More miles don’t mean more money. Hidden costs do.

Why I Wrote Hard Miles

I brought my three sons to America when they were 9, 8, and 5. I did whatever it took to keep us together, and when things got hard, they left school early to work beside me. They never complained. They followed me, and that sacrifice stayed with me.

I’m proud of them. But I also carry the weight of what they gave up to help our family survive.

Years later, I was running my own businesses: VLM Press, which publishes American Dream Magazine, and IT Pro Designs, my website development company. But the income still wasn’t enough to meet our needs. I needed another source of income, and that search led me to the cargo van business.

My credit had suffered while I kept our family afloat, and no bank would finance me. So I asked my youngest son to put the van in his name.

He said yes. But he also said, “Dad, this is going to be hard on my credit.”

Another of my sons, who works in logistics, urged me to get a job in the industry instead and leave the van alone.

I went ahead anyway.

I put the down payment and the insurance on credit cards and used every dollar of credit I had left. I felt bad about putting my son’s credit at risk, but I kept going. I believed quitting would mean letting him down, and that belief carried me into what came next.

Behind the steering wheel, reality hit hard. There were insurance requirements I didn’t understand, rates that didn’t cover costs, promises that weren’t real, exhaustion, and nights of panic when the cash ran out.

Nobody had told me what the road really costs. So I wrote the book I wish I’d read first.

This story isn’t in the book. It’s why the book exists: to help others understand the road before they start it.