I'm that trucks paid off run that sucker into the ground. Car payments suck and would be worse than the minor repairs your truck is going to need. If you want to be smart pretend you have a car payment and put that amount away every month.
Career advice is tough to give it all depends on your long term goals and the goals of your spouse (who ever that may be)
I've been a union laborer, VP of IT on wall street , chemical plant worker and correction officer. Imo you can't go wrong with govt,state or city jobs. They are rock rolid and for the most part uniformed staff is pretty much recession proof.
Electrician is a great trade but when I was in the union I felt that it was too much feast or famine. Even making big bucks in IT wasn't recession proof.
If I had to give my kid the same advice as your looking for I would say : Find a career that you actually like do you think it will allow you to provide for a family ?
Nothing wrong with being an electrician BUT what happens with work dries up for a while ? On the flip side you will be learning a trade and that's always valuable I say take the apprenticeship if thats what's available to you but continue looking at other careers.
My think is retirement if you can land a job that has a gauranteed pension I would seriously consider it.
Short story , I have a friend that got a job in the Dept of sanitation in NY. While the rest of us were making decent money in construction , wall street and what not he started out making peanuts. Guy was a genius. Top pay with OT was close to if not more than 6 figures a year great health coverage and never have to worry about lay offs or a crappy economy. While the rest of spent yrs trying to figure it out he was picking up garbage.
He'll be just over 40 yrs old retired collecting a full pension and owns 2 houses.