Profile For Jason H.

This. I would save your money and be poised to start up when the economy resets after a lot of others have been squeezed out of the business.

There’s another thread talking about the current state of the economy and things to come. Now is absolutely not the time to start up a new business, especially in trucking which is risky enough when things are good.

We've ran into a hiccup "refinancing" our house (it's currently paid off) and I'm kind of glad. My only real wish is that we had property attached to it to be able to grow more, but at least as of now we can't lose our home.

This is absolutely true. I'm confident the number was correct, because he's the one that signs off on the paperwork. The route is restricted, the approved stopping places are highly restricted, and I would imagine they need at least one pilot car.

I preach to many people that just because a business "makes" a lot of money, doesn't mean they are "making money". Gross vs net is crucial to understand.

Our battalion logistics NCO said shipping an M109A6 (filled with sensitive/classified equipment) from Utah to Florida by commercial truck costs $60k. Are some parts of DoD work really that lucrative?

I have no way of knowing if your NCO gave you an accurate number, but I do know you can never determine something is lucrative when you only know the revenue side of the equation. You can only determine if a business is lucrative by understanding both the revenues and expenses.

No doubt, I meant more lining up with someone already doing it. I talked with one of the hotshot dudes thats running his own authority, but I had the sensibility to not ask "Hey how much money do you make?"

Maybe I'll find out when we're shipping again and go talk to a few drivers.

Not much experience honestly, no OTR. I'm not driving these days, but seriously considering getting back into it. I don't have grand illusions about falling into a contract, but rather setting it as a goal. My gut tells me if the money were that good, it wouldn't be a secret.

What's your full-time job and what's your experience driving OTR?

If you're thinking about buying a truck and falling into some highly lucrative Big Government contract you can forget that. You will never be able to compete against the companies that already have these contracts.

If y'all wanna hear dumb and scary, the National Guard trusts soldiers fresh out of "training" to drive a LET (HEMMT tractor) with a trailer and Paladin to mingle with civilian traffic. No mountain roads, but 70 tons of rubber, metal and diesel is a little concerning no matter what. I don't drive for work anymore, but I'm among the most experienced of those doing it in my state (technically working for the state, not part of normal "soldier" duties) which is terrifying. However, those engine brakes will bring everything to a stop pretty quickly, even on a steep grade without touching the brakes.

I'm thinking about getting back into dirt work, and I have three littles myself so I understand your concerns about OTR. Listen to the advice here, it's solid!

Hi folks! I'm in the Army National Guard in Utah. I drive all sorts of stuff as part of my duties. One that I volunteer for is to haul around tracked artillery (M109A6) and some of the tracked support vehicles for the State.

On a recent mission moving this stuff around, we were also shipping a bunch of vehicles via commercial shippers to another state for a joint exercise. The equipment we were moving was only moving about 100 miles to an active duty training location for unit exercises. There were a couple of hotshots that brought stuff out on the same route, but completely unrelated to us. One of the sergeants said those guys were pulling in $3-4k *gross* for that same run.

Our battalion logistics NCO said shipping an M109A6 (filled with sensitive/classified equipment) from Utah to Florida by commercial truck costs $60k. Are some parts of DoD work really that lucrative? I had a boss once upon a time that hauled military equipment as an O/O, but given that he stopped doing it I guessed it wasn't *super super super* amazing. Am I wrong?

Given that I have a security clearance, should I be looking to get into this on the commercial side? Thanks for your respectful thoughts and comments!

This sounds like a lot of work to kinda sorta try holding on to a job you're not even sure you want to keep.

How are you going to school your kids if you move around like this?

This sounds like a lot of work to kinda sorta try holding on to a job you're not even sure you want to keep.

You're not wrong about not necessarily wanting to keep this particular job, but for what we want to do it's probably what I've got. We're working towards slowly building a rental portfolio too, but that won't provide all of our needs for a while yet.

As to how we'll school, we're going to homeschool. We've been on longish trips with them before, and it's been awesome to teach them about the world they see around them. Plus obviously the regular stuff too. The full time RV community has some surprising resources for families. Groups that are dedicated to meeting up when nearby, and even some that travel in groups sometimes.

Should have clarified, if we hypothetically did the PO stuff, the truck wouldn't be converted to an office. Honestly, typing it out helped me see the madness of it. We'll still be buying a Class 8 to pull though.

To answer about the hitches. They're similar, but a little different. The kingpins are different sizes, but can be swapped on the trailer. The trailer will be getting an air ride pin box so it doesn't get the snot beat out of it.

As to buying the pickup, we ruled it out because no matter what we buy it won't be big enough to hold the whole family (shooting for one more, hopefully soon). So we'll still need the second vehicle. Plus, as "heavy duty" as pickups are, they get worn far faster and are expensive to fix. I've spent a lot of time deciding between an HDT hauler and a one ton pickup, the pickup just doesn't make sense. Plus, no matter what, I need sleeper space for an office. I'll get fired within the week if my kids are in the same space with me while I'm trying to conduct conference calls. In fact, this alone might rule out a cabover.

The desire to travel is just to travel. I'm trying to get creative on possibilities to earn while we're out without me being stuck with this tech sales gig.

I appreciate the feedback, it felt pretty crazy when I hatched it up today, and I see that that feeling is correct.

Hey folks, I've been reading here for years and finally decided to join. Hurray for first posts!

Anyhow, buckle up because this will probably be a pretty long post. I'll try to keep it as clear and concise as I can.

We're almost ready to purchase a fifth wheel RV and travel full-time. Meaning we'll pick a new place to stay for a week-month at a time. We have access to military base RV parks (more on why later), so we hope to make good use of that. I currently work for a major tech company in sales, but I'm getting burned out. Hypothetically I can continue my career on the road, but I'm not sure how appealing that is anymore.

We have three young kids (ages 5, and twins that will be 4 this summer). All of that noise had me thinking of ways to have a quiet office space. Toy haulers were an option, but we didn't like the layout enough. Couple this with how flipping expensive a one ton pickup "rated" to tow that much weight costs. The short and the long is that we're buying a class 8, and plan to convert the sleeper to an office space.

I have yet to look at the truck in person, but it's a nicely maintained 1989 Kenworth K100 King Cab (super long sleeper for a COE). I'm not worried about being able to tell if it's a good truck for what we need.

About experience: I was trained by the Army to drive trucks (88M) for the National Guard (hence military base access). My unit does it a fair bit, but really only a couple times a year. Where I make a little more experience gravy is hauling the heavy tracked guns around the state multiple times a year. I also drove local Class B for a while last year after COVID hit and I was getting home from Basic/AIT. I have my Class A with all endorsements except school bus. So some, but not a ton of experience.

My question to you fine folks: Would I be a fool to look at doing Power Only runs wherever we are? For example, we pull into the St. Louis area with our fifth wheel in tow (with my wife driving the Suburban separate) and get to our campground set up, and blah blah. Then I get work doing a PO run somewhere and back, or whatever. We'll also be renting our home out, and that alone will likely *net* us over $1k a month (including paying the mortgage, taxes, insurance, upkeep, etc). That same mortgage is also what is going to pay for the truck and the trailer.

Condensed and clarified: Are there companies I could contract out to, to haul sometimes but not all the time? I don't think our finances will require constant running.

Please help me sort this mess out, and figure out if I should just keep the truck registered as a motorhome, or put it to work too.