Picking my own freight baby! My journey to & of being on Schneider choice, the Adventure & Numbers!

My experience is mostly what Schneider calls Regional, which is anything East of I-35. There was also about a year of local work in there. I just came back to Regional with Schneider in November and they approved to swap over to IC in July. My OC couldn't let me go until July. I would probably say that if all of your experience was local that would be a problem though, just because of not running logs. The SFI Representative that I talked to did make sure that I understood that sometimes it would not be best for my business if I came home every weekend and went through several other things with me.

 

I have a few questions hopefully someone can answer.
1: How long do I need to work for Schneider as a company driver before I'm able to get on choice?
2:Are the trucks leased or do I need to purchase my own?
3: If I want to be home every weekend is that possible? (I have kids i want to spend time with )
4: Can I stay regional if I want? I live in Northeast Pa.

Ty in advance.

 

If you were to purchase the truck at the end of the lease, do you know the total cost in principle and interest?

 

Something needs to be said here. And this is not a knock against freightwipper at all. But everyone who reads this thread needs to remember something.

Freightwipper has no family to go home to.

Think about that for a minute.

He does not have to find a crappy load to take him to the house for whatever reason. He does not have to stay within x amount of distance to his house so he can get home in case something happens.

He is free to take whatever load he wants and go wherever he wants, whenever he wants. And obviously this makes him the most money.

In my 1.5 years experience on Choice I have learned many things. And right up there at the top is this: You make the most money when you are free to take whatever load you want. Obvious right? When you start trying to route yourself somewhere, whether it be home, vacation, visiting family, whatever, you don't make as much money. You are restricted in the loads you can take. Makes sense right?

So if you got a family at home, or want to go home every so often, or whatever, please remember the load board doesn't care. Schneider doesn't care. And you may have to take that .80 CPM load because little Johnny has the flu and the wife needs you.

I have personally taken crappy loads to go see family in FL and AR. I speak from experience. I am fortunate in that my home is in the NE and I can make good money and be home once a week or so. My wife is understanding. Maybe yours isn't. Maybe your home is in a crappy area.

Just food for thought.

Roll on.....

 

That's the truth. I see a lot of people on here saying "I want to lease a truck and join the Choice board because I can go where I want to go and be home when I want to be home".

That's great, but just because you want to take that 1400 mile load from PA to TX doesn't mean it's gonna pay jack ****.

Just because you want to go home doesn't mean that there is a load that is going to take you to the house.

Just because you want to take "just a few more days off this week" doesn't mean Schneider Finance is gonna bend over and say "no problem just go ahead and miss your truck payment this week".

For every thread on this section of the forum that has some successful person posting in it there are probably 4 more failed and turned their trucks in.

If you were barely scraping by as a company driver because of debt, big payments, big family, etc., etc., how do you think it's gonna be any different when on top of all that you're trying to manage a business?

What many don't realize is that if you wanna make the big bucks while leasing a truck you're gonna have to absolutely work your *** off for it. Spending lots of time away from home, spending lots of time staring and refreshing a load board on a computer screen, it's way more than just "oh yeah SFI handed me the keys to a truck I'm an owner op now life is easy".

 

What they said. I 3rd those last 2 posts. Nothing to add.

 

I don't understand why a business man would go on the internet and post the details of his success to create competition for himself. Doesn't make sense to me. Just saying.

 

Sometimes competition is good. It weed out the weak. I also agree with sadwar and DFO.