Search Engine - Search Engine x What We Spend

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

This week, we're presenting an episode of a new show we like called What We Spend, one of Vulture's best podcasts of 2025. Also, news for our Incognito Mode listeners. Today, we're having an online, live event with Heavyweight's Jonathan Goldstein at noon Eastern time. Sign up for Incognito Mode at searchengine.show. Details about the event in the beginning of the episode! ⁠Listeners' favorite Search Engine episodes To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Run your business smarter, the Square gets started today. This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Vanguard. To all the financial advisors out there whose job is to help your clients keep more of what they earn, Vanguard is here to help you with that. Vanguard is slashing fees again, this time for more than 50 of its funds. That's on top of big fee cuts they gave last year to investors in 87 of their funds. In an increasingly high-priced world, Vanguard is staying true to excellence without expense. With Vanguard, your clients get access to sophisticated, active, and index bond funds at industry-leading low costs.

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Hello. This is a very important reminder before I start this. Today, Friday, May 30th, is Flawful Friday at Search Engine. That means that at noon Eastern time, we're going to have lunch together over Zoom, and we will be joined by our friend and fellow podcaster Jonathan Goldstein from heavyweight. Jonathan is one of the greats, and someone who, hearing himself described as one of the greats, is probably immediately squirming in his chair somewhere in the American Midwest. Anyway, the great Jonathan Goldstein is joining us. I will have questions for him. Maybe I'll take some listener questions for him.

Lunch is at noon Eastern Time. The link to join will arrive in your inbox an hour before, at 11 a.m. Eastern Time. This event is for paid subscribers only. So if you are an incognito mode member, you'll receive the email. If you're not an incognito mode member, you can sign up at search engine. and if you have any issues, email me at PJVote85 at gmail.com. And yes, we will make a recording of the event available for our incognito mode members after the fact. Okay, today, Friday, May 30th at noon, please bring your own falafel. Thank you.

As for this week, we are sharing an episode of a new podcast made by one of our labelmates over at Odyssey. I think just for starters, can you just say your name and what you do? Yeah, my name is Courtney Harrell, and I am a producer, and I host the show What We Spend. Courtney is a veteran podcast producer. She's worked a lot with one of my favorite hosts, Dan Daberski, both on the series Running from Cops and 9-12. She is now hosting herself. Her new show is about money. I think about money all the time.

I have always thought about money all the time. I would say that I have traditionally been a high-anxiety money person where, you know, I started tracking every expense that I made when I was a teenager. And what prompted that? Being afraid I wasn't going to have enough money to do things. Do you recall your teenage expenses? I mean, some of it was just, like, food. Yeah.

But it was, like, also, I took a tap dancing class whenever I was a teenager. I'm not a big dancer. But, like, I remember, like, really tracking how much the, like, tap shoes were going to cost. and I remember, like, buying songs on iTunes for my iPod. And you would put, like, the 99-cent expenditure in? Yeah. So it would be like, Chumbawamba, 99 cents. Totally.

Each episode of what we spend follows one person who talks very openly about the money they make and the money they spend. It's like sneaking into someone else's checking account for a week. You meet a woman in Utah clawing her way out from under student loans. You meet a freelance actor, planning for a business. the uncertain period between gigs. It's funny with your show, as I've been listening to it, there's something like literally just hearing someone say,

not just what they make, but in detail what they spend in a month, I have this feeling of, am I hearing something illicit? Oh, the first time I was in an interview, and somebody said, I got a check, and I was like, how much was that check for? And then, like, shrunk back in my seat, because it actually felt like so crazy to be like, no, specifically, like, tell me how much you're talking about

for all of these things. What makes money such a funny taboo is like, you know, we have taboos around our bodies, and we have taboos around our language, and we have taboos around, like, all sorts of parts of the way we think or our self-presentation. But money is a funny one because somebody might feel ashamed that they don't make enough.

They might feel ashamed that they make too much, and depending on who they're in front of, the same person could have both feelings. I feel like that's why people don't talk about it. Totally. So this week on Surgeon, and we're talking about it. We're sharing an episode of what we spend

that I chose to share with you. It's about the financial life of an American trucker, a category of worker we've been thinking about a lot in our office these days. I hope you enjoy it. What other jobs did you work before this one? I did have work for a city bus, and I came back to trucking.

I want to say four years ago, and even my son, when he was little, I showed in a truck. And he said, my mama's driving a truck. I'm like, yeah, the bills got to be paid, baby. I saw it as a way to get my bills paid, and it seemed to have some enjoyment about it, I thought. And it does.

We just need better pay. This is Maxine. She is a 60-year-old long-haul truck driver based in North Carolina. How big is the truck? Oh, this is a 53-foot trailer. Oh, that's really big. Right? That's it.

Yes. Do people ask you to honk your horn all the time? Sometimes, especially babies, and I don't mind. I've had babies myself. They're all grown and grandbabies. I don't mind. I love everybody's babies. Maxine took time off for a few other jobs,

but she's been trucking off and on for different companies since 2004. She's driven routes all over the country. But right now, she works what's called a dead. dedicated route, which means she's always delivering home goods for a specific company through the same stretch of the country. We talked on the phone before she headed out from North Carolina for her next drive to South Carolina and then on to Louisiana. Maxine is one of about three and a half million truckers in the U.S. who literally make the rest of our lives possible. She is an indispensable part of American life. And like a lot of truckers, she is not making enough to get by.

Maxine works hard. Week after week, she barely buys anything, and still, she can't always pay her bills. And she is not alone. This week, we're going to follow Maxine through a week of her life on the road and hear the benefits and the price of life as a trucker. I'm Courtney Harrell, and this is what we spend. The first thing to know about trucking is that the pay is confusing. You can get paid by the day, by the hour, by the mile. Yeah, the companies can choose to pay you in that way. I'm paying now by the mile.

By the mile, okay. Companies typically choose how to pay based on the kind of route someone is driving. So hourly pay is more likely for local routes with frequent stops in a smaller area. But most long-haul truckers like Maxine are paid by the mile, not hours worked. How much you earn per mile is a calculation of a bunch of factors, what you're carrying. how far you're driving, who you're driving for, and how many years you've been doing this. But no matter your rate, you only earn that if you're moving, on the road with a truck full of goods. How much money do you make? Okay, so my taxes this year, I think it was $44,000.

Okay. And it fell from grace. I was making like $1,600 a week. I saw my way of being able to get a home and a little bit of land and place to park the truck trailer. But it went from that to my checks could be $380, $480 in one week, $500 in one week. What happened? That's what I want to know. They say it's the rates and then the loads.

Rates and loads. Basically, Maxine told me that these days there's less merchandise for her to carry and she's getting paid less to carry it. That is not just a Maxine problem. The freight market has been in a recession the last few years because when manufacturing, construction, and retail markets slow down, there's just less goods to carry, fewer loads. And that means there's less work available, which leads to lower rates. You know, drivers get together and talk. If you can imagine, we're in the yard. And we're walking outside talking each other about loads. Like, hey, what's going on with you?

What's going with you? We're all saying, you know, the low issue. And this young man that used to work at Walmart, he was like, I might have to go back to Walmart because there's no lows. I got bills, Southport, blah, blah, blah, he was saying. And I prayed about it. I said, Lord, I don't. know what type of mountains I got to climb and what's going to be throwing at me.

But I can't keep going from job to job to job. They all seem to have problems with loads. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average trucker takes home about 57,000 a year, about 10,000 more than Maxine made last year. But remember, they're paid by the mile. So sometimes drivers like Maxine end up on the road for so long waiting for loads to come through, that if they were paid hourly, they'd be making less than minimum wage. I've had paychecks where it was zero, where I owed the company. Oh, wow. Yeah, I got two paychecks in a row like that.

Wait, why did, what do you owe the company for? It's because I borrowed $500 advance from the next paycheck so I could make rent. Then say my next pay was only $480. Then I owe the company, the rest of that. advance and then it'll go into the next week as well. And if, say, that week was the week that the truck set up and between sitting up and not having a load until the following week, then I won't have a paycheck that week either. What do you do when you don't have a paycheck come through or when you get a paycheck that's like I owe money? Let me tell you, I came back

to where I was living, I sat down with the manager. I never left them alone. the manager of the apartment complex. I always showed up when I told him I was going to show up if I had money or not. And I signed a promissary note to pay within six months, period. And he told me, he said, Maxine, we know I believe you'll pay. You've always told us what was up and was here. Yeah. And if I had nothing left, I made sure he got paid and my other bills got paid.

My finance company, my credit card. I didn't ditch out on nobody. Maxino's money to a finance company because she took out what's called a debt consolidation loan to reduce a bunch of her debt to one payment with a lower interest rate. So now the gameplay is I pay off the credit card and the finance company. $296 with the finance company up the street. I think I got $1,800 left on theirs. And then I have another finance company that I pay $450.

to a month, and there's $17,000. Is that debt from regular living expenses, or is there a larger expense that it's just from bills? That's regular. That's from me not making the money that I need. Maxine really doesn't have that many regular expenses. Her health insurance comes out of her pay, and then she spends about 120 a month on utilities, 80 a month on her phone, 6,000. 45 a month on her car and insurance, and about 80 a month on gas. The biggest expense weighing her down is her rent, which is $1,400 a month for her one bedroom in North Carolina. But after all that, she often has to put her groceries on her credit card. I spend quite a bit because of

toiletries. You have to have a makeshift bathroom. And see, the thing is, with truck drivers, a lot of times we don't have a bathroom. They're always... But they have one. They won't let us use it. And we can't stop the restaurants. What do you do? You got to make it. Some people buy buckets and make good poetry.

I see. You know, and it goes into the garbage bags and then tie it up and get it in the garbage can. And now if something happens, like a disaster, like it accidentally spills over the whole floor. And now you've got to clean that whole floor up. Oh, God. So I buy a lot of paper towels, garbage bags. and things like that, cleaner and things like that. Yeah.

Like, I'm looking at right now. I got, last night I went and got paper towels. And I went to Dollar General. And I stopped Dollar General quite a bit. $15 each. One, two, three, four, five of it. Eight rolls. Oh, wow.

I got it on each side, the big, giant rolls. Okay. Now, I'll go through a whole pack of that in about five days. Whoa. See, those are things that people, No, that's a lot of experience. And you've got to have that each week. And you're going to run out.

Yeah. You try to run out on payday. Supplies like Maxine's paper towels aren't typically covered by trucking companies. Some companies do offer per diems to help with those kinds of travel costs, but there's no law requiring it. So more than half of trucking companies just don't. Despite that, despite the low pay and the loads and the makeshift bathroom, Maxine loves driving her truck.

How did you get into it initially? I kind of, well, after life hit me, I looked at, you know, you have the B and the C plan. Yeah. Because originally as a child, you know, it was medical, the medical field and nursing. I kind of click with that, you know, and I had the issues that was horrible. throughout my youth. And I went through a lot of abusive stuff. I'm sorry. Oh, yeah, he was a monster.

But when I got into my adult life and I started looking at, you know, other plans. And my father always said, you know, you're really good with driving. And my mother said that too. I would, with a church members, especially elderly church members and get the church. I'll give you an example. When I started driving buses, I had one of the most toughest instructors to check me.

And when he told me, he said, Maxine, you're putting me to sleep. I was like, dang, I got it. If I could put your butt to sleep, amen. Yeah, I mean, that is impressive. Wow. So when I got my chance to learn how to drive the trailers. I did. So you had your parents saying you were a good driver. But what else was it

about trucking that means you'd be like, oh, as soon as I get the chance to do that, that's what I'm going to do? Just driving makes me calm. Driving calms me down. I feel safe when I'm driving. And that's probably from my background, my childhood and teenagehood and stuff, just to be in a space where I feel comfortable and it worked out. Maxine went to trucking school in Kansas, where she learned a bunch of driving techniques that would help once she was out there on her own, like how to turn no matter how long the wheel span, how to keep control through high-grade hills, how to see the road in front of a long-nosed truck. And she learned a healthy

respect for the massive machines. Learned to stay vigilant all the time. And she loved it. What is the best part of the job? Knowing that you're doing something meaningful, the importance of getting the goods there. And, you know, just

feeling like that you're doing something good that needs to happen. You're getting stuff to people that they need. Right, and getting into the little towns that need things, and it's hard for them to get because, you know, having empty shelves, it's not a happy town. Yeah. I think a lot of us associate driving on, like, big, long open roads the way that you do with freedom. Does it feel that way to you?

You feel that. You do. Yeah, you definitely, you feel that. You feel that mostly when you first start driving. When you're new to it, that's your first feel. Like, wow, the freedom of doing this and I'm on a meaningful job. And it can be healing. The road can be actually healing.

Whatever you've been through in your life or still going through, but everything is fresh and new and it feels so good. and you are meeting people and the food on the road. Truckers know seem to know the best places to eat. And you, you know, you can feel that freedom. After the break, we'll dive in to Maxine's Week. This episode of Search Engine is brought you in part by Quince. I've realized the best way to refresh my wardrobe is not buying more, it's buying better,

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Quince.com slash search engine. This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Bombus. Okay, I don't know about you, but the second it starts feeling like spring, I just want to be outside. Walking more, making plans, just moving again. It's also when I start swapping in my warm weather staples. starting with Bombas. I've been getting into longer walks lately, and their sport socks have made such a difference. They're cushioned, moisture wicking, and they actually stay in place, so I'm not stopping every five minutes to fix them. And once the boots go away, Bombas slides are back in rotation. They're made from this lightweight, waterproof material that's really soft but still supportive,

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code engine at checkout. This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Instacart. Instacart is more than a grocery technology platform. It's really about giving you back time and making everyday tasks feel a whole lot easier. It connects you to thousands of stores across the country, so you can get what you need without having to plan your whole day around it. Lately, I've been using it a ton when I'm trying to just stay on track with meals during the week.

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I'm recording in Polk, Florida, and a company tractor trailer at a rest stop. Today, I started my morning out as usual. you start your pre-trips starting inside the truck and then outside the truck checking everything out thoroughly. After things are clear and you can get on the road, you start your travel and it was a really good morning for travel. Very nice, very nice drive. I kept driving to around 10. Took a quick break in the Florida welcome trucks rest up off of 75 South, which was a very, very, very nice. looking rest up. Very clean looking.

I got to talk to a few people as I went about my business. So I didn't hang around long, had to get back, do a 30-minute break, and got back on 75 South, and, you know, cars are going to cut through traffic

and cut the trucks off. That's pretty normal. The better thing is not to cut them off and not to get in front of them, some cars will speed as if they're going to keep their speed and get in front of the truck and then all of a sudden slow completely down to almost a stop and they love to do this going downhill you're carrying maybe 44,000 pounds more 43,000 pounds more the last thing you need is a car almost coming to a stop in front of you trucks are pretty strong but they're not perfect and

they can't stop on a dime so you do the best. you can with what you got to work with. Anyway, I got the load where it needed to go. I detached from my load. Then I found my empty trailer to attach to and went out to find a parking spot, which is not always easy. But I felt very blessed to find one at a rest stop. And that has been my day. I'm still in Florida. And I'll be moving out in the morning. Maxine had already bought the food she needed the day before. So her total for day one was $0.00. This is Audio Dairy 2.

After I got up, I usually kind of check out the scenery, what's going on with movement. Can I move the truck? Is there someone that's going to be blocking me? Then from there, we have what's called the EOD in the truck. This is a tablet and a computer tablet. So all of our messages and work, information comes through that. And what we do during the day, if we stop, all of our movements and information goes on that. So we can correspond with our company and they can correspond back with us.

When you get your GPS set, everything checked out, and you're personally ready to go. I did all of that this morning and had it toward Fort East. My goal was to get to Jacksonville area so I can keep moving toward Alabama. I got to a stop, truck stop. This is a little different. This is called a gas and go. is where I perched tonight. The gas and go, it's like a mini grocery store.

They have everything from frozen meats, which I did need for my little freezer, in my truck. So I grabbed up just a few cold items for that freezer, some turkey sausages, some corn. I think I got sweet peas, which I love sweet peas, especially with my rice. And I wrote those items,

in the fridge. And I tried their potatoes. They got a little deli in there. They make the best wedge potatoes. Also, I saw a little browning. And I almost didn't allow myself to have it, but I did. And I'm glad I did. That was a very, very good brownie.

So I spent tonight $42.6, which is crazy. crazy, but I now have food in the freezer. That'll last me a month. Are you in the truck right now? I am. Yeah, will you just kind of describe the inside of it to me? Like, what would I see if I was in there? Well, when you get in and you'll see the steering wheel, the seats, and all of the electronic equipment and things, and then there's a bed, I don't have the best hips in back.

So I have two mattresses. Cubbies in the front and in the back area, there's cabinets. I put food in. And I have some cooking things so I can cook a little glance. And that's G-A-L-A-N-Z. Those things are wonderful. Refrigerator and a little oven. I've had the refrigerator and oven in here.

The refrigerator I bought, the oven, one of the drivers, had a glance. So he gave me a glimpse. How do you cook in there? Well, I have a little pan. We have an inverter that you can plug it up to. And a buddy of mine gave me a coffee pot that falls water in seconds. So I get my teas. I love teas.

I like lemon grass tea. Oh, it's so good. We'll put you to sleep so quickly. At the end of the night, it's the best stuff. As long as Maxine stays at her current job, she's always driving the same truck. So all these things in her kitchen, plus the tea and the extra mattress and an old picture for her son's basketball team, make the truck she spends so much time in feel more like her own. This is Ario Diary 3.

I started my day pretty much the same. I made the two and a half hour drive from that gas and go to the Alabama. 280 West and that was for the delivery of the freight and I got it there a few days early so they allowed me to park the trailer and then I could a bobtail out and the part of the truck that's only the truck without the trailer is called a bobtail so I bobtail out I headed to the loves. It was about 45 minutes, maybe 53 minutes away, through the mountains. And it had its high points and low drops, you know, lots of curves in the road.

But once I got to the loves, I did go buy a Taco Bell and get a, okay, Sothea, I spent $8. And inside Loves, I spent another $8. So that's a total of $16 for the day. I made a park here at the Loves, and that would put me into a 34-hour reset time. Your 34-hour reset is the amount of time you're required to take off before starting a new work week. So a driver is only allowed to work 70 hours in an eight-day period. And then they have to take that break.

So in this time, most drivers like to do their laundry, touch base with their families. The loves have showers. And usually they have other little restaurants inside so they can do a little bit of shopping. So I did not have to do that this time because I've already picked up some things during the week. that was needed for the truck. That is usually what most drivers do under a 34-hour reset. I will be talking to you tomorrow.

Total for day three, $16 at Love's Truck Stop. This is Audio Diary 4. This is the end of my 34-hour reset for the 70-hour clock. on the truck. So that means I didn't drive today. I went into the truck stop store. I went in there because I have a swelling feet sometimes and it didn't go down, I noticed. So I went in to get something for it. Got a little gel-like icy thing. You can either throw in a refrigerator or You can heat it.

They had it half price, around the office, just $15. And I got some hydrant drinks. And there was something else because my total was $26 for the day. I got me a wonderful shower. I got to talk to family. And I got to do some music. Maxine loves to listen to music while she drives, mostly gospel, rock and roll, a little country.

But she also loves opera, and she loves to sing. So in her downtime, she's learning to sing O'Meo Babi Nogato. I didn't want to get too loud, so even though I'm in the truck, I don't want to disturb anyone. So I just kept it to a minimum. I'll draw the curtains. We have like a blackout curtains. And I'll draw the curtains. Sometime I'll open it because it's sitting behind the curtains all the time.

On your time off, it can get dreary. so I'll open it so I can see out and things like that. Some truckers mingle. I'm not a good mingler. So I'll find something to do in my truck, you know. I have some knitting needles here somewhere right there. I'll probably later on try to get a little tiny sewing to make something. But that has been it.

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Get up to six free devices and a free bar kit. Sign up by April 27th. Visit Everpass.com. time offer, terms apply. Hi, this is Audio Diary 5. Now, what I want to explain is, like, the days that I was not moving, you don't get paid for that.

If the truck breaks down, you're not paid. It can be just bad equipment, shoddy equipment, or something went wrong. If something happens and, you get to a constant need and say they cancel you don't get paid you should get paid something because you're you're in the vehicle you're on duty as an employee but you don't get paid expenses for us like gloves hammers things like that that is all on us that you need for your truck um expenses for GPS that'll run your problem

between $400, $1,200. That's all on us. If you're needing parking and there's no more free parking, my experience is between $20 and $30. There's some that's higher and as soon as lower as $17. I don't think I've ever seen it lower than $17. So that money, you may or may not get back. A lot of times you won't get it back. There are some companies I've read.

that they will pay it back. And that's a toss-up. And if you got a load and a truck responsibility, you want to make sure nothing happens to it. So we're caught between a rock and a hard place. Can I ask, like, this part of your job that's like, okay, I don't get paid if all of these things happen with my truck or with the load, like, how does that make you feel?

You feel abandoned. Maxine kind of is abandoned. Ever since the 1980s, the trucking industry has become increasingly deregulated. And now there's no law that says trucking companies have to cover expenses like parking or supplies. So it's left up to truckers to figure out how to get through the job and then how to pay for life outside the job. And for Maxine, she can no longer make both things work. Once I was going through this over and over and over again, And my rent got behind.

And for a whole year, it stayed behind until the point where, yeah, I could not renew because I didn't make enough money to pay the $1,400 rent. After months of working 14-hour days and waiting, waiting for her pay to improve so she could catch up on bills, Maxine was forced to make a really hard decision. She decided she had to give up her apartment. After day five, she headed back to North Carolina and started packing up. As I look around, I'm not liking this. I'm not liking packing everything and getting all this stuff in storage. It's one of those things that you don't want to have to go through. I've been there before.

and when you believe our industry should be stable and it's not, you know, I tell myself everything is for a reason, you know, take this time to pay down all your debt, and maybe I could get that land and a little house on there or build a house on there, and I'll have a place for a tractor and trailer or a small business. the apartment I'm always keeping everything up as I go thank God it's clean

carpet's clean still looks new they won't have a problem with finding someone but I just hate it I hate going through it it's daunting very painful

and the finance is crazy We need rental caps all across the United States. It's nothing wrong with making a profit. Everybody's for a profit, but not so much that you're killing your citizens. Makes no sense. And the industry, the transportation industry, need to pay a living wage. All of us, from trucking to bus, city buses, we need a living wage.

No truck drivers should be homeless. They need her home. They need land. They need a home. They need a place to put a securement for loads that they're going to take out the next day. They need that. I don't believe it. Where did you go stay after you left your place?

I live in the truck. You live in the truck full time. I live in a truck full time. See, let me tell you that's scary. Because now you're giving full trust. the company that I came from have quite a bit of truck drivers that are living in their vehicles.

How do you all talk to each other about that? What do you say to each other? I'll ask them about the pay. When we get together and we start talking about pay, they'll mention that they live in a truck so they could get their pay of bills pay. I've talked to a guy and he was telling him.

He was told me that him and his wife, you know, had to give up their home. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, that's how they're making up for the pay and the non-pay. And he told me and said, you might want to try that. I said, not voluntarily. That was during that time. Yeah. Yeah.

I didn't, I didn't see that it was going to happen. And see, from here, it would be on the street. Now you got truck drivers retiring on the street. This is Audio Diary 7. I'm in North Carolina where I live. I'm home, and the only expenditures I did is preparation for the truck when I leave out. I'm hoping to leave out Friday. They have me for Monday, but I need to make some money for this week.

So I spent between, let's see, approximately $20. I think the paper towels is, let's see, Yeah, that's about the only thing that I bought. But I am home just moving, putting stuff in storage. And it's very scared. I'm so scared about this thing. I love my little apartment, but I got to go. How much money would you need to make to be able to reliably have a home again?

I need to go back at least with the economy. being the way it is between, I'm saying 14 and 16, that should do it. A week. That's not going to put me a week. If the job is paying so far below what you need to meet your basic needs, what is keeping you in this job? If the truck and industry is one where if you need, if you, you move around too much, you won't get hired. Yeah.

That's what I know about it. Yeah. It's a flip of the coin. So you got to stay stable a few years in something, whether it's good or bad, you know? Yeah. And I'm thinking just pay everything off. Yeah. I can see myself doing that.

Live out of a truck and pay everything off. then maybe within months or half a year, things will change back. Are there other jobs besides trucking that you could imagine having more stability in? Without training? Like, I've taken up some phlebotomy on the side here, just on my own, just reading. And I have thought about it, and I am looking of what can be. done. And I've also thought about there's drivers I've talked to

that drive part-time and they have a second job. So I'm joshing some things around. I'm a worker and I do the work that I can do. I try to stick to what I know and what I can do. We talked before about

the freedom you would feel on the road. Do you still feel that when you're driving now? I do. I do. And I look forward to a refreshing feeling. I do want to be able to go home and have a little garden and get on my back, my back porch. I got a lot of southern in me and fall asleep in a chair at the little couch outside that I would design for myself. When you're talking about your like long-term future that you are imagining for

yourself, your dream of this land. Does that include trucking or is your kind of like long-term dream leaving trucking behind? It definitely includes trucking because I could see myself driving less as I get older in life and, you know, it's going that way. It depends on what life throws at me. I mean, I could end up teaching it. Yeah. You know? But, I don't know what it is about the trucks. I think it's because we live in it, work daily with it. It kind of becomes a part of you, you know? Yeah.

And leaving it can be like a divorce. You go need some counseling. In the weeks after recording the episode, Maxine was still living in her truck and saving money towards the future. But she did get one piece of good news. Her company is getting her a newer truck. Thank you to Alex Leslie at the American Transportation Research Institute and Steve Vaselli.

They both helped us understand the trucking industry for this episode. If you want to know more, check out Steve's book, The Big Rig, Trucking, and the Decline of the American Dream. What we spend is an Odyssey original podcast. It's written and hosted by me, Courtney Harrell. Our producers are Margo Gray and Kristen Torres. Our editor is Jonathan Menhivar. Our executive producers are Maddie Sprunkeiser and Leah Reese Dennis.

Theme song and original music by Matt McGinley. Additional music from APM Music. Mixing by Pedro Alvira. Special thanks to Melissa Aikiko Slaughter, Joel Lovell, Jenna Weiss Berman, J.D. Crowley, Moira Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, Hillary Schuff, Sean Cherry, Laura Berman and Hillary Van Ornum. If you want to be on what we spend, we'd love to hear from you.

Write us at what we spend podcast at gmail.com. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank.