When one thinks of “managing” something, thoughts usually turn to people in an office with desks and job titles. The reality, however, is that management is an important part of every truck driver’s job.
As a professional truck driver, you manage your time, your fuel usage, your meal regimen, your sleep schedule and much more. You also manage your money — and how well you do so makes a huge difference in how lucrative a driving job is for you.
It’s important to understand how pay options impact your bottom line.
To cover road expenses, many drivers depend on pay advances from the carrier they’re employed by or leased to.
The original intent of advances was to provide cash for carrier expenses like tolls, repairs and even fuel. In the days before instant, electronic cash transfers, drivers often carried large amounts of cash for these purposes.
Today, however, carriers use fuel cards and electronic checks to transfer payment directly to vendors who supply these products and services. Tolls are mostly collected electronically, and the driver has less need for cash.
However, the pay advance system also evolved.
Pay advances became the driver’s operating money, used to purchase meals, snacks and C-store items. If a driver needs some gloves, a hat, a pen to write with — the list could go on almost endlessly — payment often comes out of the advance.
And when the cash runs out? It’s time for another advance.
While convenient for the driver, this practice actually generates additional expenses.
Too often, drivers don’t realize how much they’re adding to their budget through common financial practices. In some cases, a driver’s pay is deposited into an account held jointly with a spouse, who pays the bills. The money received from the pay advance isn’t shared, it belongs to the driver.
The first problem with pay advances is that they’re deducted from a driver’s future pay or settlement check.
That oh-so-convenient advance isn’t “pay” as much as it is a loan against future pay — and it’s a loan that must be paid back. The deductions sometimes hit at the worst time, such as before paperwork has hit the system for payment for a load. This exacerbates the up-and-down nature of driver pay.
In a week when pay is on the low side, collection of an advance (or multiple advances) can be disastrous.
Another issue is that there are often fees associated with obtaining the cash from an advance.
In some cases — but not all — carriers pick up the fee associated with payment for a fuel purchase, and a cash advance can be tacked on as sort of a “throw in” to the deal. But depending on the fuel card used and the agreement with the carrier, a portion of the advance can be withheld as a “convenience fee.” Over the course of a year, these fees can add up to hundreds, even thousands of dollars.
Some drivers prefer to use their own money, rather than advancing from their carrier. However, if you use debit or credit cards to access your money, you’re paying fees for that service too. There is often a flat percentage added to a purchase for using a card. It may be only a small percent of the total purchase cost, but since it comes out of your account rather than your pocket, it’s easy to overlook.
If you think pulling cash from ATM machines is a workaround, think again.
Withdrawing cash from an ATM usually involves a convenience fee from whatever bank owns the machine. If that ATM is at a truck stop, the truck stop may get a percentage or, at least, a rental fee for letting the bank put its ATM there, so fees may differ by location.
The ATM fee you pay is usually a flat fee rather than a percentage, so a smaller withdrawal ends up costing more on a percentage basis: A $5 fee on a $100 withdrawal is only 5%, but most people withdraw minimal amounts to avoid depleting their account.
The result? One withdrawal of $100 becomes two withdrawals of $50 — each with a $5 fee.
And that’s not all.
Your bank may charge a fee for using an ATM they don’t own. So, you pay a few dollars to the bank that owns the ATM and a few more to your own bank. It’s a double-whammy, every time you use the card.
And if you’re using a credit card for an ATM withdrawal, interest becomes a consideration. Credit cards often have interest rates exceeding 20% to 25% — much higher than you’d pay for your mortgage or auto loan. If you don’t pay your bill by a certain date (and the schedule can be confusing!) you’ll be charged interest on the outstanding balance.
What you buy is important, too.
It’s expensive to feed yourself on the road, and truck stops aren’t known for their discounted merchandise. Three meals a day in restaurants takes a huge chunk out of the budget. Snacks and drinks can be ridiculously expensive. Healthy foods, such as fruit cups and salads, often cost more at truck stops than a whole bag of fruit would cost at a grocery store. It’s best to stock up at “dollar” stores or discount groceries.
Drivers who depend on truck stop C-stores will pay more — much more — for daily necessities.
The sedentary lifestyle of sitting behind the wheel for hours at a time requires fewer calories than a more active type of employment, but those hours can be long and boring. Many drivers respond by excessive eating and snacking, and it shows up in waistbands and on DOT physical exams.
Managing your diet is a great step towards managing a budget.
Unfortunately, it’s easy to get so wrapped up in the driving job that personal tasks like managing diets and budgets take a back seat to all the “important” work. When the schedule is tight, the customer is waiting and the fleet manager is demanding, worrying about the ATM fee for your next transaction may seem insignificant — but it isn’t.
Drivers often sacrifice much for their jobs, including personal tasks like budgets, diets and more. But there’s eventually a price to pay. Carriers move on to the next driver, while drivers struggle to recover.
You work hard for your money. Manage it, so you’ll keep more of it.
Cliff Abbott is an experienced commercial vehicle driver and owner-operator who still holds a CDL in his home state of Alabama. In nearly 40 years in trucking, he’s been an instructor and trainer and has managed safety and recruiting operations for several carriers. Having never lost his love of the road, Cliff has written a book and hundreds of songs and has been writing for The Trucker for more than a decade.
