Does it make sense to become an O/O?

Does it make sense to become an owner operator? Well, that depends on you. If you want to buy your truck and then lease on to a company then my opinion would have to be no. Why would you want to be a company driver AND pay for all of the expenses pertaining to the truck? You severely limit your income potential when you have to pay that 20-30% back to the company just to run under their authority. If you want to make money as an owner operator then the only way to do it and make really good money is to become an independent owner operator. Getting your own authority is not hard at all. Keep up on your paperwork and stay organized, know what it takes to be in compliance and you will do quite well. If you have some decent people skills and good ol' common sense you can make it happen. The sky is the limit!

 

The old saying is something about a bird in the hand vs. two birds in the bush. You have a good bird in the hand, so no reason to drop it. If you want to become an owner/operator. First you have to buy a truck and trailer, pay plates and get insurance, IFTA, and a whole lot of other jive lined up. That equals maybe $60,000 + several hundred hours of your time. So even if you make an extra thousand a week it's gonna be a couple years til you pay that back. unless you have an unusual combination of business skills, negotiation skills, mechanical skills, and driving skills you can probably count on chalking the first year or two up to experience and not making much money at all. it's a real long term commitment and the possiblity of failure is great.

I've been doing it for about 8 months now and still can't be certain if I will succeed or not. But I can tell you I enjoy the challenge. After driving for 15 years I was making good money as a driver but the challenge was gone. I probably won't make any money this year, I'll be happy if I make as much next year as I did as a driver my last few years. But I also don't spend 100% of my time taking dispatches and holding a steering wheel. My duties are 30-50% doing all that "other stuff" your company does for you. I do enjoy the variety. And if I do things correctly, I am or will be ready, and a good opportunity could come along. It's not my goal in life to own 100 trucks or anything, but with the right opportunity I can do that, you can't. Or even a small account needing a few trucks that pays well. I can consider those type of things, you can consider what your boss offers you. So I guess that's the difference.

 

Billerd and Danny, both you guys know of what you speak. I have always said if it's worth doing, then it's worth doing right, and if that means being patient, working hard and saving up, so be it. I sold my Harley in '95 to raise a 15% down payment on a three year old truck. My savings went toward insurance, ad valorem tax etc and all the little things I never thought of, because there is no step by step manual on how to do this stuff.

I never had my own authority but did well enough to bank 10k above and beyond everything in less than a year. The FLD 120 was a nightmare on wheels and I put 10% down on a new '97 379 Pete that was 97k. Actually the price was 95k but I was 2k upside down on the FLD (a quick lesson in resale value right there). You guys know I am leaving a whole lot of stuff here; time spent on tags, taxes, maintainance, record keeping blah blah.

After 30 months in the Pete it was worth 67k as a trade-in with a payoff of 44k. I put that 23k down on a new '00 379 w/ultra sleeper 550/18 blah blah. I kept that one for 6 years and it was in Overdrive Magazine twice. I ran GA to CA twice a month and took off a week between trips.

The point to my ramblings is like you guys, I invested my time, work and hard earned money into this endeavor. I wasn't about to walk away when I had a bad month like somebody with dreams of instant success that drove a new truck off the lot on some no money down instant so called o/o deal from one of these predator companies. We saw what happened to the housing market when all these folks got houses they couldn't afford with no money down. When it got a little rough, they walked away. They didn't have a personal investment so what the hell did they care?

I survived a heart attack during that period, and having an emergency fund, rode it out with no problem. The problem arose when my wife's health failed and she had to retire from her good job that had been providing me with medical insurance. She is drawing disability and eligible for medicare but I couldn't live like that. So I swallowed my pride, sold the large car and got a job driving a slow truck with good benefits. No shame in that.

I worked my way into the LTL side and am doing ok for myself, but I don't regret the ten years spent as a truck owner. It wasn't easy but it had it's rewards, including beind able to buy the very house I am in now.

But no matter what we say, most of these guys with the quick fix lease/op dream are going to do it anyway.

 

The real kick in the butt was when Uncle Sam held his greedy palm out for his 15% Capital Gains Tax when I sold my truck.
All those years of hard work, paying FET tax on tires, Highway use tax every year, fuel taxes and they have the gall to extort us for even more.
Don't believe that crap about how the evil rich people should pay capital gains on their profits. It affects everyday working people like us.


Top to bottom:
First trip. AZ-CA border on I-40
In front of my house in GA
Behind Little Sisters in Eloy AZ, my onetime regular hangout.

 

Nice to see a few miners struck enough gold to make claim, gettin by but still prospecting here.