Gross dollars/Per Mile dollars

In a perfect world I make a high gross with low miles

 

The dream we all chase right

Yet here I am dead heading home to Cali from Utah cuz I’m tired of fighting these other foreigners for cheap ### freight.

 

Less miles less gross is my vote but there is a trade off / cut off point where it’s counter productive. Just like more miles more gross has the same trade off and cut off point. Where those are differs for everyone and a major decision that helps make you a successful businessman or not.

I personally really hate to dead head. It feels like losing double time. Like I lost on going and coming and completely wasted all my time. I understand for sure and it’s hard to be picky when it’s cheap to everywhere. Just do your best to be a little more picky when going to a more risky area. Risky in this case I’m assuming is a dead zone. Good luck.

 

I am the other way, I will dead head anytime rather than haul something that breaks even. My truck runs empty pretty cheap.

 

Hey I get it for sure! And that’s why it’s different for everyone. It costs me about 7 to 10 cents more per mile to haul loaded vs unloaded, time not factored. So, you better gain a boatload of time if your dead heading a large distance with no revenue IMO. Starmac just from reading your posts, my guess is you make sure and do very well getting “in” to anywhere though. If he only got in for something like 2/mi then he’s going to totally lose/lose.

 

What I do now, I deadhead back 99% of the time, they do not like my backhaul rates.
When I ran the Alcan I had a broker up here finding me loads, that worked about half the time. There is always loads of pipe out, I brokered some of them, but never hauled any myself, I could deadhead back to the states and find a load, cheaper than I could haul a cheap load out of here.
I never came up counting on or needing a load back.

Running around down there when I got in a dead zone, I either deadheaded out as soon as I unloaded. camped until I found something within striking distance that paid enough, or grabbed a partial and started putting together partials all the way across, which sometimes paid better than anything..

 

while still paying off the truck, running as few miles as possible at the highest possible $/mile, so that once it's paid off u have as many fresh miles in her as u can keep. paid off truck + well maintained since brand new + low miles = at least a good few years to lay down a strong launch pad for the spaceship

 

The longest I have ever financed a truck is 3 years. Anytime I had truck payments, I have never run a full three years without seeing at least one major freight slow down, it is just the nature of the beast.
One thing I always tried to do and was fairly successful, was to take at least one load a month that would net me a months worth of bills, even if it landed me in a place I normally wouldn't go, if I had to I could sit a week or three then.
Except for a very few abnormally bad times I kept my bills down to where if I trucked a month, I could take off at least a month if I wanted or needed to or rates got too cheap to run.