00:06 And the irony to that story is that’s how I got my CB handle. Everyone calls me Polar Bear. So, I mean, I think that’s kind of cool cuz if you ever watched Ice Road Truckers, Polar Bear was one of the bad asses over there.

00:19 Well, Polar Bear, thank you for joining us.

00:25 Welcome to Six-Figure Trucker, the podcast where we share advice on how to be successful in trucking and have fun while doing so. We’ll share stories, news, and advice on how to earn six figures in trucking, and we’ll speak to guys and gals that are already doing so. Let’s get to the show.

00:48 Hello everyone and welcome to the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport and each and every one of you who joins us each Thursday. You know this is a space where we elevate and celebrate the driver and all they do for our company and the commerce and the economy of America. And joining us now is a guy that we spoke with last week and he’s joining us again this week, Gary. Gary, I think we last left you. You were in Illinois and we talked about last week some of your mathematical abilities. They came through being autistic, but how you use it to your advantage and managing logistics. You ran into some problems on your last loads, but you were able to overcome and pursue those challenges. You made some equations in your head and you made that all happen. But we wanted to talk about after your 15 16 months with us and your background as an Uber driver and doing hot shots. You have some dreams, lifelong dreams that you want to achieve. Tell us about that first one that you talked to me about in the office. Oh, I guess it was about 3 4 days ago.

01:50 Oh yeah. Yeah. That was buying a house. And one of the things with buying a house is you want to have a good amount down. So my goal is to I am I’d say maybe 3 weeks from pulling out of the hole I put myself in through mistakes of my past. But once I get those done, I’m going to have all my bills ahead. I plan on paying my rent with my tax return this year and then basically the money I was going to give my landlord’s going to go into high interest savings account. My goal is within two years having between 110,000 to 58,000 and using that as a down payment to buy a house.

02:35 Now, do you want to stay in the area? Of course, Norton Transport is in Ringgold, Georgia, which is right at the northern tip of Georgia, just off I-75 if you’re heading south. We are the first exit and Gary lives, as he said last week, about three exits down. Do you want to stay in that area? I want to stay in that vicinity, but I grew up in Pennsylvania when it was all farmlands. So, I kind of looking at that Rocky face area. I know you know where Rocky face is where it’s that secluded wooded farmland pops up here and there kind of deal.

03:09 I like being where my neighbors are away. Now, tell us how you’ve been able to use your income from driveaway to start this plan of buying your own house.

03:23 Well, the biggest thing was being able to pull out of the debt that I put myself in as a naive kid. And, you know, like I said, I’m only a couple weeks away from solving that problem. I mean, as long as the trucks work with me, cuz breakdowns do cause issues sometimes. And that’s no fault of Norton. That’s just it’s part of the job. And one thing I will implore to drivers that I wouldn’t would have said to them if they would ask is trucking is got its highs and its lows. At the end of the day, I’m not there yet, but when you do get to that point, make sure to keep a savings account. Keep a highinterest savings account because here’s the deal. End of the day, a truck breaks down, okay? I had to change my insurance, car insurance twice because I didn’t have that savings account to fix the problem. That’s cuz I’m fixing problems of my past.

04:26 So, I’ve got to play ball and, you know, persevere through those challenges till I reach that point. Once I reach that point, that savings account, if I have a truck that breaks down and I need to cover a bill, that’s what the savings account’s for. It’s obviously to buy a house, but it’s also to cover things if you hit that no fault of anyone’s situation.

04:50 Right. Gotcha. You’re listening to Gary Carrico here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. Now, Gary is joining us in week two because he’s got so many great fascinating stories to share. Now, you were talking about starting that high interest saving account so that you can buy that first house. What kind of house are you looking for?

05:09 Ironically, my mom still lives with me. And so, what I’m looking to do is kind of parlay the house. And what I mean by that is I would love to find a duplex, let my mom live in one side, I live in the other. And then my end goal, which might put Rocky face out of my realm for now because that’s secluded. It’s going to be hard to find a duplex. But my goal is that when my mom would pass on, rent out both duplexes and buy a single family home and then kind of parlay it into being a landlord just to give me earned income outside of work.

05:50 I got you. The goal in life is to make as much earned income outside of your job so that one day you know you’re working for fun because you want to, not because you have to.

06:00 Right. Use that rent from your duplex to pay your mortgage on your house.

06:06 Yeah. Yeah. And then if you do it right, I mean my goal would be five duplexes at a point because that’s 10 tenants. You look at the cost of rent right now, 10 tenants. At that point, I already make enough in a month that I don’t have to work. I’m working for fun, not because I have to anymore. You know, I mean, I do have the ambition of starting my own trucking company as well. But, you know, sometimes you make more money than what you need, but in the trucking portion of it, for me, that’s more of trying to make a better company than what it is about the money on that part.

06:47 I got you. You were sharing with me before we got on the broadcast here about starting your own company. You’ve got a specific goal within that company and a purpose for starting this company, which I’m guessing, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but this will come after you get the house.

07:02 Yes. Yes. The goal is to get the house first. Because yes, having a company is great, but one thing that most don’t realize because they don’t do the numbers and of course me being a numbers guy, 98% of companies fail within their first two years. Hence my hot shot, two years and then it folded. The point is is knowing that percentage, it’s much easier to get the house and then worry about starting the business because then if it fails, hey, I tried to do it, but I didn’t mess my family over by trying to do something that I wanted to do.

07:43 Having that hot shot company and now driving with us how much do you think that that combined experience will help you in starting your own trucking company? Well, one of the biggest things I love and honestly if I when I start mine, what I even if I don’t start mine, like at one point if I retire or can’t pass my physical no more and I don’t start the company, I hope to work in the office at Norton with you because at the end of the day, what I loved doing, one of my favorite things was the load board. I loved bidding on loads. I loved, you know, building loads cuz I did LTL. So, I would find that load that was going point A to point B, and then what I would do, I’d look for things in that point A to point B and start filling my trailer up with other loads with the load that I was taking.

08:32 Right?

08:33 I loved building loads. I loved bidding on loads. I loved everything about working with the load board. That was one of my favorite things to do.

08:43 And honestly, it’s part of what helps with Norton because for the drivers that drive with us, they know we run on a load board. So, you got to look at the load board. You got to plan, hey, I’m going to be here. Is there anything coming out of here?

08:57 And you got to make sure to know the area. Like, I’ve already had loads that I stole. I’m like, oh, I want that. And I looked. No Uber lift—

09:07 To get me to the next point. And it’s like, I don’t want it no more.

09:11 It’s nothing against the load. It just is you got to do what’s best for you. And sometimes if you have nobody to help you, it becomes a problem. Now, me growing up in Pennsylvania, there’s a lot of loads that go to Pennsylvania that might not have any way out, but I have an out cuz all I got to do is make a phone call—

09:31 Right?

09:32 What’s beautiful about that, we have a lot of loads in Wisconsin. So, if we have anybody on the fence about driving for us that’s out of Wisconsin, that would be perfect because Wisconsin has a lot of that issue of getting an Uber lift. But if you know somebody that lives in Wisconsin, that’s not a problem for you. You can take those loads and you can take advantage of the fact that other drivers can’t.

09:54 That’s some sage advice there about building relationships in states that are remote drop locations and there’s you know scarce transportation out. Is that something you just discovered or built that skill? It’s like, hey, I know this person here or I’ve met this person here. Made a contact and said, you know, I’m going to be here again in probably a month or so. Can you give me a lift?

10:17 Yeah. A lot of that had to do with my dad. Like when I rode with him, we lived on Philly side of PA. His family was on Pittsburgh side of PA. When we would take loads to Pittsburgh, we’d go visit the family. A lot of times it’s family, it’s friends. There is one account that I can remember. I was in Montana with a cement truck out of Dodge Center and I ended up stuck there for 4 days because we hit a lull in the load board. It’s part of the industry. Like I said, you just got to plan for it. And that’s any industry in trucking, by the way. I don’t want anyone thinking, “Oh, that’s just with this particular.” If you work for Prime, and I’m saying Prime because they’re sitting right in front of me right now. Obviously, it’s going to happen there just like it happens here. It’s just part of the industry. Don’t think one part of the industry doesn’t have a lull and another does. They all have it. It’s just they all hit at different times. But in Montana, I ended up meeting a lift driver and he lives right in the area that I was delivering.

11:21 So, whenever I’m in Montana, I have Dan’s number in my phone. I’ll sit there, I’ll message Dan, be like, “Yo, I’m in Montana. Can you give me a ride?” So, I have numbers in my phone that like Watertown, I just got done doing that. There’s a lady there. She does a taxi service cuz there is no transport there—

11:42 Right?

11:43 There really isn’t. That number there, you call her 30 bucks and she’ll even help you find your truck. A lot of Ubers, lifts, they just drop you and you’re on your own. She’ll help you find your truck before she leaves.

11:56 Nice lady. Nice lady. Nice lady there. Yeah. You know, we were talking about building your own company and we’re talking about your experience and driveaway hot shots, Uber, age 3 to 21 with your father. And from all that, you were telling me you want to you’ve got a big goal, a large one of changing things within the trucking industry, if you are fortunate enough to start your own company. What do you mean by that? Well, a lot of the downfalls that I’ve noticed from growing up watching my dad and from doing the industry there are some downfalls that could be controlled by companies that isn’t. There’s also downfalls that are at the hands of the broker. There’s not much you can do about that. That’s just that’s part of the industry needing to change as a whole. But like pay structures, there is a pay structure, and I don’t want to divulge too much because it’s a pay structure not used in trucking. That I think would be beneficial to both company and driver a lot better than the structures used.

12:56 Gotcha.

12:56 And I can I’ve done the math. I like per mile, no offense, per mile definitely benefits the company because if the company gets a $5 per mile load, your per mile stays the same. The company’s winning. The driver is getting screwed. If you do percentage of load that actually hurts the company more than the driver but it could also hurt both if there’s a breakdown you know and you know if you do per load well per load you’re working like a dog to get very little out of it.

13:31 It’s definitely a thinking person’s game.

13:33 Yeah. And personally I there is a scenario I’ll give an idea but I won’t go through the constructs because I’ve done the work and if someone wants to think of the idea I’m one that I’m willing to give information if we can fix the trucking industry and that is I look at the one type of trucking payment that isn’t done as salary and there is a way you could make salary work where the driver gets a steady— Okay. And with provisions that if the driver tries to take advantage of the company, the company can recoup some of the money back so that both parties mutually benefit.

14:15 Gotcha. You’re listening to Gary Carrico here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. He’s sharing with us his dreams that he hopes to achieve through driveaway. He’s a great driver for us and we appreciate him. Gary, we know your next couple loads, one connecting, taking you really close to your pickup. So, that’s the way that you always want to do it. Doesn’t always work that way, but as you told us, you’re able to manage the logistics.

14:40 One other thing that I want to bring up one thing that I wanted to bring up on day one is another benefit that I would bring up to a driver is 1099. You do not have a retirement plan through 1099 unless you make your own. My advice is look into Roth IRAs. Roth IRA will limit how much you can put in. The benefit to a Roth IRA is you pay your taxes on the way in, but you don’t pay your taxes on the way out.

15:11 Yeah.

15:12 Which what’s nice with that is you gain all the interest without being taxed.

15:17 Yeah. It’s a beautiful thing. Beautiful thing—

15:19 Because it’s a limited amount. I think it’s only 3500 you can do in a year. Don’t limit yourself to that. Do some stocks and bonds. Find ones that have at least like try and find ones that give you a 5% dividend. And for example, my buddy who’s younger than me, he done the math. I think if you want to live at like a 100,000 a year, I think it’s 1.5 million in a 5% dividend. And that’s what you get paid for the year doing nothing other than what your investments. What’s great with that is at my age it’ll be retirement time by the time I reach that. But at least it gives me a plan for retirement. I see so many drivers they get into 1099 and they don’t plan for knowing just like you know I was a football player in high school. Football wasn’t forever. Trucking ain’t either. At a point you’re not going to pass that physical or you’re just going to get too old to be able to do it anymore and you need that backup plan.

16:26 Great advice from Gary Carrico here on the Six-Figure Trucker.

16:29 Hey, one more thing by the way, just a short story that I think’s kind of interesting. So when I went to CDL school, I started with Stevens Transport to their CDL school program and what had happened is we went to Colorado and it was 26°. I wear shorts and short sleeve shirts year round. I go out for yard time 16 hours snow whatever in that. And the irony to that story is that’s how I got my CB handle. Everyone calls me polar bear. So, I mean that that’s my CD handle. I thought it was interesting. It’s just like when I was in the fire department, your nickname doesn’t come from what you choose. It’s what people give you. And that actually was given to me by my classmates.

17:18 So, I think that’s kind of cool cuz if you ever watched Ice Road Truckers, Polar Bear was one of the bad asses over there.

17:27 Well, Polar Bear, thank you for joining us and again, be safe out there and keep on trucking.

17:31 Thank you. Six-Figure Trucker is brought to you by Norton Transport. Norton Transport is a driveaway trucking company that customers can rely on. It offers excellent independent contract driving opportunities to professional, courteous, and qualified drivers that can provide the kind of service we deliver. If you’re interested in learning more about Norton or just want to subscribe to the show, check out Six-FigureTrucker.com. That’s Six-FigureTrucker.com.