FedEx Ground Linehaul with JohnBoy

To all my brethren…..

 

Ok, I wasn’t going to share this, But in the name of full disclosure and transparency, I decided I would. My reasoning is to do a little fact finding and gauge the input from the responses.

Right after I left the house after Thanksgiving, I was approached by a friend that works here with my contractor about running the FedEx system as a wildcat team. She was my last trainee if you will at Abilene that got divorced from her husband and needed some backing tutelage from yours truly. I agreed and took her on the truck for 5 weeks. We ran team back then, she quit Abilene after 8 years and came here through the same husband/wife team that was at Abilene as well for 10 years that kept trying to recruit me to come on board here. Long story short, I agreed. I ran solo after turkey day until the last week before Christmas. Here’s what I did as one half of the team.

We agreed she’d drive nights, I’d do days. We took our 30 minute breaks at a fuel stop, fueled on our switch and ran the truck that week as a true team. Basically, she’s a female version of me. Clean, safety conscious and does the job. So on the Saturday of the start of the new pay week which was the the second to last pay before Christmas, here’s what we did. I picked her up Monday 12/08 in Athens Ga. We spent the night in Marietta at the hub. Woke up Tuesday the 9th to a greeting from my contractor to bobtail up to the hub in Murfreesboro and grab a trailer going to Tracy California. Did that then waited 6 hours and got a dispatch going to Portland Oregon. Got there and sat 12 hours which put us into the last pay period before Christmas. Because we are on a guaranteed salary of $2400 each under 5300 miles, we got that. Saturday the 13th we started the new pay period with the Portland to Nashville run. Here’s the breakdown…..

12/13/25 Portland to Nashville……2352 miles.

12/15/25 Nashville to Murfreesboro to Saint Paul Mn……926

12/16/25 Saint Paul Mn to Rialto Ca…..1907 miles.

12/19/25 Rialto Ca to Chino Ca……27 miles

12/19/25 Chino Ca to Orlando Fl……2475 miles.

We get paid on the dispatch date not the delivery date. The Chino load to Orlando was dispatched the last day of the pay period and delivered on the Sunday of the new pay period but I got that on the last week before Christmas. Which as you will see, was all bonus miles.

Total paid miles……7687
We split .90cpm on the first 5300 miles then anything over that we split 1.10 per mile.
So here’s the breakdown with my paystub.
5300x.90=4770.00
2387x1.10=2,625.7
Total……7395.70
Dived by 2=$3697.85








So, as we sit here in Denver waiting to get dispatched, my question is, is it worth it? This week ends tonight. We are at 5400 miles since getting back on the truck Sunday and hit it running. Anything we get today is all bonus miles. I’m thinking the money is great, I have a codriver that is great. We get along just fine and have a great routine on the truck. It’s nice to see the country again, even in the winter. We had to chain up 2 weeks ago to go up and over Vail. Wasn’t a big thing, she was there slinging iron with me. I have no problem doing most of the grunt work hooking up and breaking down a set. We work good together. Just want input if this money is worth the team driving. Any questions, fire away.

One last thing, it looks as though I’m chasing miles. But actually I’m not. If I don’t make 5300 I’m guaranteed $2400 per week. What I see as chasing is the bonus miles which are attainable every week, it’s just a matter of how many bonus miles I want, if any.

 

Key words “little while”