Go to Schneider and get punished

Welcome to trucking, I started otr with Schneider almost two years ago. It was rough adjusting at first, but like you said, there are good people there and are willing to help you out. The first six months are the hardest, and right now freight is slow. I got luckey(blessed)that I met someone who took me under their wing and was always there(be it by phone)for me. She introduced me to another driver who was a lead driver on the GMSPO acct. A few weeks later, I'm on a dedicated run that is pretty sweet...home every other day, and every weekend, running to Phoenix AZ from Fontana CA, paid salery(don't have to worry if I'm getting the milage paid). Hang in there, things can always change.

 

best thing you could have done is get off the per diem -that will save you a few thousand at tax time. Save receipts for clothes and generally all non-food items.

I started at .26cpm with the per diem and .28 without. One year later 35.5 = that's a big difference. It's hard to make it at .27, but after 6 months it will be over .30

Get 7+ mpg and they will like you more, look into a good dedicated account opportunity also. I make about $1000 one week and $700 the other, I believe that's a fair wage.

 

Hello and welcome to trucking!

Everything you mentioned is fairly normal. Its not abnormal. You will not get paid for every dispatched mile. Ever. Even with practical miles. It is normal for a dispatcher to take forever to get a number at a large company, because its not really their JOB to get the number it was the CS manager that set up the load now HE has to contact the CS manager to get the number you now need. Most of the time it is the CS manager being slow not him but he does have about 50-60 other trucks as well he has to answer. Schnedier is a fairly big company.

Maybe you should look around 5 days a month is actually pretty good from my point of view. We get 1 day per 7 days or 4 a month. One week a year is common as well. This is fairly standard across the OTR companies. Did you really think you'd get home more? In fact as far as I am concerned 5 days is fine, did you like expect to get home every weekend? Or something?

The only legitimate complaint on your list I see is the cents per mile. When I started out with Schnedier I was told 32 cents a mile, thusly I am concerned at that low of a payrate. Now I decided to go to Werner instead, but I'd be pissed to no ends of the earth if 32 turned into 27

 

Werner pays less than Schneider: sorry, but at least you get to drive a FrankenWerner (freightliner classic) and Werner pays for the fuel.

Your first year(s) will be tough also and the freight market is fairly poor. You guys picked a bad year to start out.

 

Why is SNI charging you for a per diem. Per Diem is a federal tax treatment that allows you to take a stated amount per day as an expense of doing your trucking so it is thereby not taxed. As an alternative to per diem you can save receipts and use actual expenses. I find it really hard to believe that a trucker being paid less than 30 cents per mile can spend more per day in actual expenses than the per diem allows.

Get a tax pro to help you. SNI is fishy.

 

If Werner pays less then Schneider why am I making 34 cents a mile on the times I am solo (ran solo for a week due to crisis for hubby) We get 42 cents as team.

When I started out Schnedier (SNI?) said 32 cents per mile for 48 states, so thats what I was confused there about. Id didn't go to Werner for the pay raise though, that just happened, I went due to disliking SNI policy.

I know its hard - been out here almost a full year now. Graduated last year June 8th.

 

No, they ALL are fishy. They push "their" per diem as the way to go (all companies it seems now) because it lowers their tax burden as it shows you earning less. Which means when you quit, and you will, or get unemployment OR disability, you make less, because you SHOW you earned less.

It's a good way to lower their tax burden by shoving it onto your back.

 

Schneider isn't the only outfit to charge drivers for per diem. Knight Transportation pays their drivers (use to be one of them) on a sliding scale .34-.43cpm. They take .13cpm off the mileage pay for per diem and pay you .11cpm of that back on your net side of pay (after taxes). So if you had a .34cpm load you would only actually be getting paid .21cpm before taxes. After your taxes were taken out, Knight would add back .11cpm of that load to your check and keep .03cpm for "processing fees" as they called. It's a big fricken scam. If your gonna pay per diem then pay the maximum amount allowed by law everyday period instead of this cpm bull crap. So you get scammed there by not getting what you're allowed and then you also get scammed out of .03cpm that they keep for processing fees. I left Knight because I asked weekly for 6 months to get off the per diem pay which they never did, I sat around on average 2-3hrs waiting to get a load, then spending the next hour or two looking for an empty trailer. Knight put me in the poor house.

 

Younger drivers need to take note of this. (read the above again)

+you are losing 2cpm (they are paying you less!)
+ as a beginner you will have many deductions (cb,cooler,tools,clothes,etc)
+you now don't get the per diem deduction (this will lower your income by ~10k and save a few thousand in taxes)
Keep your log books to prove your per diem (days on the road x per diem rate = deduction from your income = lower income = lower taxes