new here, to own or.....

Go learn how to operate a truck under someone else's company. Learn the ins and outs. If you put in 70 hours a week running someone else's truck then you should be able to run your own. Work hard sleep hard.

 

But he doesn't want to drive himself, he wants to hire someone to drive for him.

 

oh lol yeah , good luck unless you own 5 trucks or more or have won the lottery, or have some #### high paying contracts. at least he wont have the overhead of needing a mechanic but if you could get rich driving truck i wouldnt be driving now but its good pay better than most trades but hard lifestyle on family and health. if you want to own a truck you should know how to drive it.

 

Exactly, the profit margin is not there, the driver will make a decent salary and he might be left with a couple hundred bucks at best, and we all know that those high paying contracts are becoming non existent, at one time we had our trucks on a good contract like that and hired drivers, but other companies kept going in there and hauling for less, so they expected us to haul for the same low rate so we gave that up.

 

I started in trucking January 2008 working for another company with my own truck. After one year of experience I decided to get my own authorities. Today I have 3 trucks and 5 reefer trailers. The only reason I'm still in business is because all of my equipment is paid for. If I had monthly payments I would be bankrupt by now.

The secret to succeed in this economy in trucking is to say "No" to low paying loads. My attitude was that I needed to move my equipment, some money is better than none. Well that attitude bit me a few times. In 2009 I was averaging 1.35/mile from Ontario going to the USA. Coming back to Canada around $2.00/mile. Therefore the round trip was about $1.68/mile. These were reefer loads going down to Florida and Texas. My actual cost per mile is $1.35 depending on the price of fuel.

My wife and I work together; she does all of the office work. I do all of the maintenance on the equipment. Our equipment is older however in great shape. Reason being is that every time a unit comes back from a trip I spend 4 hours or more going through every nut and bolt there is. During the inspection I always find something missed by my drivers. In March we spent over $ 7,000 in preventive maintenance on our trucks and trailers. This does not include the regular monthly maintenance of $3,000. Keep in mind that's me doing all of the work. I have calculated if we had to pay for the work, we would have spent well over $26,000 last month.

January 2010 the rates dropped down to $ 1.20/mile outbound, $2.00 inbound. However we acquired a new customer that had one load a week to Jacksonville FL, we were getting paid $1.75/mile. That lasted for a few months, someone came in and bid $1.30/mile and I refused to play their game.
Since January 2010 we have learned to say "No" we turn down loads every day. Our trucks did average around 6,000miles per week. By saying "No" our profit margins have gone up by 30% however our mileage has dropped down to 5,500 miles per week.

Now here comes some fun stuff. I averaged out that my wife and I make about $3.90 per hour combined after all expenses. Doing the math I calculated last year, in order to make good money we need to have a minimum of 5 trucks and 6 trailers. As it stands right now with 3 trucks we make a little bit more than a long distance driver. We are purchasing another tractor at end of May if all goes well. To make money in Toronto your truck will have to make at least $400 per day pure profit. Good luck.

 

What is simply don't understand is how could anyone with even modest truck payments make any money...about $ 15 000 is the maximum i could spend on a truck and still make some sort of a living...i really don't understand how the guys with new equipment are able to do this and don't die of starvation while curled up next to a garbage can....