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

Discussion in 'Schneider' started by freightwipper, Jun 1, 2015.

  1. freightwipper

    freightwipper Road Train Member

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    yes sir it is and that's one of the ridiculous turns I made and roads I went down
     
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  3. freightwipper

    freightwipper Road Train Member

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    Especially the winter.. drivers flood the southern market during winter time and don't leave so rates take a dump.
    Last winter I stayed North as much as possible but left whenever a bad storm was coming.

    That's right, no dispatcher can tell me to head into freaking ice storms anymore. Screw that
     
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  4. freightwipper

    freightwipper Road Train Member

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    If you stay south during winter time heck no.
    And southwest? lol never

    Midwest and Northeast is where all the money is and I frequently pull $2,500. Can do $2000 being extremely lazy.
    If I push myself I can do $3000 or more if the good loads line up.
    $2500 is my weekly goal when I'm out 7 days so if I hit that then it's all good. I'd rather enjoy myself a bit instead of knocking myself out working.
     
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  5. redoctober83

    redoctober83 Road Train Member

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    For starters, the account I'm running out here in the pnw pays $1.50/mile all miles plus fuel surcharge and today the fsc just dropped to ¢20/mile. I average just about 1,700-2,000 miles a week My biggest issue I'm facing is the cost fuel out here with all the discounts is right about $3.00/gallon and that is just eating me up as I'm averaging just over 7 mpg climbing the cascade mountain range at 80,000 lbs.

    Then when I talk to dm's, and other drivers that are leasing at Prime they say the average take home is $800-1,000/week working 7 days a week and averaging 2,500-3,000 miles a week. The only way to make anything close to $2,000 a week is to train or team drive.

    I agree that reefer rates are higher and I should make more but when I sat through Prime's review how your business is doing class, the average gross revenue per mile in that class was $1.20-1.35/mile. I had the highest gross revenue per mile at $1.75. I'm just not getting a huge amount of miles. Plus Prime takes a socialism approach to how they assign freight to drivers. You may have a nice high paying per mile load and then your next load will barely be $1.00/mile because they gave the other high paying load out of your area to another driver because he has a low paying load before. They like to spread the wealth out among everyone so that basically all the lease guys are averaging the same per mile.

    So you can see why I'm looking at the ic program and asking all these questions. I don't want to be at the mercy of the "planner", whoever that is, and some computer that thinks it knows best. I've thought about going back company but I like the freedom of taking more then 4 days off even though I stay out 6 weeks or more at a time. If I wasn't a lease operator I wouldn't have been able to get the time off to go to my great aunts funeral and family reunion 2 weeks ago for 6 days. On the company side I would have lost my truck if I was going that long and would have to wait to get another one.

    I don't go home much or have a need to go home since home is my parents place right now and they don't want to see me that often anyways. I want to take home $2,000 a week on average or more so I can pay off my debt, and save to buy the tractor at the end of my lease and pay cash for a house in a few years. I'm not going to do that at Prime with how little that pay.
     
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  6. drvrtech77

    drvrtech77 Road Train Member

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    My suggestion is...of you decide to come to sni choice, run out to the midwest,basically Iowa to Missouri to Ohio to Wisconsin and you'll do really good...rhen when it's time to go home just find a good paying load(s) going back that direction...I know what you're talking about how prime operates,I was with them several years ago...I've been over here going on 3 weeks and I wouldn't have it any other way...I'm more happy now than I've been in a long time...I'm go where I want for essentially the price I want...if the load doesn't pay what I want, I just don't book it...the success you have over here is squarely on you as the operator. ..since you've been running a business operating with prime, I think you'd do well over here...but like I said it's up the individual how they do over here..
     
  7. redoctober83

    redoctober83 Road Train Member

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    Thank you somuch for the info. Running a business is the easy part for me. It's running a busiess with both arms tied behind my back I have an issue with. Prime says they offer so much for you to be successful but once you get into it what they really offer you is a business that requires you to train to make the most money here. I won't team drive, did enough of that at CRST! Don't get me wrong, I like Prime and what they offer. For someone looking to start in this industrys, I think they are one of the better options out there right now for company training program. I believe the best training program is community college if the driver could offord it. I just want to freedom to control how much money I make not some "planner" and computer system.

    Thanks again!
     
  8. freightwipper

    freightwipper Road Train Member

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    Man I just gotta say this...
    Prime is Reefer.. and reefer rates are higher.
    Plus Prime supposedly pays 72%
    $1.20-$1.35? really?

    What's going on over there is the highest paying freight they're giving to company drivers and the worst of the worst loads they're giving to you guys.
    There is no freaking reasoning why you should be running that cheap pulling a reefer even out west.
    That's just ridiculous!

    Anyways if you don't mind heading east and staying in the midwest or Northeast as long as possible you can do far far better than you are doing over there.
    Check my numbers.. go through the threads of others and check theirs and you'll see.

    Plus unlike reefer with appointment times and stupid lumpers you can do drop and hook freight here and knock out as much work as you want.
     
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  9. mickeyrat

    mickeyrat Road Train Member

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    So , what are we going to jump FW about today?
     
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  10. drvrtech77

    drvrtech77 Road Train Member

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    FW...Trust me with prime...they tell you where to go and when..if you refuse a cheap load, they go nuts...they'll want to to dh 400mi sometimes and not want to throw Xtra money to cover those excess miles...that minimum guarantee that you see advertiseds...example..they say minimum .80mi I think now...so let's say load pays .74mi they give you .06mi to bump to that minimum but then let's say next load pays $1.60mi, they take that .06 back from that next load...what a sham..
     
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  11. redoctober83

    redoctober83 Road Train Member

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    I agree, the rates for reefer should be higher here. My mommy always said, "follow the money!" Before I even thought about leasing I had looked at the loads I was running on the company side and asked my dm to give me the reveue numbers on the loads I was running as a compnay driver, those numbers looked really good but I still didn't believe they would give the high paying loads to the lease guys when they have a low cost company drivers they can pay so they keep more profit to the company.

    As for what I am running now, my rate after the 72% is $.150 a mile all miles empty and loaded, which is much more then he average lease driver makes.

    I have no problem running in the midwest and east to make the most money and then possibley even just fly home when I want to take some time off ;) or if I can find a good paying load head back to Seattle to see the family.

    The current guarantee is $1.02/mile. But that's even a joke since it's only based on your overall average. So lets say you had a week where you made $0.90/mile, they would bump your revenue number to equal $1.02. But next week you end up averaging $1.25/mile between the two weeks, well then you have to pay back how much they advanced you the previous week to bring you up to that $1.02. That's how there "guarantee" works.

    I just have plan out how to make this switch and minimize my total down time and start up time.
     
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