Retiring soon

PROBABLY better off to sell the truck.Depends on your freight deal,and if you have a driver in mind. If you will see the truck every day, and have a good, reliable person, maybe OK. Have you thought about trying to find another retiree to split the job ? You drive a week, he drives a week. That is what I am considering when I get ready to slow down .

 

If you have a business built up and can sell the business do it. A truck by itself isn't worth much but if you have a customer base then you have "blue sky" value.

 

They say the downfall to most businesses is the day you hire your first employee. They get paid before you do, you become a financial planner, priest, marriage counselor, tax account, shoulder to cry on, psychiatrist etc. If you can afford to retire sell the truck and walk away from it. If you keep it you are not really retired, you will still be dealing with the truck issues, so really not retirement. Remember that now when dealing with trucking issues you have thrown another person into that mix which further muddies the waters, it is not like you on site in person dealing with an issue. You will have to rely on your employee to steer you in the correct direction. If it were me, there would be a For Sale sign in the window, but to each his own.,

 

No doubt.. Really that's the one thing that keeps me from ever considering more than one truck. I have a fanatical attention to detail in many of the things I do running my own truck. Although admittedly I have MUCH to learn and don't run nearly as tight a ship right now as I intend to in the months and years ahead. Anyhow, things that I never do in my truck I did all the time in a "company truck" even though I did a fairly good job as a company driver. Back then as a company driver I used to think nothing of deadheading 10, 15, 20 or 30 miles to the nearest truckstop. Always driving the interstate route even if it was 50 miles farther or more.. Doesn;t happen in my truck. I do roll up a lot of deadhead 22% year to date and 35% in the 3rd quarter but not a single solitary mile of that deadhead was "to the nearest truckstop after I got empty" no matter how long I sat before I booked that next load.


I almost always drive the shortest route and do not buy into the thinking "it wastes fuel and increases wear and tear on the truck" I don;t belive that because my starts and stops are always very consistently CONSERVATIVE. I'm never romping on the go-pedal while rowing thru gears. I see so many sorry excuses out here abusing equipment as a matter of routine... When I'm emptied out I have LOTS of patience to sit and wait for something good. I don;t know of any employees who would do the things I do, to what some would think as extremes, when I run this truck. I get down on myself bad enough if I break something but that's me. There's no telling how I;d react if it was someone else costing me money. Have a lot of respect for fleet owners. If things aren't stacked against a man bad enough as it is, having solid dependable drivers who don't bleed out profits even adds more frustration to the mix.


My point in all this, when that day comes years from now that I want to hang up driving, I'm hanging it up for good and never messing with a truck again. There's no way I want to spend retirement dealing with middle of the night phone calls, etc after spending half or more of a lifetime driving a truck and going through all of that.. When it's time to hang it up, it's time to hang it up and go sit on a beach somewhere with my feet in the sand...

 

rollin coal,
you are 100% correct with your comments. If you hire a driver and you have an equipment breakdown he is going to expect some type of compensation, he is not going to sit for free and if he does he wont stay long. It is just human nature.
You have the correct business plan to sit and wait for something decent (within reason) and to cut out as many out of route/deadhead miles as possible. All out of route miles do is burn fuel add wear and tear and increase your odds of an accident/incident. Most people don't think in regards to the accident/incident portion of out of route/deadhead miles, for every mile you travel your likely hood of an accident/incident increases statisticly. It has nothing to do with what type of driver you are, it's strickly the odds of more time/miles on the road.

 

If you dont need no more headches and stress,sell it best option.(nobody would take care of your equipment like you).

 

Or buy you a nice lake house on Tims Ford!!