Best lease truck company? 1000 take home

My commute to the truck is 5 miles.
When I did conCrete was 13 miles but F up traffic.
Super regional yard is about 10 or 12 miles, but I'd only have to go by there once a week to drop paper. I'd leave the back haul at the house for the weekend, drop it and the paper early Monday morning, rinse & repeat.

 

' gotta crawl before you can walk.'

Yeah, send your kids down to the child molester for sex ed. Sir, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Nobody should be paying for a job as a company driver. No one should even be looking at truck expenses, and even entertain the idea of runnibg for $.90/mile.

"But Six, they need to learn the business..."

Do ALL crawling as a company driver. If you're paying the bills, you better be able to sprint like a 4 legged furry animal.

 

I don't believe this. Not today. 20 years ago sure. But not today.

 

A couple of years ago the flatbed drivers out of my terminal in OKC were generating $350K to $500K. It started to drop last year with the price of oil. Tariffs to the oil patch are still much higher than tariffs in other commodities, but I ran hard over the last year to generate $230K. My best month was last June, making almost $27K TTT. Now I hope to break $20K.

I know, maybe I was dumb getting into the oil patch last year, but still making better money driving a truck for the owner than the OP is talking about making on a fleece purchase. Oil prices are starting to rise, so business and rates should start picking up.

 

Lepton 350 i believe. In a niche market running your ### off. But 500k? 700k? Nope.

 

True, but I don't know enough to talk about what oil patch drivers were making, outside of flatbed loads. I've heard "guys who knew guys" making more than we were, in the $500K "range". But didn't pay much attention as I was new to the patch and put most of that talk down to "close, but not the whole story".

Bottom line in regards to the OP's thread is that IMHO anyone wanting to become an O/O should stay absolutely away from lease "purchase" deals. Figure out the residual at the end of the lease. If it is in the neighborhood of what you would expect to pay for a three year old truck, then pass on that "deal". If you pay about $1 at the end of the lease, it might be worth starving for three years.

Whatever you do, don't buy a job.

I've posted about my experience in the oil patch to illustrate that there's no way you have to accept a fixed $0.90 to $1.00 a mile. NONE. Get the 123LoadBoard app. They show how much the average rate per mile is for a given lane. Once you've hauled a load or two for a broker you will soon find they start quoting you higher rates and you can negotiate. Sticking yourself with a lease to a company that will fix your rates BELOW what a broker will quote fresh meat in a bad lane is a sure method for trials and tribulations.

TripleSix NAILED it with his post a few before this one. Earn your chops as a company driver. Save coin and BUY your own truck. Lease on with a carrier that pays a percentage of the line haul and DON'T HAUL CHEAP FREIGHT.

 

2200 net would be making 4,000-5,000 in loads a week?

 

Depends. Fixed cost stay the same no matter what. Fuel and maintenance goes up with miles. My approach to reach my goal changes with what freight is paying, and what loads are available at the time. Some weeks i may only run 750 miles and only gross 3k. But because i only spent 200 in fuel i hit my goal. An bad weeks i may run 2500 miles, and only gross 4500 so not even 2 a mile, but i still hit my goal. Every week is different so in order for me to hit my goal i have to be willing to adjust on the fly. However there is one constant factor i have learned, every time i have failed to achieve my goal it was because i was either too picky and didn't pick from what was available at the time hoping something better would come up, or because i went after the 'homerun' load (high miles and high rate per mile) that ended up being a strike out cause it took me too far out of the good market. Right now my current strategy for the last couple months has been a mixture of both high paying short haul and good paying regional: 3 to 4 days of runs under 100 miles paying 500ish each with a 750 to 1000k mile run over the weekend that pays over 2/mile.