Profile For P. B.

When Laura (IDMtnGal) gets time to stop in here, (I mentioned it...!) she has some great ways around that, due to her late husband with a TBI. In your case, did you get any 1099's even?

Nope, because in the software world, the greatest expense is by far labor. There certainly wouldn't have been expenses to itemize that exceed the standard deduction. In all official capacity I may as well have been doing nothing during the entire gap. (and it's exacerbated by the fact I was doing nothing for a period of it)

I thought of this while driving. Get a safe deposit box at a bank. Yes it will cost some money, but to secure those documents while on the road, it's worth it.

Honestly, it's going to be a safe in the back of storage, extremely difficult to get to, and utterly worthless to anyone else. Anything of value to the general public went out in my eBay spree. If the unthinkable happens and my worthless indoor storage room with cameras everywhere is raided, I'll have other documents and contacts to rebuild my identity.

I would suggest having an emergency stash of money with those sensitive documents, too.

I have a worthless CD account with my bank which I use to hold any cash not needed within the upcoming month. It can only be accessed online or in person, so that's plenty safe. (I'll probably extend it to 2 months, though, since my bank will surely hate my IP address constantly changing)

The gap in employment can EASILY be filled by persons of stature, community, et al, by having them write a letter that's preferably notarized; explaining what you were doing, to contribute to society!

That gets a bit tougher to do when it involves creating a series of vaporware (my previous career was in software), burning savings and with virtually no outside help. I was neither a drain nor a paragon, but I was definitely invisible. At this point I'm hoping my aging contacts from the office world can rescue me.

I will check out the companies you listed as well when my search begins in September.

Using your old address for your license may be a problem. If I bought your house, I'd take issue with you still using it as your residence for your license and I'd made a stink with the DMV about it.

I'm only going to use it while at the hotel, applying and determining where I should go. I'd be shocked if even one of those companies snail mailed me. I will not even apply for the CDL permit without a proper address, though.

Yiu really need to figure out the address issue before you do anything else. [...] I would suggest finding the absolute cheapest thing you can to rent and declare that your residence, whether a room in a boarding house, a trailer in a trailer park, a crappy apartment, whatever. [...] You 100% cannot proceed with anything else in getting a CDL until the address is figured out.

Renting a single room from a homeowner defined my entire pre-homeowner life. That's probably what I'll end up doing while I'm getting my CDL. I'll have so few possessions with me that I'd be happy living in a closet, as the rest will be sitting in long-term storage. I've read that even greenhorns tend to be out for 2-3 months at a time, and I don't like wasting money. I hope to be a trucker for a number of years and would like to have a nice little fund for when I decide to resettle somewhere.

Lots of posts to reply to!

If you don't have a fixed address [...] Escapees RV Club [...] They'll provide you with a domicile address and mailbox in Florida, South Dakota or Texas (all states without an income tax) that's perfectly legal to use as your state of residence on your CDL.

Escapees in Florida is no longer a viable address. Florida DMV will not accept it as proof of residence within the state of Florida. This is information current, as of earlier this month.

My current state of residence, and the only place I've ever owned a home is, is Florida. It can't just arbitrarily change to something else so I should still be state income tax free so long as my temporary base (which, right, I'll also need to get the CDL) is also in Florida.

Get a new passport. It's harder to lose or damage than a bc & ss card and you never know, you may need it if you drive a truck across the border into Canada.

Yep! I used to go on many 1k+ mile long roadtrips, including both Canada and Mexico. Even if work never takes me to either of those countries, they're nice options for my off-time.

We also HIGHLY recommend COMPANY PAID TRAINING!

I'm going to try. I'm worried about my large employment gap, due to an independent venture that flopped. I guess I should seek...job seeker's counseling?....or something so I can confidently deal with that problem in interviews. A bit unconfident when I don't even know what help I'll need.

I've been religiously studying the Florida CDL handbook in the meantime, I'm going to have to put in 250% just to overshadow the gap.

Hello! I haven't even started the process yet, but I should be doing so pretty soon. I have a couple questions in hopes of making my early journey as smooth as possible. I've trimmed this down a bit having been lurking for about a month and reading all I could, but these two concerns nag at me.

1. Birth certificate: I have it, but haven't needed it in over 20 years and I tend to just lock it away in deep storage. I'm in the process of selling my house, in which I'll be putting all but essentials in storage, hitting the road and going where the jobs are. I would really like to avoid having something that critical on my person at all times.

I read here that Birth + DL is a viable option, and I'm assuming my social security card . Should I just renew my passport and leave it at that? (which is something I want to do regardless)

2. Is this realistic: I want to keep costs low and have no interest in planting roots anywhere for the foreseeable future, but I know I'll need an address while searching a company that will train me. I want to be able to go where I'm needed, and the idea is to use my soon-to-be-old address while searching, then once something promising comes up head over there, rent a room for a month, use that as my stable address for as long as needed while also buying a couple other things I'd like to have before getting started. (namely a laptop and a special order phone, and probably a couple important things I haven't thought of yet)

Is this a realistic plan?