NW Missouri
Depends on where you live, but in MO you don't have to have a CDL if you're hauling your own, including hired help. And as far as the straight trucks, if you only have farm tags, you aren't legal hauling someone else's grain in those either. Only legal way to haul someone else's grain without a CDL is wagons behind a tractor.
Once you get a semi, you'll never go back. And unless you have a lot of small places to get into, get a full sized one. They aren't any higher priced than the cute little dinky ones, and you might as well take 80k as you go.
We have several rented farms with no storage. 2 full size semis and 2 600 bu carts 1 combine and 2 people. One of us hauls and the other one runs the combine & fills carts & trucks. If the guy in the combine gets everything full they can take off in the second truck with another load sitting on the carts for when the first truck gets back. We haul 40+ miles to dump corn and 100+ to dump beans one way. Which is another added benefit - ability to haul to terminal markets where the prices are better and they aren't near as picky. Plus their dump hours are way better.
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