First, before taking any other advice you have to qualify which you haven't done yet with only three weeks.
So above all you need to do whatever it takes to qualify which includes skipping your lunch (I know, sacrilege coming from the steward!)
After you are qualified:
Do
NOT skip your lunch.
If you do you will only be setting a standard for yourself that UPS will expect and try to demand you maintain,
for the rest of your career.
This will not get easier as you get older so take your full lunch every day (and not one minute over) and put up with the associated complaints and pressure management will apply to you to try to get you to cheat and skip part or all of your lunch.
Learn the methods, all of the methods and make them instinctive.
Even at the cost of slowing you down or making the job harder at first.
The methods UPS trained you with are not suggestions and if you treat them as such you open yourself up to discipline and injury.
If you run into performance problems down the road with management and you have developed consistency using the methods you are virtually bulletproof.
Apply for the 401k as soon as you are eligible and have the highest level taken out for investment.
Get used to living on the take home pay this gives you now.
Regardless of your current financial situation it will never get easier to save money than now.
It is unlikely that you will be able to continue to work as a UPS driver all the way to retirement age with the changes to the pension and those probably coming to social security so pay yourself first every week before getting involved in paying car dealers, mortgage companies, travel agencies, etc.
Work hard to keep a positive attitude and try for a reasoned discussion with management when things don't seem right.
Supervisors (and center managers) are very limited now a days in what they can and cannot do and they hear accusations, yelling and bitching all the time (much of it about decisions they have no control over) so those approaches are counterproductive and just shut down the little cooperation they might be able and willing to give you.
Cutting corners, whether by skipping lunches, or working unsafe (not bothering with handrails, blowing late lights, speeding, lifting improperly because you have never hurt your back before, etc) to "make standards" or to try to finish too much work is cutting your own throat.
So work safe and consistent and did I mention use the methods?
