Soon To Be Starting CDL School With Roehl

Good evening y'all, I have been browsing the forums for a few weeks and decided to go ahead and introduce myself. I am a firm believer that if you're going to do something right, you should do it properly. It seems to me that becoming an active member on here would be a good start into my driving career. A little info about myself, I'm currently 25 with a wife (recently married(November) and a 1 year old son.) I've held numerous jobs, none of which even come close to driving a truck, but for some reason it has always appealed to me and things seemed to click when I did some research on the more technical aspects of the lifestyle. Virtually all of my jobs have required working on my own, or in the case of the Army, with a small team. After leaving the Army I began to dabble some into Private Security. I then moved my way into the EMS field where I did some work as an EMT. After I moved out of state and was no longer able to do EMS, I fell back into Private Security in everything from Financial Institutions to a County Jail. After a time doing this I managed to find a sponsor and receive my Private Investigator License. I moved into doing some light surveillance work and Asset Protection. After moving out of state again at the beginning of the year, I found that I would be unable to transfer my PI license. I figured that now would be as good a time as any to finally look into a career that had always held my interest. So here we are, I'll be shipping out at the end of next week to begin Roehls Company Sponsored Training in their flat bed division.

Now that my long winded introduction is concluded, I would like to ask for some advice. First, I have done some reading, and I do plan to ask my recruiter again as well, but I'm curious on a packing list for my time at the school, not my driver trainer period. From what I understand, I will be staying in a hotel while attending the school. I would imagine this would give me ample opportunity to do laundry so I had only planned to take a weeks worth of clothing. Aside from clothing, I planned to take pens, pads, a calculator, my laptop, toiletries, one pair of insulated waterproof work gloves (I'll be in Marshfield, WI) and several pairs of non-insulated cheap gloves, steel-toe boots, light jacket and heavy jacket, as well as thermals just in case. I'm curious on thoughts of what I should add to this. As I said above, I will be doing the flat bed division if that has any merit on suggestions. I was informed that Roehl will be providing a hard hat, safety vest and glasses and ice cleats.

The second piece of advice I was looking for, was regarding my Wife. We have spent some time apart (1 5 month and 1 3 month period) however, this was before our Son was born. I believe she is mostly nervous about having to practically raise him on her own. I was just wondering if anyone had any insights that I could pass along to her to make things as easy as they can be for her, as well as for my own peace of mind so I can focus on doing the job properly rather than worrying about life back home. I am not especially worried about my own home sickness, simply because it is far from the first time I have been away from home. And I imagine the motel room/sleeper cab will be a significant improvement over a hole dug into the ground with my poncho draped over the top. Gotta love a good hooch.

Thanks in advance ladies and gents,

- Razor

Roehl has multiple home time options for you. 7/7, 14/7, and others. Tell your wife like I'm telling mine. It's 1 year, and the first 6 months will be the worst. After the 1st year, you have options for local and dedicated routes. You can do it. Be strong and make it happen. For you with a wife and young child, you would probably want the 7/3 7/4 routes. But do what works for you.

Welcome aboard Razorkeen!

Congratulations on getting on with Roehl - they have got a great program going, and they will get you off to a good start. Your list of things to pack sounds good to me, but if you 'd like to research it a little here's a link to some more information on things to pack.

As far as advice for your wife, you guys are just going to have to make sure you are on the same page. Your concerns are valid - I often times think this job is rougher on the one left at home than it is on the one out here on the road. Hopefully she will see you making a decent income and will understand the sacrifices that you will both be making for the future welfare of your family. My advice would be to make sure and see that she has more than ample money coming to her for her and your son's needs. If anyone needs to be surviving on Ramen noodles let it be you. I've been married for 34 years, and I can tell you that if she is benefiting from your sacrifices she will appreciate what you are doing all the more and support your efforts. If she is barely getting by and she is constantly hearing about you eating out all the time and having such a great time on the road she will soon resent what you are doing and expect you to come home and do something else. It is a tough lifestyle for young parents - make sure you are taking care of them well - they need that to understand fully how the sacrifices are going to be worth it. The other thing is that you are going to have to fully trust her with everything. She is going to be the one managing the home budget and paying the bills. Let her do it how she sees fit - if she is wasting money then talk to her calmly and help her see how she can do better, but you are going to have to let her do this her way or it is going to cause problems. Hopefully you've married a good responsible gal who can be trusted fully, because that is what will make all this work properly. Also, you need to realize that your income at the beginning is going to be a little unsteady until you get established, so hopefully have a little set aside for that difficult learning curve that you will be in at the start of your career. You are going to be missing that little guy on your lap in your photo, so work hard and apply yourself so that you can make some good money and get home a little bit for a brief visit now and then.

Roehl has multiple home time options for you. 7/7, 14/7, and others. Tell your wife like I'm telling mine. It's 1 year, and the first 6 months will be the worst. After the 1st year, you have options for local and dedicated routes. You can do it. Be strong and make it happen. For you with a wife and young child, you would probably want the 7/3 7/4 routes. But do what works for you.

I actually decided on doing their national route of 10-14/3 just for earnings sake. The wife will be returning to school this fall so being able to provide a somewhat comfortable living for us myself will be important. The current plan is indeed to get the 120k miles I will owe Roehl and then move into something local or dedicated unless we find OTR works well for us.

Welcome aboard Razorkeen!

Congratulations on getting on with Roehl - they have got a great program going, and they will get you off to a good start. Your list of things to pack sounds good to me, but if you 'd like to research it a little here's a link to some more information on things to pack.

As far as advice for your wife, you guys are just going to have to make sure you are on the same page. Your concerns are valid - I often times think this job is rougher on the one left at home than it is on the one out here on the road. Hopefully she will see you making a decent income and will understand the sacrifices that you will both be making for the future welfare of your family. My advice would be to make sure and see that she has more than ample money coming to her for her and your son's needs. If anyone needs to be surviving on Ramen noodles let it be you. I've been married for 34 years, and I can tell you that if she is benefiting from your sacrifices she will appreciate what you are doing all the more and support your efforts. If she is barely getting by and she is constantly hearing about you eating out all the time and having such a great time on the road she will soon resent what you are doing and expect you to come home and do something else. It is a tough lifestyle for young parents - make sure you are taking care of them well - they need that to understand fully how the sacrifices are going to be worth it. The other thing is that you are going to have to fully trust her with everything. She is going to be the one managing the home budget and paying the bills. Let her do it how she sees fit - if she is wasting money then talk to her calmly and help her see how she can do better, but you are going to have to let her do this her way or it is going to cause problems. Hopefully you've married a good responsible gal who can be trusted fully, because that is what will make all this work properly. Also, you need to realize that your income at the beginning is going to be a little unsteady until you get established, so hopefully have a little set aside for that difficult learning curve that you will be in at the start of your career. You are going to be missing that little guy on your lap in your photo, so work hard and apply yourself so that you can make some good money and get home a little bit for a brief visit now and then.

Thanks for the welcome. I will definitely check out the link and do some looking. The possibility of a respectable income is something I have been pressing pretty hard on her so I'm sure it will help tremendously when she begins to see that possibility happening. We had already discussed that my budget will be extremely limited for the first few months I'm out simply to give us time to adjust to the expenses of the lifestyle and to see what we could reasonably expect my wages to be. I pretty much survived on Ramen and PB&J sandwiches my first year of college so luckily it will be nothing new. I like to think I managed to find a responsible woman with her head on straight so we're good in that department. I honestly think one of the bigger hurtles that we will have is making myself relinquish the reigns of the family. I've always had an alpha mentality and personality. I can generally suppress it when needed, so hopefully this will be once of those times. It will take some getting used to I'm sure. Luckily our expenses are pretty minimal at the moment so even being able to bring home around $4-500 a week would see that we could scrounge by without dipping into our savings until I get my feet under me and learn the ropes. I definitely will be missing the little guy. I just keep telling myself that doing this will better his life as a whole. Only time will tell.

Thanks again fellas.

Budget eating on the road is what I do.

I spent the $30 for a lunchbox stove and eat lots of canned soup, hot dogs, brats, and of course pb& j. I also bought a Coleman Iceless cooler and it lets me keep drinks and food nice and cool.

The only time I eat at a truck stop is if I am craving Popeyes chicken or biscuits and gravy. I take $40 cash with me for road expenses and always come home with change.

Hey Razor. I'm also new to the forum. Have also been following along for a few weeks. I will be starting the cdl school with roehl for flatbed in marshfield, WI on the 7th.

Budget eating on the road is what I do.

I spent the $30 for a lunchbox stove and eat lots of canned soup, hot dogs, brats, and of course pb& j. I also bought a Coleman Iceless cooler and it lets me keep drinks and food nice and cool.

The only time I eat at a truck stop is if I am craving Popeyes chicken or biscuits and gravy. I take $40 cash with me for road expenses and always come home with change.

I'm planning to put some type of freezer in my truck when I get it. I'm a big fan of making huge meals while home and freezing single portions of it to thaw and eat later. So a freezer will be a must have for me. I can scrounge by with my little hot plate until I can get my hands on a small microwave. That's good to know about the $40 budget being more than enough for your time out.

Hey Razor. I'm also new to the forum. Have also been following along for a few weeks. I will be starting the cdl school with roehl for flatbed in marshfield, WI on the 7th.

Hey Thomas, It's good to know that I won't be the only one that has done any type of preparing besides just my permit. I notice you're from Georgia. Will you be flying up?

If your going to put a freezer in a roehl truck it's going to be really expensive. There aren't any inverters in the trucks so everything has to run off 12v and while you can pay for an inverter it is really expensive and there isn't any way to mount a fridge or freezer. You can buy a 12v freezer but again it's really expensive.I have a plug in cooler and a lunchbox cooker and I do pretty well most of the time. I pack the cooler up at home with plenty of lunchmeat and pans of food for the lunchbox and it usually lasts me 2 to 3 weeks.

Hey Thomas, It's good to know that I won't be the only one that has done any type of preparing besides just my permit. I notice you're from Georgia. Will you be flying up?

I'm going to drive up

If your going to put a freezer in a roehl truck it's going to be really expensive. There aren't any inverters in the trucks so everything has to run off 12v and while you can pay for an inverter it is really expensive and there isn't any way to mount a fridge or freezer. You can buy a 12v freezer but again it's really expensive.I have a plug in cooler and a lunchbox cooker and I do pretty well most of the time. I pack the cooler up at home with plenty of lunchmeat and pans of food for the lunchbox and it usually lasts me 2 to 3 weeks.

That's a little disappointing. Would you happen to have any idea what kind of "expensive" I would be looking at? Another question I have is if I were to pay for Roehl mechanics to install an inverter into the truck, and for some reason I am required to switch to a different truck, am I out the cost and have to pay for another one to be installed? Thanks.

Hey Thomas, It's good to know that I won't be the only one that has done any type of preparing besides just my permit. I notice you're from Georgia. Will you be flying up?

I'm going to drive up

I have to say I'm a little jealous. I'm just not willing to put that many more miles on my truck. Especially when I get around 7-8 miles to a gallon.