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I'm a 40 year old single parent, with only a high school diploma and my occupation is a truck driver for a local construction company. I'm just burned out from going to a job and working for someone else everyday. I want my money to make money so I can work when I want. Travel when I want, around my son's school schedule of course lol. I have been driving truck for 15 years it's the only skill I really have. I've been reading a lot that freelancing your skills is becoming the new thing to do, but it's a hard to freelance being a truck driver. I just want to change course and earn more $$$ and have more freedom but in my situation is it even possible. I have a 401 with around 25k if it matters. Thanks in advance
Is It Really Possible To Escape The Paycheck To Paycheck Cycle?
Yes. But it requires earning more than we need to spend (and stuffing that into save/invest off the top).
Getting past the need to vs want to issues are tougher than the not enough income issue.
To offer a complete answer to your question, we would need to know your income and budget. If you don't have a budget, that's a good place to start. You can't break the cycle if you don't know where your money is going to begin with.
I'm a 40 year old single parent, with only a high school diploma and my occupation is a truck driver for a local construction company. I'm just burned out from going to a job and working for someone else everyday. I want my money to make money so I can work when I want. Travel when I want, around my son's school schedule of course lol. I have been driving truck for 15 years it's the only skill I really have. I've been reading a lot that freelancing your skills is becoming the new thing to do, but it's a hard to freelance being a truck driver. I just want to change course and earn more $$$ and have more freedom but in my situation is it even possible. I have a 401 with around 25k if it matters. Thanks in advance
Being a single parent is quite difficult, so you may need to try to make changes incrementally rather than trying to go from a very stressful work environment straight to "Nirvana" (if this even exists).
In particular, you should try looking for other jobs rather than staying in a job that is driving you insane. If you wait until you have the "perfect business opportunity" to get out of a toxic or semi-toxic work environment, you may be in a state of undue misery for a long time.
Don't truck drivers make very good money? I thought there is a huge shortage of truck drivers that companies can't meet their supply demand because of lack of truck drivers. I don't know what OP makes and I don't know much about the trucking industry but from what I heard, it is a specialty skill.
question I will ask OP is;
1) can you cut down your expense? I don't mean $100 here and $20 there, but big expenses like car payment or mortgage. Can you move to smaller house that cost less?
2) Do you have free time that you can spent on side gigs? I wouldn't quit your main job but you are good at driving. would it make sense to do uber during surge hours or doordash during free time or even a better gig where you drive truck for specific projects, which I am sure pays more than Uber or doordash does.
3) Ask for a raise or find another company you can drive truck for that pays little more.
I'm a landlord and I constantly get applicants with the same sort of income and some are living well and are comfortable and some are living day to day in near desperation. Same income, same size family, even the same age group.
The difference is that some of them have control of their money and their budget and some just float along spending what they have as soon as they get it with no planning.
You are a truck driver, OP. You should be earning enough to plan for retirement and maybe some small vacations.
I know several truck drivers who own their own home and who take a week or two every year to go on vacation. It's not something that is impossible.
Of course you can freelance when you are a truck driver. You can buy your own truck; that's freelancing. You can also get a second job for an additional day's wages every week. In my area, construction offers a lot of overtime, which should get a bonus on your pay.
You work with a construction company. Learn how to run the heavy equipment in addition to driving a truck. Increase your job skills.
How much are you earning as a truck driver? I know fedex ground and the like offer 70-80k for cdl drivers so if you are under that maybe it’s time to shop. Earning is one side of the equation and spending is the other so you have to consider that
It may surprise you to know that even highly educated people generally live off their paychecks and don’t have passive income like you want until after they retire.
The term paycheck to paycheck generally means no savings, so if they are hourly and get sick or something they get into an endless cycle of borrowing to pay off interest on debt instead of buying food or gas or rent.
I'm a 40 year old single parent, with only a high school diploma and my occupation is a truck driver for a local construction company. I'm just burned out from going to a job and working for someone else everyday. I want my money to make money so I can work when I want. Travel when I want, around my son's school schedule of course lol. I have been driving truck for 15 years it's the only skill I really have. I've been reading a lot that freelancing your skills is becoming the new thing to do, but it's a hard to freelance being a truck driver. I just want to change course and earn more $$$ and have more freedom but in my situation is it even possible. I have a 401 with around 25k if it matters. Thanks in advance
Need more details.
Overall: Spend less and move up in your field or do something else.
Not familiar with truck driving but, take different routes where you have more income, or work for the trucking company but do something else there (dispatcher, loader...?). Buy your own truck and work for yourself. Go to a different truck company where you earn more - don't fruit and veggie transporting pay more?
I remember days when you could always rent some old but livable farm house for $15 a month. I went to college, I paid $40 a month to live in an old trailer.
Now its pure sticker shock to see average working man rents $1000+. I know wages sure havent went up to cover that. Least not on low end. The 1% people could always afford multiple mansions. Course the wealthy are wanting to mine the poor for their pennies and are bidding up housing, making it hard to buy one cheap. But you somehow own a small house outright, you have a foothold where nobody can jack the rent and its worth small enough amount the govt cant raise your yearly tribute to the king taxes an extreme amount. Well unless they decide to do land grab with eminent domain at cheap price and hand it over to their developer buddies. Heaven forbid the developers have to pay what the market will bear.
Pretty hard to plan with the society determined to keep you indentured to a job and desperate/struggling. Course you fall for the debt trap and it only gets worse.
My suggestion, you start looking for the cheapest small house you can find that isnt in a drug crazed combat zone and pay it off quick as possible, and drive used cars worried only about their mechanical condition rather than how new and shiny they are. Usually housing and transportation are the big expenses in life. Forget having the newest electronic gadgets. I still have an old CRT tv with the govt converter box! Those old Sony CRT tvs just dont die. Also an old 3G phone. And a $25 laptop, as it meets my needs. Course as I say, lot people dig themselves into a pit with debt. Debt for anything that doesnt directly generate income is stupid and a trap. Wait to buy goodies until you can pay cash without feeling any pain in your monthly budget. By that time you may find you really dont need those things anyway. You will find lot of wealthy people are the most frugal, they dont have to impress anybody. And they know enough to hang onto their money. Dont buy what they dont actually need. Least those that remain wealthy. Course those few richer than god, everything is trivial. Pay attention to that, capitalism is always making vague promises that you too can be richer than god if you only work ever harder, but that you should also buy all the newest toys. Forget that crap, pay attention that VERY FEW people ever become wealthy, meaning genuine wealth, not debt funded facade of wealth. What you want to go for is to stop being an indentured sucker. Give yourself some breathing room so you can actually negotiate and not just take whatever crumbs are offered to you.
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