Picking my own freight baby! My journey to & of being on Schneider choice, the Adventure & Numbers!

go for it Captain G! That sounds amazing!

 

Dude, I'm not trying to bust your balls here but realty is reality. Gross revenue of 3500 on 2450 miles isn't very good. Sure it keeps the bills paid but there isn't enough padding to ever get ahead.

I can get very light loads paying that 5 days a week 52 weeks a year with 50% deadhead and be home almost every night if i want. No bs, I've been using those as my fillers between my good loads since the end of March. I'll bounce north up to 700 miles to grab a 5k lb load going back into florida paying 2.60 a mile or better.

The only way these loads work is because of two things. All my stuff is paid for. House car truck, all paid off. And I'm getting over a dozen GOOD loads during the month. Those 1.30 to 1.50ish all mile round trip loads are a supplement, not the main bread winners. Add a truck payment or mortgage to the mix, or lose a couple of the money loads and your just turning numbers and keeping very little.

 

Are you doing flatbed or dry van?

 

P&G promo load. If you're there and one comes up they are nice. I've had one pay over 2g to the truck on 150 mi.

 

...yes, you get in there then get me hooked up! I'd LOVE to have a dedicated run again after doing the Home Depot run for 3.5 years. I would get my own authority to get a run from them. Hecks yeah.

 

A mix of everything. I own a flat but will grab a PO load pulling whatever trailer the customer has if the money is right.

But what does it matter what trailer you pull? We are all in this to make money, so if it's about making money there is no reason to fear segments of the industry that pay better. It's not like we are taking the difference if 50 bucks a load. It's probably over 20 thousand dollars a year. Is chaining or strapping a load down so scary that it's not worth a pay raise of twenty grand?! Now before you mention tarps let me add a tidbit here. I bought a new set of 8 ft tarps from my buddy when he retired this past spring. I have yet to use them. But i have used my small 15 lb 12x12 smoke tarp a dozen times. And my 50 lb 4 foot tarps a half dozen. That's a combined 5 to 7 hours of light duty work.

I'd also like to touch on this:

Those are good loads. But what stands out to me in those two statements is you've seen so few of them you don't think people will believe you got them. This just makes me sad. I'm down here in the black hole of florida and get a dozen or so of those a month but you guys think they are so rare people will call you a liar on them.

My past week: Monday and Tuesday i say on my butt at home and turned down loads paying between 550 and 700 on under a hundred miles. Good loads i would of gotten and made about a grand on after fuel for just a few hours of work over 2 days. But that's just decent, not enough to motivate me to give up a day of watching my little dude explore the world. But ya can't stay home and play with the baby indefinitely so i worked wed. 12 loaded miles. $865 to the truck. 6 hours from the time i left my front door to the time i walked back in it, and 2 hours of that was just driving my ford to and from the truck. Thursday night i loaded this one. 60 mile dh north to load at 4 pm, back home by 7. Leave out 6 am friday to job site 60 miles south. Unload, wait for the engineers to set up, do their test and then reload it. Back home in time to pick my daughter up from school at 3pm. Enjoyed the weekend at home while being paid 1000 dollars to hold the equipment. Deliver this morning 100 miles north to the next test site. That load, all in ttt paid over 2200 with the storage fee. And i will be home just after lunch. To summarize wed morning to monday morning over 3k ttt on about 650 to 700 total miles, empty and loaded. Not too shabby considering they're wad another grand after fuel on the table if i could have been motivated to work Monday and Tuesday.

The moral of the story? It really is sad your good loads are so rare you guys think people won't believe you when you finally get a load worth hauling.

 

Why is it called a promo load?

 

Your running flat with Mercer, right?

 

I have no idea.

 

Listen Richey Rich, I'm very happy you make great money and you're happy where your at. But have you considered that maybe most are happy where we are at, just that rates have tanked and nobody likes pinching pennies?

You make it seem like we all can just start pulling flats if we wanted. I've been driving almost 24 years and have pulled van, reefer, tank, and cars, but never have been near a flat.

I don't know how to load, chain/strap, or tarp a flat, Are we just gonna call Mercer and tell them we have ZERO experience and they will say sure, you can start orientation Monday.

As for me, I like Schneider, but I could leave tomorrow and wouldn't shed a tear. I have been tossing around buying my own truck and leaving for a couple months. But I only want to drive two or three more years and I think it would be foolish to buy now.

The moral of the story? If you have ideas for some of these guys to get flat experience, that would be more helpful than your freight rates and home time stories.