Is lease purchase better with a Husband/Wife team ?

Renting a truck from these companies is risky.
Might be better to work as company driver, some let you train and team with spouse.
If you do lease then do a percentage lease. And make sure the company you work for has team loads.

 

Well, the 5'2" wife handled them just fine for years - there's nothing scary about them.

There's Quest, for reefer, but they don't pay as well.

Careful when you talk to LP and O/O - they "say" many things, but until you've seen hard numbers in a spreadsheet then it's all very subjective.

I'm can tell you as an O/O running under someone else's numbers, at percentage, that I'm "Doing Well", but my situation is different from yours, or Jacks, or John. Most won't tell you if they're struggling, just as few actually know their numbers.

Get all the info and smash the numbers real good. I've given you mine, so you have something to compare. @double yellow and @sawmill post theirs too. Factor in doing your own taxes and health insurance, retirement etc.

Mash up 3 different models - team company, team LP, team O/O. Set some goals. Formulate a plan. Post it up here, many good brains to tweak the numbers, and most successful guys here appreciate someone with a plan - rather than

"Well, I bought this truck . . . and I'm going broke"

 

Here's a simplified and modified spreadsheet I created for myself when I first got started. It's not exhaustive by any stretch, however, it provides a basic overview of what operating a truck entails.

 

You have a few good lease companies and the rest are garbage.
I'm doing lease now since november 2015. At Henderson trucking pulling Prime trailers. We get 75% of load. Out of a month I have one good week, 2 average weeks and one negative week. Still debating if it's worth the headace.
But some leases are better that others. Ask the lease guys for honest awnser. Hopefully they won't bs you.

 

There is no way I would do a L/P.You and your wife running team as a company driver,at a good company could gross pretty close to $200,000 a year with full benefits .Why take a chance on something that most have failed at.

 

If your wife is uneasy about doubles a L/P should scare the crap out her.Doubles are not hard and they have better turning Ratio then 53 footer does .

 

Just team for company make bank "save money" take some 34 hour resetps or even longer in cool places all over the us,
One guy where i work tells all his traines said , run for company for year run a set of books like your leasing,,, then youll have hard numbers to know exactly risk reward.
No reason husband wife team cant run hard for year and buy out right

 

Be careful running as a husband wife team (Been there done that) with a company as a company driver. If you are very good and demonstrate 8000 ground miles every 6 days coast to coast that would be all you do. Or... you might get roped in to run all over the place rescuing loads as a fire dept of sorts grabbing late single drivers. There is no money there.

Our Operations manager put pressure on us to split the wife once she was full trained and had some time by her self to make her a trainer and we would essentially see 160K a year salary for two trainers in our home running god knows where. Not going to happen. Not for that kind of stress.

We made it work well, but I was the keeper of the experience while she was very good at executing what has to be done such as getting to Snowshoe by 6 am in a foot of snow, and by the way if you go downhill 10 miles into Milesburg you went too far. (I 80 via 220 valley in PA) But her lack of experience in the really small details that can ruin everything in a moment was a liability at times. Such as managing the speed to be exactly 30 mph across the Roanoke scales for everything to work properly to see about either the green light or red light. We actually pulled in, I walked in and told them that we intend to cross it back and forth several times until she got it right and for them to throw in a red light once or twice. And they were happy to. THAT got her schooled. Mississippi was not as friendly. It was 15 mph or nothing at all, papers please...

With that said we did discover that certain types of loads such as LTL multiple stops with plants from Delaware to say 30+ stores in Iowa to fill their garden centers in the spring time was a very powerful and profitable adventure generating 4 to 5 thousand dollars gross per month. But it was seasonal for us. Ultimately McKesson with it's requirement we never stop and be prey due to our million dollar Narcotic loads in that qualcomm tracked unmarked trailer... was the best.

The money is there, once you find the gravy train as a team, you are it.

Good luck!

 

If you lease purchase a truck running team for a few years the truck will be knackered and worth nothing. A team with a good company running coast to coast can make the money without the lease.

 

Well OP I dont know anything about driving as a team but if you do choose to get your own truck one day, I think you should get a used one. You get a brand new one and load it with a ton of miles it will be worth a less like Dryver said. Just like a car you take the biggest depreciation hit when you buy brand new and even more when the miles rack up fast

But at the same time I don't know if theres big discounts right now on new trucks. I just know theres a lot of used trucks so theres bound to be a great deal somewhere on a well maintained one.