Made the jump and booked my 1st load

It might work but I doubt it. Too many owner operators run cheap getting dedicated local hauls. Rates never go up don’t seem like.

 

If you end up doing that just really watch the condition of the trailers. Deals like that the trailers are typically neglected and an out of service waiting to happen.

I had a customer that was loading my van even though they would rather I pull their preloaded trailers. It ended up that they no longer wanted to live load me. So I parted ways with them over the condition of some of their trailers. It’s just not a battle that’s worth fighting and darn sure isn’t worth getting put oos over someone else’s junk.

 

What's the hourly market in your area like? If it's around a 100 i wouldn't settle for 85 but it's still a decent # considering all things. 10-11 hours a day 935 or so I'd say that's not bad at all hardly running any miles.

 

To give you an idea here in southeast Pennsylvania anyway triaxle dump trucks get around 85 an hour.

Most places like that generally have set rates that they pay the trucks. I highly doubt you'll be able to get an extra $15 an hour out of them. It's just my opinion but I would be surprised if you could get even an extra $5 an hour out of them.

Also the triaxle dump trucks do get paid for the trip out to the job site in the morning, so maybe you could do something like that. That you get paid say one extra hour for travel.

So if you work 10 hours plus you got paid one extra hour for travel you'd make 935 that day.

I think that's pretty good honestly.

And don't forget most of the guys that are owner-operators will tell you they shoot for $1,000 a day but usually they are talking about $1,000 gross. A lot of times that thousand dollars is driving for hour after hour after hour and waiting to get loaded and unloaded and being away from home and honestly a $1,000 gross is very murky because you don't really even know what the profit is. You can say you grossed $1,000 on 550 miles or $1,000 on 100 miles. Two very different net figures.

I never figure gross I only figure net but the point I'm making is that if you're getting paid hourly like that I think that's pretty good.

 

Nice. something you can consider as well is to work with a good dispatcher. There's good and bad dispatchers, but the good ones can save you time, earn you more money/deal with brokers, handle invoicing and paperwork for you and allow you to focus on driving.

 

I am in the same boat as you I have older paid off equipment. Actually I have a nice fld120 like you

And I definitely agree with the not working for nothing. That's a huge problem in this business. I try to get the most that I can get all the time.

The bad is that the day rate is a little low. When you look at triaxle dump trucks they make 85 an hour but within a day's work they generally don't travel nearly that far.

The good is that your days would be better planned and that it probably would be pretty steady with a precast concrete company. It's true that you probably could make more on the spot market right now but this isn't going to last. I'll say nothing more of it but with all of the things that are going on a downturn is inevitable at some point maybe not now immediately but fuel is going up and a downturn will happen at some point in the future.

At that point if you were already in with that company and making that you probably would do better than the spot Market. Maybe you could get them to give you an hour travel each way?

That's kind of a tough one. You sort of are right on that line. Something that is more local with less miles but is hourly would probably be better. Hell you've got nothing to lose maybe tell them a hundred an hour or 95 an hour.

But as fuel goes up that particular run there is going to be more difficult.

If it were me I would probably stay with the spot Market or try to get more with a fuel surcharge.

Never hurts to try.