Lease Purchase through (insert company here) is bad!

You have made in four months what a company driver will make all year huh. I hope you have, but what really matters is how much of that money you keep at the end of the year after expenses and next April 15th.

Me and a lot of other people here want to know what company you are leasing a truck from to that is making millionaires out of OTR truck driving. LOL!!!!!!

The OP was referring to leasing a truck from a trucking company, not leasing your truck to a trucking company.

 

Learn everything you can about starting and running a small business. If nothing else call SCORE at the SBA. If you don't know about either of these abbreviations start with a good book on running a business. Once you understand how business works run your company truck as if it was your truck. After a year of doing that you should have an idea of whether becoming an owner/operator is for you. Leasing your truck from the company you pull for can be the worst or best decision you make. It depends on how prepared you are.

 

#1: Stop pushing the go pedal all the way down. With the National average of fuel at $4.12/gal, fuel is the biggest expense you will have. Running 70mph might get the load there quicker, but at 5.5mpg, you just ran the load for free. At my company, the fuel surcharge is .48cpm. Calculated out, I can get my fuel free if I can hit 8.6mpg. Think it can't be done? I know a guy getting 9.8mpg. He drives 53mph everywhere, but he's getting paid by the company for his fuel instead of the other way around.

#2: Plan your trips. Map it out. Find out how long it will take you to get from point A to point B, what's the shortest route, and how much fuel you will need to complete your trip. Figure out where fuel is the cheapest. On my current trip from New York to Florida, Virginia had the cheapest fuel at $3.79/gal. In Fultonville, NY (near Albany,) fuel was $4.51/gal!! So obviously you wouldn't buy fuel there. The way I did it was to literally buy 10gal here and 20 gal there until I got myself to Virgina so I could fill up. By doing that, I saved myself $50.00...even after you take into account the 30 gallons I purchased at over $4/gal. Irregardless, I try to never purchase fuel that costs over the National average...even though sometimes it's unavoidable. Whatever you do, do not over-purchase your fuel. Fuel in your tanks is money that is not in the bank.

#3: Don't listen to the negative Nancy's out there. The reason why you only read about the lease failures on here is because the successful L/O's are too busy making money to get on here and post crap.

My company only does Lease/purchase, and every week they have people that complete their lease. The op is correct however, you need to read the contract carefully as there are quite a few contracts out there that are designed to let you fail at the slightest departure of 100% effort.

 

The only thing I would disagree with is that you want to look for the cheapest fuel without the taxes. Because of IFTA you don't need to worry about covering the taxes. Pro-miles posts the cheapest fuel without taxes by state and it's free.

 

Speak for yourself.

He has made no secret as to who he is leased to and he is leasing the truck from the company.

 

American Central Transport. I have already made over $40,000 after expenses this year. It is a lease purchase where I lease the truck from them. Part of the money is from recruiting though. I also run slow to get good fuel mileage.

 

Run oversize? I've spoken to a few of their OD drivers, and they do indeed make a buck or two. Or three.

 

You are thinking of Anderson out of Minnesota. ACT is only dry van out of Liberty,Mo.

 

Yep...that's right. Wrong visual...shoulda been in bed an hour ago....go figure!

 

OK, well a lot of people including myself can't spend hours everyday reading every post on The truckers Forum. You say speak for myself but you speak for him........judging by your post count you have a lot of free time and should probably know everything about everyone posting here......I just don't have the time.