Leasing Program

So my driver manager told me USA Truck has a leasing program after I’ve been there 6 months. From the experts experience what is the best way to make a lease work for u if u are choosing your own loads. I know there’s a lot of money to be made and I also know there’s a lot of failures. I’m not looking to be home often, maybe one every 90 days. No apartment and I just sold my car so bills besides phone bill and CS

 

Have you ever run a business or been an assistant to a manager? Like on call 24-7 or you're the last stop for where the buck stops....?
How are your accounting skills? Do you have a budget? If you Do how well Do you stick to it? Do you do your own taxes? Have you ever run a large successful project from beginning to end? Like building a house or renovation or similar scale?
You need to 1st off know what it takes to run a business and it's not a big ego...and 2nd off. You need to evaluate how easily you can absorb the new lifestyle PLUS add on learning the business side of it.
My estimate at 3 years in and having previously run 2 small businesses I'd be about ready to launch into the OO world. 2 or 3 years preferably in more than 1 segment of trucking like van and tanker or reefer and containers....
(Of course having previously run 2 small business I'm far to smart to do that again LOL I'm happy to be a company driver.)

 

Love this... I don't often participate in the forum but was searching a truck issue and seen this post. I've been doing this for a little over a decade and am extremely self motivated. I've always made good money as a company driver. If you search my posts, you'll also see people call me liar or ask if I'm a trainer but I just run hard and legal. I started with a smaller well known company and was a top earner there. When they sold out to one of the largest companies, I looked into leasing/owning. It doesn't really compare. A good company or should I say... A good account will make you outstanding money. I do a lot of research on market trends and habits. You'll be hard pressed to find O/O really making the money they claim. It's a serious racket. As a driver you're often times a much hotter commodity than the freight you carry. Companies hauling big dollar freight contracted to big accounts will pay dearly for your services. All of them.
Some examples I get... I'll just ramble on here with some good stuff.
$250 to cross in to Canada
$27.55 per 10 hour break in the truck,
$27.55 per hour for breakdowns (starting the second I stop),
$27.55 per hour delays loading or unloading after 2 hours,
$100 for crossing the GW bridge.
$27.55 Per live load or stops.
Holiday pay.
Vacation pay.
Paid personal days.
All expenses reimbursed.
Home every weekend.
Monthly safety bonus.
Our tractors are extremely plain looking from the outside but we have heated/cooled seats, APUs, can idle etc.
I don't wait for freight. We service an industry leader and I usually have my back haul well before I deliver. Sometimes I get the backhaul info before I get my next customer load.
If I don't have a backhaul within 2 hours of delivering, they'll deadhead me back to our yard. I've deadheaded as much as 1200 miles. If it's less than 300 miles or Friday morning, I almost always deadhead to keep loads moving.
We literally have hundreds of shops across North America. If I have a problem, I just pull in and get service. Again, I rarely wait.

I guess what I'm getting at is this, there's a lot of things that will cost you money in this business and it takes years to learn them all... Once you know enough of them, you'll realize buying a truck or paying for the privilege of driving someone else's just so you can decide where you go... It's just dumb. Why take on all that risk and responsibility when you don't have to? There's about 60 of us on the account I work on and most of us make $75k to $95k with 3 of us making $100k-$104k. A big house, a big bank account and not having to stress every penny beats a owning a big truck (you never really own it) any day.
And let's be honest, a good driver will almost always get first pick of the loads.

 

Just say NO...

 

Why not give it a year as a company driver before you start thinking about going L/P? Learn everything you can about this business and then make a choice. Driving the truck is the easy part. Being a business man is the hard part for a lot of people.
That company you're joining, or any company, isn't offering a l/p out of the goodness of their heart. They're offering it because they keep all the gravy and you get all the problems.
Owning your own truck is always a goal but l/p isn't always the best path.

 

Look at a Lease Purchase this way. It’s the easy way to get into your own truck. It’s easy to get work with your carrier. Just as having the Easy Button at Staples. Everything is just so easy to do with a Lease Purchase.
Could there be a reason why it’s so easy? Well it’s hard to get financing for a truck, it’s hard to get your own authority. It’s really hard to read the contract you will sign to make this happen. And when you decide easy is the best way to go it will be hard as hell to get out of that contract. They will decrease your miles as time goes on and will gut you of all dignity. You will want to quit but you can’t because it will be too hard to give up all you worked for.
In the end it will be easy to give up and that is exactly the way you wanted it. Easy Right?

 

Moved

 

That right there is the best way to make a lease program work. Live like a pauper and stack that cash. You want to get minimum $25k in the bank before you think about anything else. That's about what it costs to rebuild a motor.

I know USA has a decent load board but I don't know anything about their lease end. Start looking at ways to get a truck from someone other than USA - although admittedly trucks are hard to find these days. Still, know your options. That can help you understand whether or not USA has a decent lease.

 

They can't decrease his miles unless they decrease everyone else's too. He'd be working off a load board.

 

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