A Trucker and His IRA

We had one client that was a truck driver, and he had a large 401(k) that he moved over into a Check Book IRA. He was trying to figure out an investment where he could feel real comfortable with it and know about it because he didn’t know stocks and he didn’t have the time, being on the road as a truck driver to go buy a piece of real estate maybe do a rental or something. So what he did was, the company he was working for, he had his own truck, the company he was working for was growing so fast; they were up there in that keystone pipeline deal. And they were having a hard time buying enough trailers to haul material and stay ahead of the curb because they were going so fast.

So what he did, we helped him structure and he took his IRA LLC, his Check Book IRA, and he went out and he bought a trailer; and it was owned by the LLC. Then he leased that trailer, he didn’t lease it to himself, he didn’t buy it and used it himself, he leased it to his employer. And so the Check Book IRA got a check every month for that. And then he just asked, he said, “Hey, can I pull that trailer?” You know, it was trailer number 104 whatever. He just kept an eye on it and he didn’t pull it all the time and that wasn’t a condition of the deal. But he could walk out and look at trailer 104 and realize there’s my retirement, they’re taking good care of it and he would kind of manage it. And that’s what he did, and as a result, he had a great investment.