My Swiftie Life...

It shouldn't be $1100 directly-- figure truck payment appx $575 plus various insurances, qualcomm, prepass, etc comes out to about $700 a week at Swift.

To Freightwhipper-- a savvy L/O doesn't look at just week to week, but bigger picture like quarterly or even yearly. $700 x 52 = $36,400. Estimate 110,000 miles divided by 7 mpgs x $3 bucks a gallon = $47,142 bucks. Figure to set aside $10,000 a year for maintenance. Add all those numbers and divide back into 110,000 miles shows the overhead for the business. $93542 divided by 110,000 miles = $0.85 cents per mile to run the show. At the end of the year the driver adjust true numbers in the formula probably closer to $0.82 a mile or something.

To KryOn-- the L/O is a business so almost everything is a tax writeoff. Boots, trousers, long sleeve shirts, grease oil coolant oil changes DOT annual inspections tires brakes -- maintenance, $42 bucks a day per diem, if you store your ice chains maybe a spare tire or two in a storage facility in the summer or all year you can write off the storage rent. If you use your phone to have loads texted to you and to call your DM you can write off a large portion of your cell bill. Some people have a dog on the truck and write off everything for the dog including food, and vet bills. At the end of the day most Swift L/O's don't owe very much taxes which again speaks to how low they are paid in the first place.

 

Right from my statement ...
RESPAY$ 596.16
QUALCOM $ 20.00
BOBTAIL INS $ 5.77
O/O COLLISION INS $ 31.40
OCC/ACC INS $ 32.31
PREPASS $ 5.00

Miles per year for the last 4 years ... on a 128K run rate for this year.

2011 - 126,836 ... 2012 - 125,838 ... 2013 - 124,029 ... 2014 -128,381

I take about 10-12 weeks off per year. I've already taken 5 weeks off this year and will take 2 more off starting the end of this week.

As for the "hole" thing ... that's employee paycheck thinking. I'm running a business. The truck pays the business, the business pays me. The business is still cash flow positive after one week off and cash flow neutral after 2 weeks off.

 

You missed my point ... they're not mentoring because they have to in order to make their lease payments ... they're mentoring because they have no clue on how to run a business, so they mentor to make up for their inability to generate revenue and manage their cash flow.

As for your last paragraph ... I've been doing my own taxes for 45 years, I've been leasing with Swift for 5 years ... I think I know my numbers.

As stated a lot of people who are leasing have very little clue ... They manage week to week - statement to statement. That's bad business. It's about average and there is an ebb and flow to the freight. You have to know how to follow it and look to the long game. There's a lot of common misconceptions on how to run a lease .. most of which will cost you a few thousand dollars a year.

Below are my miles and net revenue year to date, after fixed costs and hold backs for taxes/maintenance ...

18-Jun … 2870 … $ 1,674.69
11-Jun … 3056 … $ 1,420.31
4-Jun … 2602 … $ 1,651.18
28-May … 2852 … $ 1,387.18
21-May … 3049 … $ 1,531.84
14-May … 3248 … $ 1,774.58
7-May … 2201 … $ 204.68
30-Apr … 365 … $ - 6 Days Home Time
23-Apr … 4013 … $ 2,143.59
16-Apr … 3008 … $ 1,647.66
9-Apr … 2558 … $ 899.69
2-Apr … 3157 … $ 1,442.33
26-Mar … 2873 … $ 615.23
19-Mar … 0 … $ - 8 Days Home Time
12-Mar … 2988 … $ 1,444.61
5-Mar … 3071 … $ 1,398.86
26-Feb … 2963 … $ 1,468.81
19-Feb … 3443 … $ 1,549.52
12-Feb … 3076 … $ 1,810.09
5-Feb … 1009 … $ - 7 Days Break Down
29-Jan … 2635 … $ 840.25
22-Jan … 2893 … $ 1,460.22
15-Jan … 3722 … $ - 0
8-Jan … 86 … $ - 6 Days Home Time
1-Jan … 0 … $ - 7 Days Home Time

 

I went into the hole on my settlement for 4 weeks in a row and the bills/child support/day care and big fat sit down meals continued without a hiccup.

051515 +$1573.19
052215 -$1622.34
052915 -$2478.68
060515 -$2053.55
061215 -$2005.97
061915 +$1031.65

 

I mean the thing is if it wasnt for the financial reason why be a mentor. Also the office pushes to push this guys through they need warm body's for the trucks. Use to be 240 hours not 200 hours. Even at 240 you can never really teach someone a fraction of what they need to know about the business. That is one of the biggest reason the turn over rate is so high. Its sink or swim. Alot of people sink.

 

It's really not more money. It would be like if you had a $25 per hour 40 hour job but your boss says I'm cutting your pay to $21 bucks an hour but you have to work 50 hours a week. So now your boss is getting 10 more hours a week production out of you for only $50 bucks or you could say $16 bucks an hour - a far cry from the original $25 no?.

 

You don't have a truck payment though, do you? Just your ancillary overhead.

More or less agree. It's simply maximizing the use of your physical asset - the truck. Same thing can be achieved by hiring a second seat. By the time you account for the inefficiencies of the initial training period of a student, you more or less break even by having an experienced full time second seat. Even though you would be paying them more.