Lease Purchase Programs?

Work and study hard to make yourself one of the 15%. And remember: these trucks weren't invented, designed and built by the majority who used to say it was impractical to sell products all the way on the other side of the country.

 

Sadly I would not argue too much with the 15/85 success failure rates he lists. But then again I spend a lot of time working with new lease ops and it is sad how many have very little understanding into what it takes to be successful in this industry. Years ago I owned a handful of trucks outright and yes I made more money. But then I "retired". A few years and a divorce later I came back into the industry without the means to purchase a truck outright. So I have leased with the same sense of determination and work ethic I put into it when the titles were in my name. I have done well for myself.

 

any link to those stats, thanks.

 

Leases are like witches ... there a good one and bad ones.

It's pretty basic model to find the good ones - your miles to break even should be equal to 1/3 of the amount of miles that you can reasonably expect in a given week ... do that and you can take week off and still never go in the hole.

 

Stopped reading at $.90 cpm. You do know that your check would be $.10cpm, don't you? For you, that would mean a 75% reduction in revenue....you sure you want to do that?

 

Well, I definitely plan to be part of that 15%. As far as I can tell, leasing is the only viable option. It wouldn't be a smart idea to try to buy a truck myself nowadays and try to survive off of load boards. There are just as many that fail doing that as there are that lease through companies. And either way you end up with a truck payment. And saving to buy a truck outright is just not practical in today's economy... company drivers just aren't paid enough to save $150,000 anymore.

 

I should point out that what I read was .90 per mile plus the fuel surcharge, which ranges between .35 and .45 depending on prices. So it would actually be 1.25 - 1.35 per mile total.

 

I saw this forula somewhere and applied it based on rates I found for one of the companies I was considering.

According to my calculations, if I ran 1/3 of my normal miles (in this case, I put 900 miles, assuming a 2700 mile week on average) and after all expenses and fuel, I was $95.63 in the positive. So basically break even. And, that's assuming the highest truck payment for a brand new truck (which I won't be doing, I'll get a used one for less), and also assuming only 6.5 mpg, which I had better do better than that. Hell, in my Cascadia now I drive with my foot to the floor and still get 7.3 on flat terrain. If I slowed down while driving my own truck, I bet I could hit 8.

 

After everything is said and done, that's still less than what you will make if you are making $.40cpm or more.

 

Is there any way an driver could clear $1K a week after expenses on a L/O?