people, even Omaha, a city of over 400,000
00:23:26.940 | people, which may seem really small to some of your listeners, but that's kind of a big
00:23:30.700 | deal in the Plains States.
00:23:33.460 | Even in rush hour traffic, you never had to drive below 55 miles per hour.
00:23:38.820 | It was just very smooth driving and the rest of the state was just wide open Plains and
00:23:42.660 | very easy to drive through.
00:23:44.460 | In short, it was easy money.
00:23:47.180 | For truck drivers, for us, I know other guys thought it to be boring, but for me, I loved
00:23:50.460 | it.
00:23:51.460 | It was just so much money.
00:23:52.460 | You could easily listen to other stuff while you're going down the road, listen to books
00:23:55.780 | on tape and that sort of thing.
00:23:58.860 | We ate going up through the Plains States whenever we could.
00:24:01.260 | Other parts of the country, oh my Lord, it's so congested.
00:24:05.020 | You really earned your money.
00:24:06.020 | You had to be paying attention and just stay calm and patient and work with traffic.
00:24:11.340 | But once we found and settled in Bismarck, there are the stereotypes that people have
00:24:17.980 | about North Dakota, that you get that North Dakota nice and people give you the shirt
00:24:23.060 | off the back.
00:24:24.420 | We weren't quite sure what to expect.
00:24:26.020 | We just thought people talked weird.
00:24:28.100 | But once we got here, it's just one of the most amazing communities that I've ever had
00:24:31.420 | the privilege of being part of.
00:24:33.420 | That's what made us want to stick around.
00:24:35.260 | We thought maybe that this would just be kind of a temporary thing for us to finish paying
00:24:39.340 | off the last of our student loan debt and then we'd end up moving elsewhere.
00:24:44.020 | It providentially has not worked out that way and we're very thankful for that.
00:24:48.140 | Aaron Powell You both had college degrees before working
00:24:51.620 | in trucking.
00:24:52.620 | I've designed this scenario in my mind as kind of a radical financial plan of using
00:24:57.940 | trucking as a base of operations to become educated in an area and to start a business.
00:25:04.220 | I'll just tell you kind of what I've sketched out in my head as what might work and then
00:25:08.700 | you feel free to shoot holes in it.
00:25:10.180 | But it seemed to me that if somebody went into trucking, a single person with few family
00:25:18.300 | connections that they needed to be in a certain place, they could use trucking as a way to
00:25:24.300 | become extremely well educated, establish a starting fund to launch their life or to
00:25:31.300 | launch a business and to – it's just a really good integrated way.
00:25:37.540 | So if a single person were very flexible and they could not worry with the home base or
00:25:43.460 | they could just simply rent a cheap room somewhere and sometimes they go back to that room for
00:25:48.220 | their week off.
00:25:49.620 | Sometimes they just take a week in a hotel in some other location.
00:25:52.720 | But given those restrictions on the time, the amount of time that you can do on the
00:25:55.940 | road, you're going to have some time sitting around where you're not going to be driving
00:26:00.540 | and you're not going to be sleeping.
00:26:01.540 | I always go into the truck stops.
00:26:02.980 | I love to go to truck stops when I travel and I just see so many drivers just sitting
00:26:06.340 | there watching TV.
00:26:08.580 | And I'm sure that – I'm sure – and I – you walk around – I walk – I always
00:26:11.700 | love to walk around the parking lot if I'm walking my dogs or something at night and
00:26:15.260 | it seems like every other truck cab has the TV going.
00:26:18.460 | And I just think, "Man, you guys are wasting an opportunity for education."
00:26:23.300 | Take some of that time and sit in your truck, get yourself a nice meal and get some books,
00:26:26.860 | do some correspondence classes.
00:26:29.100 | With the time that you can spend consuming audio content, you can stream YouTube lectures,
00:26:34.180 | you can stream all kinds of things.
00:26:35.620 | You could become so well-educated in a few years.
00:26:38.660 | You could save a ton of money.
00:26:40.140 | And so any young – I guess you need to be 18 to get a CDL or 21.
00:26:44.700 | Do you know?
00:26:45.700 | 21.
00:26:46.700 | OK.
00:26:47.700 | So a young – it doesn't work for a teenager.
00:26:48.700 | But somebody who's 21 years old who doesn't have resources could use trucking as a way
00:26:53.940 | to earn an income, save a lot of money, keep their expenses low, do it for three or four
00:26:59.180 | years, become extremely well-educated in a certain area with being able to read during
00:27:03.580 | their time off, buying audio books on tape in their area or using some of the technology
00:27:09.100 | now of text-to-speech reading, the Kindle reading, things like that to consume some
00:27:13.300 | of the books that don't have audio books, listening to podcasts, lectures.
00:27:17.940 | And then you have time in the evenings or whenever time during the day that you're
00:27:22.220 | stopped.
00:27:23.220 | You can take a couple hours every day and use that time to study and just really launch
00:27:28.340 | in a really intelligent way.
00:27:30.800 | Is that possible or am I just delusional?
00:27:34.620 | You are 100% accurate.
00:27:37.220 | Ben often made the comment whenever we were really getting into the thick of things with
00:27:40.800 | driving and once we had discovered podcasts and iTunes U and all these different things
00:27:46.180 | that we could immerse ourselves in education-wise, he would often say, "Man, I don't know
00:27:52.260 | why I ever decided to go to college.
00:27:54.340 | I should have just driven in a truck and got my education this way because I wouldn't
00:27:58.180 | have all this student loan debt to pay off."
00:27:59.740 | So you are very like-minded with Ben and his thoughts there, Joshua.
00:28:03.520 | Yeah.
00:28:04.520 | I mean, you just take the amount of student loan debt.
00:28:06.160 | How much student loan debt total did you guys pay off?
00:28:08.480 | Well, student loan debt plus some of our credit card debt or retail debt, we had about $160,000
00:28:14.200 | total and we paid off a little over $100,000 while we were on the road.
00:28:18.160 | Okay.
00:28:19.160 | So let's just use that $100,000 number.
00:28:21.440 | And how many years were you working together doing this full-time to pay off that $100,000?
00:28:26.000 | Two and a half years.
00:28:28.000 | It was, but really the first six months of that, it was just a break even because we
00:28:31.260 | were so little paid.
00:28:33.060 | So I mean, you'd have to look at this in the first six months.
00:28:35.020 | You're not going to make a lot of money, but it starts to pick up after that point.
00:28:38.800 | Which is reasonable.
00:28:39.860 | So let's assume that somebody could do what you did.
00:28:41.860 | To be able to start and pretend they didn't have the student loan debt, to be able to
00:28:45.340 | start with $100,000, $100,000 is enough to buy you a huge measure of financial freedom.
00:28:53.140 | It's enough to fund the startup of a business.
00:28:56.740 | It's enough to fund seed capital, to fund various investments.
00:29:00.320 | $100,000 is down payments on rental houses.
00:29:03.580 | $100,000 is seed company for all kinds of things.
00:29:06.900 | $100,000 is enough for anybody who wants to have a freedom fund that they can use and
00:29:12.820 | leverage that into just about anything else.
00:29:15.700 | So in two and a half years, by cutting the expenses and having the lower expenses associated
00:29:21.420 | with the trucking lifestyle and having the income and having the dual use of the time,
00:29:25.580 | just about any normal person can learn to drive a truck and have a freedom fund in two
00:29:30.660 | and a half years.
00:29:31.660 | Yep.
00:29:32.660 | No, that really isn't unrealistic at all, actually.
00:29:36.100 | Because Deb and I both hadn't had our master's degrees fully completed either when we were
00:29:40.220 | over the road.
00:29:41.220 | So I finished my master's thesis while driving and she completed her and prepared for her
00:29:44.940 | comprehensive exams while driving.
00:29:47.740 | So I mean, it does lend itself to even in-depth study.
00:29:51.380 | I mean, there are limitations.
00:29:53.180 | I mean, there are some of the challenges we faced, somebody would face.
00:29:57.940 | Life is so varied and jostled.
00:29:59.900 | And as much as you try to keep a schedule, there could be so many things that would just
00:30:03.760 | mess up your plans.
00:30:05.180 | And so you have to have a willingness to be flexible and just kind of let things come
00:30:08.900 | as they play out.
00:30:12.140 | Because of that jostling, it would be hard to stay motivated or focused.
00:30:16.780 | Sometimes all you wanted to do was just rest or just get out of the truck too, honestly.
00:30:21.300 | I mean, it's an eight by eight foot box is all you're staying in.
00:30:26.060 | But that said, I mean, I think if you were focused enough, determined enough, and we
00:30:29.540 | were pretty, we were able to take advantage of it.
00:30:32.100 | Because even when you have 10 hours off, the other person's driving and you're in the back
00:30:36.220 | sleeping, you don't sleep the whole 10 hours.
00:30:39.700 | I mean, it was only a handful of times that either one of us conked out and stayed asleep
00:30:43.820 | the entire time in the back.
00:30:45.100 | A lot of times, at least for me in particular, the time that I ran, I'd just sleep for three
00:30:50.100 | or four hours, then I'd be awake for three or four hours.
00:30:53.220 | And that's when I would work on other things.
00:30:54.620 | I mean, I'd go back to sleep for another two to three and then get ready to go for my next
00:30:58.380 | shift.
00:30:59.380 | So.
00:31:00.380 | Yeah.
00:31:01.380 | So since then, you've gone on and you started a financial planning business.
00:31:06.460 | So tell me about kind of this transition and how you actually exited truck driving to do
00:31:12.460 | financial planning and how truck driving still plays a role in your current lifestyle.
00:31:16.340 | Right.
00:31:17.340 | Well, I mean, I had got interested in finance business investing way back in grad school.
00:31:24.260 | A fellow classmate of mine was already running a few businesses.
00:31:29.460 | And honestly, I'm not even quite sure why he decided to pursue a master's degree in
00:31:32.620 | philosophy, but he did.
00:31:34.540 | And he turned me on to some of this stuff.
00:31:36.780 | So it was already in my mind before we started driving truck.
00:31:39.980 | But we eventually stumbled upon Dave Ramsey and his radio program and what he had offered.
00:31:46.220 | I mean, that was one of the other fun things is you could listen forever.
00:31:48.980 | You know, I mean, the podcast weren't quite as prominent as they are like today, but I
00:31:54.340 | mean, they were they were around.
00:31:56.020 | But I mean, Dave Ramsey's radio show, we both listened to it for three hours a day.
00:31:59.900 | So that really got our interest peaked when it came to finance.
00:32:02.660 | That really helped, too, with maintaining our focus and commitment and dedication to
00:32:05.860 | what we were doing and getting about gazelle intensity.
00:32:08.380 | Yeah, right.
00:32:09.380 | You know, every day, you know, we have Dave telling us, you stay focused, stay focused,
00:32:13.420 | stay focused.
00:32:14.420 | And I mean, it was good.
00:32:15.420 | It was like a coaching for us as we were living day in, day out on the on the road.
00:32:20.620 | So he actually was the one who introduced the idea of becoming a CFP.
00:32:24.220 | A few people had inquired about how maybe they could make a career helping others financially.
00:32:28.440 | I had no idea even up to that point.
00:32:30.340 | I had studied five or six years, a lot of it just for personal reasons as a hobby.
00:32:34.860 | But yeah, he he suggested you could become a CFP.
00:32:37.780 | And I had never heard of that before, you know.
00:32:39.980 | And so I checked into that.
00:32:41.380 | And that's when I started tossing that around as a potential career move once we finished
00:32:46.100 | with truck driving, because we always knew it to be a temporary thing.
00:32:48.740 | We wanted to do it as well.
00:32:50.420 | We want to do it for a lot of reasons.
00:32:51.780 | But one of them, the main reasons was student loan repayment.
00:32:54.860 | And the other is you're newly married and we're young and we're like, what the heck?
00:32:58.940 | Let's go see the country.
00:32:59.940 | This will be fun.
00:33:00.940 | We're going to get paid to do this.
00:33:02.140 | So but long term wise, I didn't want to continue truck driving forever.
00:33:05.600 | So it's like, well, how are we going to transition?
00:33:07.720 | So yeah, I mean, I had considered quite a few options.
00:33:12.380 | I had given thought maybe to going back to academia and pursuing a doctorate and maybe
00:33:18.740 | resuming a career path, teaching philosophy at a college.
00:33:23.180 | But it just seemed to me, I suppose, to make the most sense to continue on a finance.
00:33:27.260 | I saw that as just a better, better alternative.
00:33:29.940 | So it's been something that's been in the works in terms of getting this business off
00:33:33.540 | the ground for probably five years or better now.
00:33:36.700 | And it's yeah, we're slowly, slowly getting together.
00:33:38.900 | We've officially launched last year and we're really catering to the younger generations,
00:33:44.660 | folks who are in the XY generation and trying to help them.
00:33:49.080 | If you could look at kind of a financial trajectory, it's almost like an air flight.
00:33:52.780 | You know, you have your takeoff and then you get up to kind of a cruising altitude and
00:33:56.860 | then you go and land.
00:33:58.280 | I think a lot of financial planning is geared towards people who are in that coasting mode.
00:34:02.500 | You know, they've reached their high altitude phase and now they're looking maybe eventually
00:34:05.940 | to land the plane.
00:34:07.420 | Not a lot's being given to the people who are on the front side of things.
00:34:10.460 | And that's where I want to be putting my focus and effort and assistance to for clients.
00:34:14.260 | So you're building, your firm is called Bonafide Finance and you're building kind of the model
00:34:20.420 | we've talked about many times, the XY planning network model of small practice working with
00:34:26.100 | younger couples doing fees that are not just based upon assets under management but based
00:34:30.980 | either on an hourly or retainer model.
00:34:32.580 | Is that accurate?
00:34:33.580 | Yeah, right.
00:34:34.580 | And it's, you know, a fee for service too.
00:34:36.180 | So I have some specific selected services that I would offer either kind of a comprehensive
00:34:40.620 | plan or a plan broken up in parts and then you're paying for specific parts.
00:34:44.900 | So depending on maybe what a client would need or want.
00:34:48.300 | Yeah, you know, giving some, in my opinion, third party objective advice to a person's
00:34:54.860 | circumstances and kind of giving them direction and guidance as to where they got to go and
00:34:59.220 | what they need to do right now in their finances.
00:35:01.620 | What I have found to be really powerful about that is because there isn't any involvement
00:35:05.300 | of a product, people really take to heart that when I say you need to, let's say, get
00:35:11.420 | long-term disability, they don't bat an eye on it.
00:35:14.220 | They're like, "Oh, okay.
00:35:15.220 | I had no idea that that was such an important component to our finances.
00:35:19.700 | We're going to look into that right away."
00:35:20.940 | You know, I mean, now there's still a question of how much they can afford, maybe what exactly
00:35:25.780 | is the right plan for them.
00:35:27.660 | But in terms of communicating the urgency to people, it seems to me a very effective
00:35:33.940 | way for people to come across and get the message that this is something you need.
00:35:40.220 | With regard to your, you're in the startup phase still, the business, working on it for
00:35:44.580 | a couple of years, you're still driving a truck, right?
00:35:47.260 | It's a way to part-time produce extra income.
00:35:49.900 | Is that right?
00:35:50.900 | Yeah.
00:35:51.900 | So I mean, one of the things that did bring us out to Bismarck, it's kind of a long story
00:35:55.060 | in that regard, but the parent company of one of the child companies that was working
00:36:02.180 | out of Central Oregon resides in Bismarck.
00:36:04.780 | And so the idea early on was maybe I would come on over here as a truck driver with a
00:36:09.180 | larger company, and then maybe we could find out a way to get relocated back to Central
00:36:12.540 | Oregon, just because we liked it there so much.
00:36:14.420 | And it's a really, really beautiful area.
00:36:16.460 | I mean, the whole Northwest, people aren't familiar with the Pacific Northwest, they
00:36:19.740 | should go and visit.
00:36:20.740 | It's gorgeous.
00:36:21.980 | But yeah, that initial plan had fallen through.
00:36:26.460 | I decided to get on with an insurance company here locally early on and try to make a go
00:36:30.740 | of financial planning then.
00:36:31.980 | And that was my first introduction in the business and started to see how things were
00:36:36.340 | done.
00:36:37.340 | And honestly, some of it was kind of a surprise in terms of what was being done was different
00:36:40.540 | from what I was expecting.
00:36:42.500 | But when that arrangement didn't fully pan out, I decided to go back to local truck driving.
00:36:48.580 | So none of this is over the road, what I currently do.
00:36:50.980 | I work with the part of the business that's called LTL, that's on a full truckload.
00:36:55.700 | And I run what's called a dedicated route, in which freight more or less makes its way
00:36:59.220 | up to our terminal here in Bismarck.
00:37:02.460 | And then I'm the one who delivers it for the customers up into the specific region of the
00:37:06.700 | state that has been assigned to me.
00:37:08.980 | So I run that route twice a week and make my deliveries.
00:37:15.940 | I go out and I come back in the same day.
00:37:18.180 | And honestly, it's really come to be rather enjoyable for me.
00:37:21.500 | I like running that route, but it's also given me the flexibility to focus on running the
00:37:26.660 | business.
00:37:27.660 | I still get about 30 hours worth of work in those two days.
00:37:31.180 | And then I have the other five days of the week to focus and work on the business and
00:37:34.660 | meet and work with clients.
00:37:36.220 | Do you have a guess of what your hourly rate is running a route like that?
00:37:41.100 | Well, it is paid hourly.
00:37:42.860 | So I mean, there's some parts of the LTL business that are paid by the mile.
00:37:46.900 | But the work that I do as a pickup and delivery driver is paid hourly.
00:37:49.540 | So yeah, right now I'm making $25 an hour.
00:37:52.580 | If you wanted to do this from a long term perspective, I mean, there's some other carriers
00:37:55.960 | that pay better for sure.
00:37:57.140 | And I know of them to be as much as $27 to $29 an hour.
00:38:00.820 | But you know, the exact payout that's just going to be dependent upon local demand for
00:38:04.100 | truck drivers and where you're at in the country.
00:38:06.540 | Here locally with the oil boom that took place, that really pushed the hourly wages up for
00:38:11.500 | drivers.
00:38:12.500 | So I'm really benefiting from the local boom that took place.
00:38:16.060 | My wage is I think higher than the average driver for the standard of living that we
00:38:19.740 | have.
00:38:20.740 | That's great.
00:38:21.740 | The reason why I point that out, I think a lot of people often would see doing something
00:38:27.100 | like you're doing as a negative thing.
00:38:29.500 | They say, "Well, you're a financial planner but you're a truck driver.
00:38:32.380 | Like these things don't usually go well together."
00:38:37.060 | But to me, I see it as a positive because it allows you to do a couple of things.
00:38:40.860 | I've done the same thing with Radical Personal Finance, working on the side.
00:38:44.020 | If you have to put all of the pressure on a new business to make you income in the short
00:38:48.820 | term, it can be very challenging to get a business from nothing to profitable enough
00:38:53.860 | to run your lifestyle in a short period of time, especially if you're trying to not sacrifice
00:38:59.260 | your integrity or not sacrifice your principles or if you're trying something new.
00:39:03.500 | So having a side job can be really, really valuable.
00:39:07.980 | Working as a truck driver is almost the perfect type of side job to have where you are in
00:39:13.180 | some ways your commodity.
00:39:14.820 | You're just a driver.
00:39:15.820 | You show up.
00:39:16.820 | You do your job.
00:39:17.820 | Once your job is done and the load is there and the truck is parked back at the depot,
00:39:21.180 | you're done.
00:39:22.180 | There's nothing about the job that follows you home.
00:39:23.940 | You don't have to deal with any stress of those things.
00:39:25.860 | You're just working while you're working and when you're not working, you're not working.
00:39:30.460 | Because there's licensing requirements and professional experience requirements, that
00:39:35.580 | raises your hourly wage substantially and it can be a great way to spend and take a
00:39:40.420 | couple of days and make some money to make it worth it.
00:39:43.220 | That allows you to buy your independence because you wouldn't be able to start without that.
00:39:47.580 | It would be very difficult to start a financial planning firm from scratch where everything
00:39:51.140 | is on you and be able to do it profitably from the beginning without burning through
00:39:55.340 | a tremendous amount of savings.
00:39:57.340 | So I point it out as a positive benefit because it allows you to keep your independence.
00:40:03.080 | It allows you to keep your business model pure.
00:40:05.500 | You don't have to sacrifice anything that's important to you in order to gain enough money
00:40:10.300 | from some other aspect.
00:40:12.100 | I think that is something that many people should seriously always consider looking for
00:40:16.900 | is the type of thing that you're doing where you can gain income without being emotionally
00:40:27.060 | committed to the future of the side job.
00:40:29.700 | >> Sean Esterly: Right.
00:40:31.700 | I can't say it's a perfect setup that I have right now.
00:40:34.180 | I don't know if I could have dreamt up an even better setup.
00:40:36.980 | And some of it comes to the company that I work for.
00:40:39.540 | It's a local outfit that's headquartered out of Fargo here.
00:40:43.140 | They're mostly an upper Midwest company.
00:40:44.940 | But what's kind of a typical saying you might hear, they're large enough to make it work
00:40:51.220 | but small enough to care.
00:40:53.940 | They have still kind of a mom and pop family atmosphere to them even though they're probably
00:40:57.780 | 750 employees large or something.
00:41:01.320 | And so I know the managers directly.
00:41:04.100 | We all know each other very well.
00:41:05.460 | And so they know exactly what I'm up to.
00:41:07.140 | They know that I'm trying to get this business going.
00:41:09.220 | They're happy to see me try to do it.
00:41:11.580 | They think it's great of me.
00:41:13.320 | And they're kind of willing to help me succeed.
00:41:16.580 | They want to work with me.
00:41:18.700 | But at the same time, I'm also doing a route that a lot of other drivers don't want to
00:41:22.100 | run.
00:41:23.100 | And to be honest, I don't understand why it is.
00:41:25.180 | The route that I have, it takes about three hours to get up there.
00:41:28.860 | And then depending on just the freight we have for the day, when the deliveries are
00:41:31.580 | at and potential holdups that you might have with each of the deliveries, it'll take anywhere
00:41:35.580 | between four to six hours to get unloaded.
00:41:37.180 | And then it's three hours back and then maybe some dock work.
00:41:40.300 | So the days tend to be long.
00:41:41.420 | I mean, it's usually about 14 hours.
00:41:43.820 | They've been as long as 16 hours for me.
00:41:46.180 | But I mean, I've got three hours of driving, six hours total coming and going to be able
00:41:52.140 | to listen to podcasts, to do other things, to think or just take a break and enjoy the
00:41:57.180 | prairie, honestly.
00:41:58.180 | I live in a really beautiful part of the country and it's quiet.
00:42:01.380 | It's easy driving.
00:42:02.380 | I mean, short of the winters that can be tough, sledding, you know, use that expression.
00:42:08.340 | But not every day is that way.
00:42:09.580 | Even during the wintertime, I have a lot of freedom to just kind of do what I need to
00:42:13.220 | do and pursue that.
00:42:15.020 | And the company I have, again, is supportive.
00:42:19.020 | They think it's kind of great that I'm doing this too and I'm not going to just be a truck
00:42:22.340 | driver.
00:42:23.340 | That's great.
00:42:24.340 | I'm with you.
00:42:25.340 | I like driving.
00:42:26.340 | If someone would pay me $25 an hour to go out and drive two days a week, I don't know.
00:42:30.700 | I'd be tempted by that because I enjoy it.
00:42:32.500 | I like driving.
00:42:33.500 | It's one of my things.
00:42:35.700 | I enjoy it.
00:42:39.140 | I like being out on the road.
00:42:40.140 | One of my happiest places is being behind a wheel with the interstate in front of me.
00:42:45.380 | Well, and honestly, once you add the gears, I mean, it's a 10-speed transmission.
00:42:49.180 | So you just get used to it.
00:42:51.260 | You're shifting and you got air brakes and the whole bit.
00:42:53.420 | I mean, there's a lot I love about driving.
00:42:54.980 | I feel like a man.
00:42:55.980 | I know.
00:42:56.980 | Well, I've got a beard now to go with it.
00:42:57.980 | I feel like I'm the truck driver.
00:42:58.980 | You put on your flannel shirt and someday soon, you'll probably start chewing tobacco
00:43:07.980 | to fit in.
00:43:08.980 | I'm going to put a stop somewhere.
00:43:09.980 | I might interfere with the wife.
00:43:10.980 | Indeed.
00:43:11.980 | Indeed.
00:43:12.980 | Well, awesome.
00:43:13.980 | Ben, Deb, this has been really fun.
00:43:18.820 | Is there anything else or any words of wisdom, even speaking to truck drivers, anything else
00:43:22.980 | that you'd love to share with my audience about ways to really use this idea or other
00:43:27.740 | ideas to capitalize and improve their own financial lives?
00:43:31.420 | I would just say that you have to be open and realistic that life demands sacrifice,
00:43:36.940 | no matter how you look at it, no matter what your end game is.
00:43:41.280 | You need to sacrifice sometimes in little ways, sometimes in big ways, but that can
00:43:45.180 | really give you a big payoff.
00:43:46.540 | I mean, when we first started off trucking, I certainly never thought we'd be and ended
00:43:50.380 | up living in North Dakota with the life that we have now, live now, but we never would
00:43:54.220 | have gotten here had we not taken the steps we did and drove all those miles we did and
00:43:58.340 | had that experience of truck driving.
00:44:00.580 | So it was a lot of fun, but it was also a sacrifice in a lot of ways.
00:44:04.140 | I mean, we kind of glorify it a little bit in our memory, I think, but you deal with
00:44:10.580 | a lot of frustration.
00:44:11.820 | And so there is some hardship that comes with it, but it's worth every bit of sacrifice,
00:44:16.940 | not only with over-the-road truck driving, but also with the driving that Ben is doing
00:44:20.380 | now in the midst of working on his business.
00:44:24.060 | But it's so worthwhile.
00:44:25.940 | You see the end game in sight, and you've got to charge through sometimes to get to
00:44:29.500 | that point, but it's worth it every single time.
00:44:32.940 | Right.
00:44:33.940 | Well, and then, honestly, truck driving is not a bad career.
00:44:37.240 | In terms of blue-collar work, it's probably some of the best work you can get out there.
00:44:40.260 | I mean, right now, I do LTL work, so I actually move the freight.
00:44:44.660 | So I mean, it's a little more labor-intensive, which I actually kind of enjoy.
00:44:47.780 | I mean, my workout twice a week is my job.
00:44:51.500 | I don't have to pay any extra for it.
00:44:53.220 | And I mean, some of my pallets, I move up to 3,000 to 4,000 pounds.
00:44:56.100 | I mean, that's not common, but they do get that heavy.
00:44:58.740 | And yeah, I mean, you build some bulk to be able to do the job.
00:45:04.700 | But I mean, I don't know, even just over-the-road truck driving, if you're willing to pursue
00:45:09.260 | some of the more special lines of hauling, it can pay very well for you.
00:45:13.380 | I mean, because things you may not think about, but I mean, like a museum art exhibit that
00:45:17.820 | has to be moved around from the country has to be hauled by a truck driver.
00:45:21.480 | And so a lot of times, they're responsible, too, for the loading and unloading the freight.
00:45:25.460 | You can step into that.
00:45:26.460 | Baseball teams, concerts, I'm trying to think of some of the other more special lines, you
00:45:31.260 | know, oversize, over-length, those sort of loads, which require a good bit of experience
00:45:36.900 | to get into.
00:45:37.900 | But once you get into that, that can be a very good paying line of work, even on a long-term
00:45:42.020 | basis.
00:45:43.020 | I have to be honest, every now and again, I'm tempted.
00:45:44.500 | I'm like, well, maybe I'm at a point now where I've driven enough, I have a clean up enough
00:45:48.620 | of a record, it's sometimes tempting, like maybe I should just pursue that, you know,
00:45:53.020 | that would be a nice, could be a nice career path.
00:45:55.740 | The work isn't that intensive for once it is, once you learn it.
00:45:59.380 | And it pays well for the amount of time it took you to become a truck driver.
00:46:04.900 | I would also certainly, just as kind of a closing thought here, recommend for those
00:46:08.780 | that are nearing retirement age, we've often talked that once we hit that, or once our
00:46:14.060 | daughter or any possible future children are out of the house, that we would like to go
00:46:17.300 | back to trucking just because it was such an enjoyable time, and you get paid for it.
00:46:21.620 | So what's not to love about that?
00:46:23.620 | You get to see the country, you get a lot of great experiences, eat some great food
00:46:26.780 | and get paid very well.
00:46:28.020 | You reminded me of one other thing, though, that I need to ask you about real quick.
00:46:34.340 | Because in closing up, and just one comment on what you said.
00:46:38.340 | Trucking is a great career, I'll phrase it in the form of a question.
00:46:42.580 | Obviously you've seen, trucking would be a great career with the exception of if you
00:46:46.980 | have a family, right?
00:46:47.980 | I mean, I just see some of these men especially who are out on the road, like you said, when
00:46:52.380 | you're on the road weeks at a time, even if you can just call home and talk to your family
00:46:57.420 | every night or every day, that's still nothing like being there.
00:47:02.220 | And so it would seem to me that, yeah, husband and wife couple out together, that could be
00:47:06.580 | really good, but I would have a very difficult time recommending over the road trucking as
00:47:11.740 | a career to anyone with a family.
00:47:13.620 | Am I accurate in that?
00:47:14.620 | - Absolutely.
00:47:15.620 | - Yeah, that is definitely accurate.
00:47:16.620 | And it is the thing to keep in mind.
00:47:18.820 | I mean, the industry is aware of this.
00:47:21.620 | I mean, right now there's a shortage of drivers, so I mean, they know they need to be doing
00:47:25.420 | more to try to make it more appealing to folks to try to step up and do this.
00:47:29.620 | It's an older generation, older, I don't remember what the average age is for drivers, but I
00:47:34.540 | know it's higher than what the industry would like it to be.
00:47:37.820 | But it's because of those challenges of how can we make this work where we need a driver
00:47:43.540 | who's flexible and can be anywhere and go anywhere at any time, but who's also able
00:47:48.020 | to support a family and actually be at home.
00:47:50.700 | Because I met plenty of guys who were trying to do that, and it was just, it was the pits
00:47:56.100 | for them because you'd get home for three to four days and you would just want to use
00:47:59.660 | those time, that time just to rest yourself, to kind of recuperate from the jostled schedule
00:48:05.500 | that you have as a truck driver.
00:48:07.540 | And then there'd be this long hunting to-do list that you'd like to get to, but by the
00:48:11.140 | time you finally got somewhat acquainted and to schedule it back home, it was time to go
00:48:15.460 | back on the road.
00:48:16.460 | And so, I don't know, it definitely is not the life for someone who's got a young family
00:48:21.860 | especially, but really a family at all.
00:48:24.400 | It's better suited if you're either single or, well, you're an older couple who is wanting
00:48:29.060 | to retire.
00:48:30.060 | Honestly, if you're looking to retire, I couldn't recommend it enough.
00:48:33.140 | I do think it would be a great, it does have its takeaways and there are plenty of stuff
00:48:38.260 | to learn and things to do and not to do.
00:48:39.900 | But yeah, I think if you're an older couple and you wanted to use truck driving as a retirement
00:48:44.540 | plan, it wouldn't be a bad idea at all.
00:48:46.540 | - So the other question I was going to ask is, there are other methods or ways that you
00:48:51.020 | could get into driving as an income source that doesn't necessarily involve a semi-truck.
00:49:00.140 | So for example, I've spent some time sometimes poking around the expediter forums online
00:49:06.780 | reading about these guys and they're driving a van and they're doing expedited freight,
00:49:10.660 | hauling a couple of pallets in a big white van from one destination to another.
00:49:15.220 | Could you just touch briefly on some of the other business models if somebody wanted to
00:49:19.100 | pursue something like this but they didn't necessarily want to drive an 18-wheeler and
00:49:23.740 | talk about the advantages and disadvantages of those models?
00:49:26.380 | - Right, I mean that's not something I'm as familiar with but towards the end of our time,
00:49:31.140 | we were certainly giving serious consideration becoming owner-operators.
00:49:33.780 | Because again, I haven't gone into the detail of that.
00:49:36.620 | There was one driver I came across, one of the big reasons for why I started considering
00:49:41.020 | is we happened to talk to a guy from the Northeast and we met up with him in Portland, Oregon
00:49:46.700 | at a truck stop watching a baseball or a football game.
00:49:50.260 | And he hauled veneer panels from the Northeast out to Central Oregon to have them applied
00:49:55.580 | to plywood so that they could then be shipped back out to Chicago.
00:49:59.020 | So some of this stuff is nuts too.
00:50:00.580 | First of all, the routes, you have to get something all the way from the Northeast out
00:50:02.940 | to the West Coast, they only go back East.
00:50:05.800 | But he got paid just for that one shipment from the Northeast out to Central Oregon.
00:50:11.460 | It took him about four days as a solo driver and he got paid about eight grand to cover
00:50:16.080 | all this cost, more or less per week to do that.
00:50:18.860 | And then he would have freight already set up to take him back.
00:50:21.740 | And so he had in his own particular circumstance, I mean, he only had to work about nine months
00:50:25.940 | out of the year, he had great flexibility.
00:50:28.780 | And he was making about 100 grand, I think.
00:50:31.300 | I mean, this was netting each year for that nine months worth of work and really opened
00:50:35.140 | up the doors for him to do a lot of other activities.
00:50:38.220 | So I mean, I was like, wow, owner-operator, this could be kind of sweet.
00:50:41.060 | There's a lot of good pay potentially there and flexibility.
00:50:45.040 | So one of the aspects then of trucking is called custom critical or the expedited side
00:50:52.060 | of the business where folks need something that's either highly secure or highly time
00:50:56.980 | sensitive and needs to go with great urgency.
00:51:00.980 | And you don't have to necessarily haul an 18-wheeler, although there are custom critical
00:51:04.260 | 18-wheeler divisions, but a lot of them are just straight vans with a very nice sleeper.
00:51:08.740 | They tend to have a much nicer sleeper than you have in your typical semi.
00:51:13.580 | And people just go around in a straight truck moving freight.
00:51:16.360 | It's kind of like an ambulance-like setup.
00:51:18.960 | Once you get the call for the freight to be moved, you have to stop and drop everything
00:51:22.400 | you do and move.
00:51:23.600 | But yeah, the pay in that sort of circumstances is pretty good.
00:51:28.120 | So if you didn't want to drive an 18-wheeler and that would be intimidating to you, although
00:51:32.240 | I have to say after doing it for as long as I do, I mean, I feel like it's just a big
00:51:35.160 | SUV to me anymore.
00:51:36.160 | I mean, I'm really used to them.
00:51:38.120 | But if you found an 18-wheeler to be too intimidating, there are other smaller versions of over the
00:51:44.100 | road life that you could pursue in many ways to pay just as well as an 18-wheeler if not
00:51:49.860 | better.
00:51:50.860 | Yeah.
00:51:51.860 | And there are other ways to get into the business as a part-time thing or with less financial
00:51:57.140 | risk than buying a multi-hundred thousand dollar semi truck.
00:52:00.660 | So I see guys, I talk to the guys that are running a one-ton pickup truck hauling three
00:52:05.740 | or four cars.
00:52:06.900 | You can haul cars.
00:52:08.580 | You can drive the van and do expedited freight.
00:52:10.940 | There's all kinds of little niches just like any business and you can find something that
00:52:14.640 | fits you and your personality and your goals.
00:52:19.900 | I talk to some of the expediters.
00:52:21.460 | You just spot them in a white van usually sitting at a truck stop and just talk to them.
00:52:26.420 | And some of them really love that lifestyle because they have more free time and they
00:52:29.900 | don't mind just being at the call of the – they don't mind being all of a sudden sent from
00:52:36.460 | here to there because they have more free time than perhaps you might as a company driver.
00:52:41.760 | So there are different ways just like with anything.
00:52:44.660 | Well, awesome.
00:52:45.660 | Ben, tell us about – you have your website for your business in case anybody would like
00:52:49.660 | to connect with you for your financial planning expertise and also do you want to publish
00:52:54.300 | the blog that you guys wrote when you were on the road actively?
00:52:56.540 | Yeah, sure.
00:52:57.540 | I mean that would be fun.
00:52:58.540 | My wife was the main person to write on that.
00:53:00.220 | I really – we were just looking through some of her posts yesterday.
00:53:03.060 | She has such a nice style I think in terms of writing.
00:53:05.100 | It captures a lot of just the moods that we had in terms of driving and different things.
00:53:09.700 | So it's been a good memoir of sorts.
00:53:12.460 | So that blog, I'll let Deb chime in on that because she knows it better than I do.
00:53:16.820 | The web address is trucku42, all spelled out, dot blogspot.com.
00:53:22.420 | So T-R-U-C-K-Y-O-U-F-O-R-T-W-O dot blogspot.com and then for all the trucking posts, it's
00:53:32.580 | just a backslash trucking and that will hold up or pull up all of the posts that we had
00:53:38.060 | for trucking.
00:53:39.060 | So it's a really fun memoir to go back through there and read all of the fun times and the
00:53:44.380 | exasperating times because there certainly were lots of those too.
00:53:47.100 | Yeah.
00:53:48.100 | And then the business is bonafidefinance.com.
00:53:51.620 | So it's bonafide finance but I have a Latin background.
00:53:54.580 | I had a minor in Latin and Greek and so it's bonafidefinance.com.
00:53:58.340 | You're one of those snobs.
00:54:02.740 | I still keep up on it actually.
00:54:04.540 | It's not as much as it used to be but I can still read Latin.
00:54:09.380 | That's awesome.
00:54:10.380 | Well, thank you guys both very much for coming on.
00:54:12.380 | I really appreciate it.
00:54:13.620 | Yeah, thank you, Joshua.
00:54:16.620 | So my friends, that's it for today's show.
00:54:18.500 | Here's my encouragement to you as we go.
00:54:22.740 | If you're interested in trucking, use some of the information that Ben and Deb have shared
00:54:26.080 | with us on today's show.
00:54:27.420 | I think it's a legitimate opportunity for a short period of time.
00:54:31.820 | I meant to ask them if truckers are paying attention to the fact that they're going to
00:54:34.660 | be completely out of a career in probably, I guess, a decade with self-driving trucks.
00:54:38.220 | But who knows?
00:54:40.100 | That's something you can research yourself.
00:54:41.460 | But I should at least just mention, I don't think trucking has a long-term career.
00:54:46.580 | They already have the technology.
00:54:48.540 | Go online if you're not familiar with it.
00:54:49.740 | They already have the technology for self-driving trucks.
00:54:52.620 | Once they get the regulatory environment figured out, the industry will be pressed toward efficiency
00:54:56.700 | and many truck drivers will be out of work.
00:54:59.420 | A lot of hurdles to it still but many truck drivers will be out of work.
00:55:02.900 | However, it is still an opportunity in today's world that many people, many of you might
00:55:07.620 | want to pursue.
00:55:08.820 | Or take something like this and think about your life goals and think about if there's
00:55:14.140 | another opportunity that's near to you that would fit your goals.
00:55:18.940 | Is there a way to use something like being an over-the-road truck driver wherein you're
00:55:23.540 | provided with housing, you're provided with food, you have lower expenses and you can
00:55:28.820 | work hard, work a lot and make a lot of money in a short period of time due to a lot of
00:55:32.900 | hard work.
00:55:34.460 | Whether you're working on an oil rig up in Bismarck, North Dakota, whether you're driving
00:55:38.820 | a truck, whether you're fishing during the summer in Alaska doing salmon fishing or whether
00:55:43.700 | you're crewing on a freighter somewhere or whatever that type of approach is, you can
00:55:48.100 | take some of these blue-collar jobs that don't require a lot of experience or a lot of education
00:55:53.180 | that have some basic entry requirements and you can get into some of these things where
00:55:57.540 | they allow you to save a substantial amount of money in a short period of time.
00:56:02.180 | Because of that ability to save a lot of money in a short period of time, that fund essentially
00:56:06.760 | becomes your freedom fund.
00:56:09.660 | Like from Ben and Deb's experience, if they hadn't spent that time paying off their student
00:56:13.060 | loans, just imagine two and a half years of work and you come out the other end with $100,000
00:56:16.860 | in the bank.
00:56:18.580 | That's really compelling.
00:56:19.580 | And $100,000 in the bank is enough to take the experience and knowledge that you learned
00:56:25.220 | from other things and apply it to your own financial freedom.
00:56:29.000 | Take these ideas and run with them.
00:56:31.700 | That's it for my show.
00:56:32.820 | If you enjoy and appreciate these concepts, please consider supporting Radical Personal
00:56:35.620 | Finance on Patreon.
00:56:36.620 | You can become a patron of the show at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.
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