50K budget

@zmster2033
@staceydude

2 I personally know that made this happen.

 

I’ll sale you a good truck.
Only problem i know if is air leveling valve on rear starting to leak air down.
Overnight goes to 70 lbs both tanks.
111,178 miles on an inframe.
2010 KW T660 for Sale

Photos of it on this site.

 

Get experience as a company driver. Break their equipment first.


You could go to Midland and try to get on in the oil field. Owner operators with old trucks can make good money if the patch is making money. Get your hazmat some people as company drivers make 130k a year out there or more. To me the best thing about being an owner operator is the time off. Meaning if I want to work on my house I can take time off and do it. Technically I'm a lease operator. But imo you can do better doing hazmat like cryogenics as a company driver. Better benefits, don't have down time fixing equipment, don't have to pay to fix equipment.

Owner operators in the oil field I think sand haulers. I heard they can make bank, but it's lots of money or no money. If I didn't live in northern Indiana I would drive out there and look at it. An old FL Columbia would be a good truck for that a 8k to 20k truck. No emissions. Lease roads are ruff.

 

I would NOT invest $50K out of my savings to get into the trucking industry right now as an O/O, lease op, any op.

 

I’ve seen guys go straight OO, it’s possible but with only 50k set aside, I wouldn’t want to gamble that much, between truck trailer insurance and a few weeks waiting to get paid (hoping you actually do) after doing the load your really going to need 100+ starting, so I would recommend you go company for a little bit to keep saving, with the market being way over capacity still the equipment firesale hasn’t even started

and trucking is not a get rich quick scheme …

 

Here are my thoughts:

1) age a MC? Don’t know if you realize this, but from the day it’s either applied for or issued you’ve got 90 days to secure insurance. If you don’t get it insurance within that time frame the MC is canceled. It can not be reinstated. You have to reapply. First and second year insurance will set you back 30-50k per year. I was quoted by 3 producers with in past 2 months. Those are real numbers. Don’t believe someone who tells you otherwise unless it’s a producer who collected ALL of the pertinent info including a VIN of a tractor of the same, make, model and mileage that is substantially similar. I got plenty of 18-26k ball park quotes. But the actual quotes were much higher.

2) don’t buy a truck and let it sit in the driveway for a year or more waiting until the market improves. One only needs to follow industry publications to learn that we’re in one of the worst periods in freight hauling and no one knows when it will improve. That money won’t earn interest if it’s tied up in a truck sitting on the pavement for a year or two. By the time the uptick happens used truck prices will drop further.

3) work out the numbers on P&L based on today’s freight prices. Reefer loads are down around $2 a mile and still haven’t bottomed out. I’ll give you a hint. One reason for the continued drop in freight rates is the current ratio of available loads to available trucks. It’s at an all time low. The more people competing for those loads the lower those rates will go. At $2 a mile you’ll be lucky to clear 60 cents a mile. You can get that as a company driver and don’t have any downside exposure.

4) you’ll have an extremely difficult time winning loads off the load boards. Most brokers won’t let you pull their loads unless you’ve been running under you own authority for 1-2 years. Some will however make exceptions if as a company driver you hauled one or two of their loads previously and in doing so all appointments were on time, there were no incidents and you’re tractor has had at least one satisfactory DOT Level 1 inspection. If more than one then the most current has to be satisfactory.


At the end of the day, you need a year or even better two years experience to learn how the industry operates before you plunge a lot of money into it. What happens if you decide it’s not for you? Now you have to sell that tractor in a depressed market.

 

Would you happen to know what the money is like on the tanker side at Prime?

 

Doesn't look too good @.53cpm
Tanker-OTR - Prime, Inc.
Tanker-OTR Division Job Description Company Driver Pay & Benefits Solo Pay = 53 cpm
`
One driver that was hauling wine out of California was doing ok, but I don't know about the rest.

 

Right here, is why I think the OP needs to turn to his family and ask the questions. If they have a carrier, then they have all the answers and I have to wonder why are you not working for them first than get the authority.