The economy is slow and folks need jobs and surprisingly there are jobs that can be short term solutions, to making your biggest dreams come true. Ask yourself:

• What if, you or your spouse lost your job and weren't having much luck finding a new one?
• What if, you and your significant other are about to lose your house?
• What if you have so many bills that creditors were hounding you day and night?

Or.....

• What if, you and your family dream of owning your own home, but don't have the credit or the income?
• What if, you have the greatest idea for starting a company, but can't get the financing to get the product or service off the ground?
• What if you have a big dream, one that will cost money?

There is one possible solution to all of those problems, for couples who are willing to make a big commitments and some major sacrifices. This hub is about one of them. This job move isn't a one-size-fit all solution that will work for everyone, but it will help some of you achieve your goals in a fairly rapid amount of time. It involves hard work, long hours, perseverance, stamina, and requires an easy going disposition. The job that I'm talking in this hub, about is long distance team driving.

Throw out all of your pre-conceived ideas about trucking, truck drivers, long distance hauling, and especially forget about being an owner-operator. Instead, consider this:

There was a time a few years ago when my husband and I had our backs against the wall financially. He was temporarily laid off his regular freight job and actually paid by his railroad union, a far lesser amount to survive on, while the industry waited for a rebound during a freight and contract negotiation slowdown. They called it a "reserve pool." We called it "poverty" since railroaders with years of seniority were paid very well and he had been on the railroad for nearly 30 years.

Two months before, we had just bought a seven hundred acre farm and had a large mortgage. We owed several hundred thousand dollars. His options were limited both by his education, and the fact that we lived in a rural community. Over the years, he had been out truck driving before, during other such railroad freight slow downs in our region. Trucking was really all he knew outside of farming and working on the railroad.

In the past, trucking had paid the bills, but just barely, despite the promises of dispatch trucking companies and the "big money" they supposedly offer drivers. Still worse, were the conditions and realities of the trucking company jobs. His loneliness while out on the road was another huge problem. He did not relish the thought of going back to another solo long haul truck driving job.

I thought he was crazy when he suggested that I get my CDL, so the two of us go out team driving. His reasoning was, that if we took a team driving job, doing long distance hauling only, staying out for long periods of time, living frugally on the road -- that between us, we could pay off our farm and not have a mortgage.

The reason I thought he was crazy, was that I did not think of myself as remotely capable of being a truck driver. My last job, a few years before had been on Capitol Hill. I had the college education, the old six figure tax returns, and designer suits in my closet to prove it. I kept remembering the tree I backed into, getting our pickup stuck in a deer rut, and other such mishaps that resulting in paying our friends who owned the local tow company. He was asking me to step way out of my comfort zone.

Furthermore, he was asking the woman who could barely drive a car, to drive a big rig? He was asking the grown-up girl who got kicked out of driver's education class, for making a U-turn on a red light where it wasn't allowed -- to get behind the wheel of a semi? Moreover, he was asking a wife who was accustomed to being alone while he worked long shifts, to be cooped up in a tiny space with him, 24/7? Love him, but I was thinking, no way!

Needless to say, I was certain this was a prescription for disaster, or at the very least a divorce. However, in the end I closed my eyes and jumped off the deep end, knowing we'd never know -- if we didn't try to find a solution to our financial woes.

One year later and 450,000 miles later -- he got called back to work on the railroad. By then, we had managed to earn and save between us, over $180,000.

It wasn't easy from the beginning, some of the highlights:

• I nearly flunked out of the commercial driving school.
• As much as possible, driving as many hours as he legally could -- he did the bulk of the driving.
• There were times during that year, that he'd bring me home to give us both a break from each other. We were lucky, one of our friends had a CDL and would go back out with him.
• There were times when tempers flared from too much togetherness.
• Tired after a long day, I accidentally gave a waitress a $101 tip, instead of the two $1 bills I thought I had given her.

Additionally, our adventures were many, laughingly referred to as the "unmentionables" -- since our very first trucking marital discussion" stemmed from my packing everything we didn't need for the road, but accidentally leaving behind all of our underwear.

This snafu wasn't discovered until he was in the shower at a truck stop and reached in his grip for clean clothes. I was out in the truck stop store, trying to find him some underwear before he figured it out. Needless to say, I had a lot of explaining to do. LOL

At the end of that first year, he got called back off the reserve pool and returned to his brakeman job on the railroad. Six months later, the railroad instituted the reserve pool again, and it was back to team driving. When union negotiations finally eliminated the reserve pool, we had a total of just barely three years of trucking and over one million miles driven.

So, in three years we paid off a thirty year mortgage. We had earned a little over $420,000 between us. The security in knowing that your home was yours debt free, was more than worth all the hardship we went through, living a lifestyle that wasn't easy or fun.

Our consensus in the end, is that while long distance hauling and team driving isn't for every couple -- if you didn't have children (ours were grown) and primarily stayed on the road, instead of demanding frequent home time -- any couple could manage to save a nest egg -- that would give them the freedom to pursue some of their dreams. If we could do it, so could just about any couple.

Neither of us would recommend team truck driving, particularly working for long distance carriers, as a long term career plan. However, if you approach it as a path to earn a substantial amount of seed money for a new business; or a means to buy your own home without having a mortgage for the rest of your life -- it is a viable solution worth exploring.

Trucking is a hard job and in many ways usually a dead end job, especially if you are driving solo, or buy into the scam of being an owner-operator (an opinion that would take a whole other hub). There are many pitfalls and negatives in this industry.

Yet, unlike many get rich quick schemes, and pie-in-the-sky jobs -- it can be an avenue for financial security, if you go into it with the right attitude and with a specific goal in mind -- and then get out, and go on with your life once you've met that goal.

We recommend it for:

• Couples who get along well;
• Couples who are goal oriented;
• Couples who can see the big picture;
• Couples who are very mature and secure in their relationship;
• Couples who are absolutely healthy physically and emotionally.

1. Forget all of the romantic notions about "seeing the country" -- After awhile, running this hard every day, driving ten hours or more a day each -- the scenery around you becomes a blur as you concentrate on the traffic, finding your destination, doing the logbooks, etc.
2. Hard Cold Fact #1 - You don't earn anything unless you are moving. Perhaps the hardest reality of all is that there will be times when you are stuck waiting for a load, waiting to unload, and waiting on repairs.
3. Forget all of the romantic notions about working for a great trucking company -- They all are out there to make money and you are completely expendable. That doesn't mean there aren't good companies to work for, just that the turn-over is great.
4. Hard Cold Fact #2 - You don't always get paid for the miles you drive. Just because you drove 580 miles, doesn't mean you will get paid for that many miles. One of the tricks of the trade includes paying you only for PC miles (meaning from postal or zip code to postal code). Additionally, the zip code may be for the business office or headquarters, located in town - while where you delivered is at a warehouse 30 miles outside of town or in another town.
5. Forget all the romantic notions that the female half of your team will be entirely welcome everywhere you deliver -- many warehouses and distribution centers that you will be picking up and delivering to, may not be set up to accommodate women. (We were even in Teamster run ones that would not allow me to get out of the truck to use a bathroom.)
6. Hard Cold Fact #3 - On the road, you cannot stop whenever you want to. This includes: Not for bathroom breaks, meals, motels, sightseeing, or visiting friends. You may be driving day and night, often getting your only real meal of the day just before midnight.
7. Forget all the romantic notions that you can eat healthy and get exercise on the road-- this is downright near impossible and why you should only attempt taking on long distance driving if you are healthy to begin with.