Brokers are Making A Killing on these loads! (screen shots)

Trucking is 7/24/365. You are trying to tell us your daily rate is no less than $2400, correct?

If I was a bottom feeder, I would be gone a long time ago.

I don't have hourly rate. I have a monthly goal of 20K regarding the current market, driving no more than 50 hours per week. And I'll reach it. Again.

 

How many total hours do you have invested to maintain your goal of 50 driving hours a week? Or is that 5 10 hour days total no matter how the days play out?

 

I'm currently working on a contract to move a logger. Have moved them so many times, I lost count a decade ago.
He chose the order of the pieces going.
When I pull in to pick up the next piece, it is sitting in the open, keys in it, ready to go.
If I am delayed, I'll wait 5 minutes for free, then they are on the clock, and i charge $10 per minute. If others want to work for chicken feed, by all means do so. I have lots of work to get done, and demand to be paid for wasting my time.

 

A steady customer? One that you've moved many times? And all you'll give him is five minutes of free time?
Man, you're strict.

 

Now I never been to Florida in my entire life so forgive me if I'm wrong , but I thought the only thing South of there is the ocean

 

Worry about your own work ethics and how far they will get you. I am with him on this 100%.

In my book, If they can't load the truck within 3 hours, then there is something wrong with the shipping procedure and I reserve the right not be a part of it. At that point, it is completely up to me if I bail or not and if I do, my qualms of conscience are ZERO.

Think about it.
If they can refuse to unload when I am 1 hour late, I can refuse to wait 3 hours too.

 

That's unfortunate but practically unavoidable. You can't sign a broker-carrier agreement without accepting their often perfidious terms.
I haven't signed with another brokerage for 3 years now. I can't stomach initiating all those paragraphs, realizing that I consciously agree to be potentially screwed over. You literally need a legal team to decipher all that legal stuff and try to rephrase it for the brokerage, provided that they would accept it too, which isn't so obvious. Besides, all too often, those broker - carrier agreements are often done on the fly, you got like 10 minutes before they give that load to someone else.

 

The industry, yes, it is 24/7/365 (366 on leap years). But majority of us here are owner operators, our own bosses, and decide what days and hours we work and how far we'll go, as well as how long we'll go working before hometime. Some won't work certain days, usually weekends, some do. Some stay home for holidays, some work holidays for the extra pay usually offered. That's the beauty of being an owner Op, YOU decide your working schedule, not someone else, whether it fits the brokers/shippers/receivers schedule or not. Another perk is deciding under what conditions to take a load. Just because many carriers are willing to sit several hours free before loading doesn't mean everyone else should too. Even if detention is paid, many times it's not worth the extra time wasted. Needless to say, time IS money.

Same thing goes for me to you about running 50 hrs max a week. I could tell you that you should be maxing 70 hrs to increase revenue and maximize profits, or telling you to find better paying loads and run less, but that's not my place to tell you that, because in fact, I ran almost the same way last year. 3 round trips CA-AZ averaged minimum 50hrs a week driving, not including time spent booking loads, paperwork, invoices, etc. It was good money, exhausting though. Now that I have less overhead, I run a lot less now...