Truck Load Rates Halt 8 Week Slide 2.0

That’s true. But from what I see here I was doing better being leased on pulling food grade pneumatic in 2019 because everyone here was crying about brokers and rates. I did just as good, if not better, during Covid because I was running exempt hauling feed, and now it’s probably a little better for me at the end of the day based on what’s shared here.

But you’re correct, at the end of the day you don’t know the money without sitting down and going over a few years to look at the patterns. I also don’t have to deal with insurance and compliance and all that, so there’s value in that to me. I worry about my truck and my NTL policy and that’s it.

 

Interesting and good info from and about both sides (Joe-spot, LongFLD-lease on). I think it's 50/50 in the world of owner operators and neither side will ever completely agree. I respect the views of leased on folks but having tried it I realized very quickly I'm independent for life. It's just an opinion, neither is better or worse than the other IMO.

I run 90% spot market and want two things out of this life, other than making a living. I want total freedom and I want to work alone, mostly. The other 10% of my work is 3 friends who have small companies and call on me 5-10 times each a year to run a load for them. What's funny is they don't call one after another, they all call at once. Without more capacity I'm mostly worthless to most companies.

In other words, if you don't want to grow a company with people/trucks (and personally I don't) then you don't have much to offer, but that's fine because I don't want to offer much. Maybe that sounds a little weird but I'm convinced this is the only business you can get in to and easily make a couple hundred grand a year while having total control of your own schedule. And time has proven that it just keeps going.

 

Nothing wrong with making a couple hundred grand per year on your own schedule. I grew up around successful people but people who also wouldn’t give you a dime without earning it and frankly would make it harder on you if you’re family.

That made me want to do my own thing and make my own money. I’ll do for myself and don’t have to rely on anyone. That’s the beauty of trucking IMO. You’re ultimately in control for good or for bad. No excuses.

 

Grew up very similar. Dad was pretty well off especially from back in those days as he was retired. Did super well on his investments, Most stocks and bonds was 12-18 percent investments. But you could not tell that he had money at all by the way he/we lived. We had super cheap cloths from wally world and I am the youngest and always got hand me down from older brother. Ha Ha I remember getting some reebok shoes for basketball and was shocked I finally got a brand name shoes.

Would not trade those days for anything. He was a hard ### in a lot of ways but very fair minded. We had a very small hobby farm and built fences and all that stuff with him. Sure miss those days as we had it made doing all sorts of projects and working with him.

 

And that’s a wrap for 2022. Time to get caught up on some things around the house, have some interior things to get done because I don’t like how the remodel turned out, spend Christmas with my siblings up home, and then hit 2023 sometime around mid-January or so.

 

Enjoy your time off and enjoy looking at a clean truck for a minute, Lol. I'm still catching up after losing a month or more to maintenance a couple of months ago. Around the first of November I considered calling it a year but it wasn't in the cards.

 

Everyone has been talking about cutting out the brokers, so I decided to go one step further and cut out the shippers.

 

I've been thinking about getting a set up like that. I bought some property in Oregon last year with 100 acres of 90 year old timber on it and have been thinking about setting up a mill there so my son in law can build a house on the property using the lumber that's already there. I know it's labor intensive, but the money that you can save milling your own lumber for a house has to save quite a bit on construction costs.

 

The Harbor Freight mill is like 3k, so it's not too bad, but there are some things I don't like about it. The handle to secure the log to the side supports is not a good design. It is pointed, so it's hard to get it to not slip off without eating into the wood. It also should have more of them rather than just one in the center, and there are spots where you can't extend it because then you can't crank the handle to tighten the clamp. The side rails need to be assembled, which is great for shipping, but bad for assembly since you have to get it just right. Even with 2 rails joined, you are only able to cut like 9'6" or something. I'm going to get two 20' angle iron rails then I will weld the old cross members and add some new ones to the outside or something. They have you bolt the handle I mentioned earlier into the side of the rails, which makes it possible for the wheel track to bind up trying to squeeze by it.

I've already installed like 100' of wood fencing, and I've put maybe 2 gallons of gas into it so far. The unit cuts pretty well, I haven't had it bog down unless I try to go too fast or there's a knot. I've been cutting all hard wood, like red oak, black walnut, locust, and hedge maple. Eventually this thing is going up to the mountain property, where there's pretty much nothing but spruce. It should breeze right through that stuff. It's definitely a good investment if you have access to timber.