An Early Christmas Present

What a week we've had!

We've been blessed to attend Mass both the third and fourth Sundays of Advent (thanks, Ray and Mindy!), we've had a great week of miles (a 3000 mile load from Los Angeles to Philadelphia started us off), we're no longer using paper logs (I promise I will dedicate an entire post soon on the ins and outs of logging), at the end of the week we'll be spending Christmas with both of our families, and...

THREE recruiting bonuses will be on our paycheck this Friday, right in time for Christmas, and right in time for us to pay off our LAST credit card! The bonus money is enough that we may even be able to pay off my smallest student loan, all before January 1st! That puts our total debt to date paid of at around $48,000. We truly began paying off our debt in February, so 11 total months so far of paying off our debts equaling $48K is pretty darned AWESOME!

It certainly was slow-going at first, but paying off the smallest debt and getting that monthly payment out of the way really made the next debt easier, and the next and so on. And now, we are completely credit card FREE!

Student loans come next...and boy are there a lot. Ben's undergraduate degree was paid for by the religious community he was part of for 4 years, but his graduate degree, my graduate degree as well as my undergraduate degree are all on the docket for getting paid off. Currently all but two of the loans are in forbearance, which was necessary in order for us to get traction on paying off our truck, car, and credit card debt. The two that are not in forbearance will be the first to get paid off, which will be completed by the end of January. The loans in forbearance will become active again in March, so we'll have the minimum monthly payments start up then, but with all of the other debt gone, we'll be able to throw all extra income after our general monthly expenses at the smallest loan first until the last one is gone. Every day we're getting closer!


Current location: St. Peters, MO (a suburb of St. Louis), making Christmas cookies with Sarah Swaykus
Next load: pick-up in Effingham, IL and drop in Irving, TX (Dallas area)
Miles this week: 5000ish


Things to look for in our next posts: our newfound fascination with jump-roping, and command central inside our truck

Perfecting the Pitch

After three months and about 60 contacts, we finally succeeded in driver recruiting! Our first convert to the company, Bobby, was seated in his truck over the weekend. Our bonus for bringing him in should be showing up on our paycheck this Friday!

Every day we get in touch with at least one person or one team from our old company. We've worked on our “script” of delivering the pitch and I think we've really caught a rhythm. Our total contacts to date are around 80, and we keep in touch with many on a regular basis, to continue answering any questions they may have and to encourage them to make the switch. We benefit, obviously, with the bonus if they come on board, but our aim is also to benefit them by providing them the opportunity to work for a better company. We believe in what we are selling!

In preparation for “life after trucking”, we've invested significantly in business literature. One such book is “The One Minute Salesperson” by Spencer Johnson. It is confirming our present pitch tactic and giving us other great ideas for “making the sale”. If you have any suggestions or tips that have worked for you, let us know!

Many of our contacts are planning to join the company after the first of the year, so as to keep their hometime's scheduled as are with their present company (who doesn't want to be home for Christmas?). That means that in January and February we should be seeing great returns on our recruiting investment!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!

How We Get Paid

Our paychecks vary week to week, depending on the amount of miles driven. We put together a "trip pack" of all of our log sheets corresponding to the load, a copy of the bill of lading, any reimbursements (like scale tickets or tolls), a seal manifest, and a cover sheet. Each load we pull has a specific trip number. When we finish the load and turn in our paperwork, that trip number makes its way to payroll and they know from that how many miles we are to get paid for that particular load. We turn in an average of 4 trip packs per week. Turning them in by midnight Monday evening means we get paid for that load the Friday morning at the end of that week. Anytime a trip pack is turned in after midnight on Monday, we'll get paid for that load the next Friday.

I realize now as I'm describing it that "turning in our paperwork" means nothing like how it sounds. We scan it through TransFlo (kind of like a fax), and keep the originals. There is a barcode on our cover sheet that TransFlo reads and immediately sends to our company (many of the large trucking companies use this method of payment). The way some trucking companies still operate the payment process is through the snail-mail system of UPS or FedEx envelopes being shipped back to company headquarters.


Using TransFlo is a much quicker option for getting paid, and after the trip pack is sent, a confirmation receipt is given as verification. We then wait until Friday morning to get an email copy of our paystub to ensure all the trips that should be on there are, and the money is direct-deposited into our account. Every terminal for our company has a TransFlo machine, and every Pilot and Love's Truck Stops have them as well. It's a pretty easy way to get paid!