this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
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As a truck driver, kinda? But it gets damn old after a while. And pay is shit (when you calculate how much you work.)
But I did get to see 47 states.
Yeah, I hear the pay is like oh cool I made 100k last month and spent 90k on fuel.
Well see there's multiple types of drivers.
Employee/company drivers drive the company's truck. The company pays for maintenance and fuel.
Owner Ops and Lease Ops own or lease their own truck and have to pay for fuel and other expenses.
Company drivers make anywhere from $60k-80k, maybe more on the top end of the bell curve depending on speciality, market, luck. Owners it varies wildly but usually in the 6 digits, but then they have expenses and usually end up around or a bit more than company drivers total. But they also assume all the risk.
But we also work 6+ days without break (some don't ever have days off until they go home), are away from home weeks and months at a time, have super long days, and get no overtime or wait pay.
So $10k/month and hookers every night? Still seems like a good deal.
Aren’t jobs that require you to buy your own fuel 1099 or something? Doesn’t seem worth it? What about if taxes are deducted? Does it pay better?
So a 1099 allows you to deduct work related expenses. It’s the difference between being an actual employee, which has both labor law and tax implications vs a contractor. So if you make 100k, and you spend 20k on fuel, your taxable income is actually 80k.
The trade off is you can’t take the standard deduction which is like 12k for singles now? Double if married. If you itemize expenses, and you have to document and track those expenses. There’s also a higher risk of you getting audited by the IRS.
So the short answer is as long as you can deduct more than you would have been able to with the standard deduction, it can be worth it. But then you get slapped with “self employment tax” or whatever bullshit it’s called.
This is over simplified and I’m not any kind of expert.
This is the same kinda thing the wealthy use to dodge taxes. The trump method is “lose so much fucking money that you can have net 0 income for years”.
Quick edit: if you file a W2, there’s a 90% chance you take the standard deduction by default
Yeah i know what 1099 means, just not the details of deductions. I’m saying fuel costs a lot lot; it costs hundreds? to fill a big rig? So the deductions can’t possibly make up for it? Unless you’re never off the road? I know there’s long haul and local short jobs, I’m just trying to get a picture. Doesn’t seem worth it. Plus driving gets hard on hands, arms, neck, back and butt so add in medical issues from years of it.
You can deduct fuel, you can deduct t any food bought while working, you can deduct the depreciation of the truck itself which on those big rigs can be significant.
Spending 12k in expenses wouldn’t take very long at all I imagine
I mean, that's what practically any business is like.
10k leftover per month would be 120k per year, which is actually quite a bit above median income in the US
did you see 47 states, or just 47 states worth of truck stops?
Somewhere in the middle. I certainly saw a lot of the landscape, spent some times in small towns around the country on my off days, and met some people.
But certainly didn't get a great feel of the culture a lot of the time.
I had a similar experience traveling for work. My first job out of college required traveling to lots of customer locations. I was excited to see the country. Turns out I got to visit a lot of airports and conference rooms.
How are the hookers?