Rates are crashing and fuel to the moon!

you know, seriously, if you don't have at least a working understanding of the difference between 'business expense' and 'living expense', how in the world can you run a business?

 

Fellas, you still have to pay yourself a wage for your personal expenses. Not paying yourself is equivalent to raising your hand to any employer saying “I WORK FOR FREE”. Every business has a payroll expense.

Y’all can argue that point all you’d like, but it’s the cold hard truth.

 

I'm sure the last recession took a lot longer then 18 months to rebound rates.

 

Paying yourself a “fair” wage isn’t the same as people going out and buying a bunch of toys because their truck money can support it when times are good.

 

Paying yourself a wage is totally understandable, but taking all your personal bills and building it into your cost per mile to operate your business is foolish. The people that do this probably don’t put money away for maintenance or set money aside for quarterly taxes either.

I personally know an owner operator that has made all these mistakes, mixing personal expenses and business expenses. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, can’t “afford” to put any money aside for maintenance. They are now currently so far in the hole in repair bills and in a payment plan with the IRS because not being able to “afford” to put money away for taxes.

 

The OM and I have learned so much from this thread.

I hope we can be real business people, I mean truckers, I meant business truckers some day.

 

Perfectly stated.

 

So many of the posts here remind me of someone, especially women, on Facebook that have gone sober ( Which is great and I highly recommend it ), and have become somewhat self aware, and constantly post these messages about philosophy.

 

People should never frivolously spend their salaries then either under that logic. The business they work for could fail at any moment.