Crst malone

Wow doesnt sound like much of a salary at 860 if you have to pay fuel out of that.

 

From what I've seen, the safety rating is a general reflection of stupid things, like not wearing a seat-belt and poor tires.

I've heard lease owners upset that they are told they cannot make repairs to their trucks, because they don't know anything and they are treated like children.

Yes, our YTD is to the truck. If you watch one of the videos on YouTube, the avg. driver is said to make 145 to 150,000 per year. With the time we have taken off, we are in that realm. Our fuel is roughly 62 grand. We had a buddy checking with us last year and he was at 104,000, while we were at 145,000. He was also dead-heading and taking time off. By the same token, we know people who work part-time and make 185,000. One guy has 2 trucks, works part-time, makes 250,000 with Malone and runs a side business, too. Those guys have been around longer than we and have their own system.

All this money is gross. How one spends it, or keeps it, makes all the difference in the world.

 

The $860 comes from a load example of Grand Prairie, Tx to Oklahoma City, OK. - 209 miles, $860 to the truck. That's one load, on and off the truck in one day. That's $4.11 per mile, to the truck, in one day. That's $516 that goes to the house, for one day of work. That's after fuel.

Independent Trucking is feast or famine. When the going is good, sensible folks put money back. Other times, one's doing well to get fuel money.

My husband used to have his own authority hauling cattle, working harvest, side jobs for farmers...as the economy tanked, so did his jobs. We went from 18 grand in the bank, to flat broke, a couple of years ago. He signed up with Malone and we had 200 bucks, a trailer we couldn't use that we were making payments, a house and the rest.

I made that 200 bucks last us a month for food. We barely paid the truck and trailer payments, paid household and put the hopper trailer up for sale. We sold it at a profit, caught up on our bills. My husband would have sold a new trailer at a loss, because we were in bad shape.

Our life has been like a soap opera for the past 2 years. My mom had cancer, our place got destroyed by a hail storm, we had to move out...it's been stressful. I had to stay home and take care of my Mom. She was dying. My husband did stuff for the family and we haven't worked very much.

My father was a truck driver and my family always wondered what he did with his money. My mother was upset I married a truck driver. I thank God I married a truck driver. In the end, my mother and my whole family appreciate my husband. We haven't made very much money this year because we've been dealing with my family and we have spent a lot of time at home.

I'm not unhappy with our income. Our bills are paid, we have money in savings and we spent weeks and months with our family when it really mattered.

If our lives hadn't gone to Hell, we would prolly be in the 185,000 - 200,000 bracket.

 

Thank you for your posts, truckfam. I hope ya'll continue to be productive and successful. Your posts have been an inspiration to me. Ya'll are the perfect picture of working hard, making a living, and taking care of your family. Thank you.

 

ok got it sounds alot better the way you broke it down. I was under the impression maybe that was your weekly clearance. I can certainly understand the family issue as we just went through the same thing this past year with my wifes father. ( stage 4 cancer). We spent about 6 months total apart so she could go home and take care of him. Her mom was too old to do it herself. Anyway he passed 2 months ago and the months we were apart I wouldnt take a million bucks for because of the enjoyment they had together. We were able to skype each other anyway. You guys sound as if you are doing well now so keep up the good job,take care and keep that left door closed.

 

If you are a go getter and will drive and dont need to stay around your house! You will do fine at CRST-Malone. They use the agent system and coordinator. You have to stay on the phone alot calling agents so get unlimited. They only pay every wednesday and friday. The loads are there, I have only sat when I was ready for a break.

 

Hey, I just tell it like it is; for us. My husband is the greatest guy in the whole world. My mother came to appreciate him, even if he is a truck driver.

We are far from perfect, but we work pretty well together.

Thank you for the kind words. There are negatives to this company, but they are not insurmountable.

I'm happy to share our experiences with others.

 

If you go back a couple of pages, you will see some of our settlement sheets. As owner/ops we are paid per load. The first load was an oversize to Long Island. We had to sit on it for a few days because of the holiday. It paid alright. It refreshed our house account after a $4500 repair bill.

Regarding your wife's father, our situation was similar. My step-dad couldn't take care of my mom and his business, so I stayed with Mom. My husband did many, many things to help my family and took short runs to pay our bills and be home.

Anyway, since we are paid by the load, it's WAY different than salary.

Basics to consider are dead-head miles, destination and loads out, how much does it pay in practical miles? How much for fuel? How much for permits? How much does it weigh? How long is it on the truck? How many hours will it take to load/unload? (Some construction sites will keep a driver for 6-8 hours) I can't tell you how many times we've called a crane yard with our ETA, only to be kept waiting, when we show up on time.

We have only received detention 1 time. If it's hospital construction, bring lunch. We always have food and drinks on the truck.

I'm don't know what kind of trucking you have been doing, but O/O on flats and steps is a world unto itself.

I was surprised to find out dispatchers didn't load a truck. My dad's dispatcher had him loaded for a month at a time. I used to have problems booking us for loads. We used to have a horrible dispatcher.

I learned quickly how to find loads. I prefer to pre-book, because it's how I grew up.

If you need a salary and need to know how much you will make in advance, you won't be able to do that as an O/O. As I said, trucking is feast or famine.

We watched a buddy go down in flames and get fired, because he never had money for fuel. There's a lot of planning and self-discipline in this gig. NOT for a salary - for the truck. When the going is good, one saves for the bad times, because they WILL come.

I applaud you for trying to understand what you think you want to get into.

I'm happy to help, any way I can.

 

With few exceptions, I have done less sitting at shippers or consignee's than I did when I bulled a van. I think that anytime you lease to a carrier who pays percentage and has agents you need to be more proactive. I am glad that you are doing well with CRST Malone, truckfam.

 

Thank you for those great post, some really good information, glade your doing well