I'm taking the L/P plunge

Well, let me see. Last week, 3100 miles of hills and headwinds, Dallas, TX to Portland, OR, 43k in the box, then Portland, OR to Toledo, OR down to Otay Mesa with 42K in the box, mpg 6.5, and darn, my check was only $1400, and this was after 450 was taken out for my, MY, maintence account. I must be doing something wrong out here. Think I will go back to company, where I would have made $1250 before taxes. Decisions, decisions.

 

... Well let's see ... been doing this for 4 years now ... on my second truck - purchasing this one. So I've weathered my share of break downs, good weeks, bad weeks and I'm very tuned in to what is required to keep my truck running.

I average a $1000 a week before tax revenue on all 52 weeks. I only work for 41 weeks. That's does not include the $240 a week, for all 52 weeks, that I put away for maintenance. My effective tax rate for the last four years has been about 6% total for federal, state and self employment, on that $52K of revenue a year.

Now out of that $52k, I pay myself a $40K annual tax free salary ... the other $12K covers paying my taxes, out of pocket medical and any incidental on the road emergencies ... after those expenses are covered, I've averaged a $4K profit in the business per year.

Oh, and for the record. I've talked with a few guys running those Columbias and they all claimed they were averaging 6.5 to 7.5 MPG.

 

Yep .. but you'll be hard pressed to find one that has Swift attached to it ... CRE is probably 350 of them by themselves.

 

Thanks for this post!

I do have a question. Is your $1400 gross to the truck? If it is, then how do you handle paying yourself?

I know when my brother was running with a company that paid a flat $1.35 per mile his settlement checks were in a similar range, but my knock on his business is that he treated his settlement as his paycheck. Even though he held out for taxes it still meant that his company wasn't really making a profit or setting aside depreciation for purchasing a new truck.

IMHO there's no way under that kind of compensation he would ever be able to afford to hire another highly qualified driver (with benefits) to drive his rig for him and make a profit, nor would he ever be able to save enough money to buy a second or third truck and build a fleet and a real business. I've seen ads posted at some of the terminals where O/O's are looking to hire drivers at around $0.30 to $0.35 per mile, but then how much do you have left in profit after paying a driver?

By comparison he's now running flatbed loads to the oil fields, leased to a company that pays by percentage of load, running far fewer miles, and getting weekly settlement checks averaging over $8000. For the first time in his trucking career he's salting away money in the form of profit and starting to research his next truck purchase and planning to build a fleet. He's paid two settlement checks each week, one is his personal paycheck with all deductions taken out and one is to his company. The company check is much larger than the paycheck.

Running at $1.35 per mile is basically buying a job, with slim prospects for building a business that pays you whether you work or not. Running with higher revenue is what gives you the profit margin to make a successful business.

In business school it's noted that when markets are new or hot and profit margins are high there is a lot of room for error by management. When markets mature or slow down and profit margins decline, then the fools start dropping by the wayside. From what I see in trucking you can become and O/O leased onto a low fixed amount per mile and run the heck out of your truck to make a paycheck, or you can lease onto an opportunity to make higher variable compensation and make a paycheck AND a profit check.

 

That was after all truck expenses. That was net, sent to my bank. Lepton, u am happy doing what I want. I am not sng type of business school grad. You seem like you want to put down those of us here doing what we want. Soon you dull have your Dian payment and you will be able to buy your truck and take if where you want. The oil fields or land star.

 

3,100 miles? That doesn't seem to be the average for most company drivers, so you're doing better than most drivers out there. Now, turn that into 2,100 miles, or 2,500 miles. Then what? Can you post your settlements please? Thanks.

 

Please tell me why I want to posts settlements. That week of 3100 was high. I am lazy and usually run just 2500-2800 miles per week.

 

a lot of drivers do not see a lot of miles because they are lazy or stupid, dont be as picky where your going to, dont turn down a 200 mile run because you think its a waste of time and then end up sitting for 2 days after pissing off a planner who might of had another load ready for you after that 200....dont refuse to go to a state or customer because you dislike it, dont get several SF's because you dont know how to manage your time. So many excuses of why drivers perform horribly and get paid horribly.
Bisqueek and Mystic KNOW how to drive and get the miles and I see them posting enough about their runs to see that they run when its needed and only turn down loads that would eat their profits too much but as a company driver Swift eats the profits in fuel etc....

On the MPG I drive a 2012 cascadia and im averaging 7.4mpg and I travel up the grapevine almost daily.

 

Like I have said many times, I am one of the LAZIEST drivers here, and I am ##### picky about where I go. Luckily I have a good DM that can also plan me, and he looks at what is available for fr8 where he is going to send me before he sends me a pplan, and does everything possible to make sure that I get mostly lite loads.

 

So, $1,000.00 a week before tax revenue? Sound's like that guy that was telling me he made $1000.00 and put $200.00 away into his maintenance account. So, even after taxes you take home about $850.00 which is a little better a company driver running over the road, but on par with a dedicated account.