Vision too Unrealistic?

When you own a truck with your own authority you'd be thankful to only work a 60 hr week.

 

Life is hard, if you want something, you have to be willing to deal with some sacrifice.....if you REALLY want to be an O/O, you'll have to make some sacrifices, before and after you buy the truck......

 

Takes time to establish a "cushy gig" with your own truck and trailer. Rather than wear out a perfectly good truck for a $1.18 a mile, probably closer to a $1 a mile if you are being honest about real miles right?, you would be much farther ahead to get a good job paying well working for the man.

Save, save, save while you're doing it. Work the debt snowball and get everything paid off. Go all cash in with no debt. Don't listen to people without the self discipline who say that is not possible. They're failures waiting to happen always whining about one thing or another. Buy what you want with cash and put in the time to figure out how to make what you want work.

And you don't have to have your authority to do this. Might even be more profitable to be leased somewhere and doing it. Might not be. Depends on how savvy you are one way or another. Or what your personal needs are. For some guys all the expensive insurance and red tape headaches in the world just melt away when they see their name on the door.

 

Authority, my take thus far... I've had mine just over a year.
5500 for insurance 1mil liability 100k cargo. I do not carry collision.
Tags 1700 a year
Nickle and dime stuff (2290, ucr, loadboard subscriptions etc) = 2000

I average about 5k gross a week..so for 2 weeks gross (or 3 weeks net amount) my owner op nut is payed for the year. This doesn't take into account truck repairs/maintenance, just the paper stuff.

Ive been averaging 1.73 per mile all hub miles including deadhead but in past ive been mostly pulling 12-1800 mile runs which are high revenue, lower profit per mile.
For the next few months I'm going to try shorter 250-300ish mile runs closer to 3
00 per mile and see how that works.
Im still figuring it out.
So far, ive chosen to deadhead before pulling for 1.00 per mile though i have done it as cheap as 1.30 getting out of north dakota on a friday.

I am flatbed living off loadboards, so your rates may be different depending on what trailer you're pulling and how successful you are at negotiating rates.

 

Op,

Do a calculation of how many miles you actually drove from Jan 1 2015 to Dec 31 2015 ...then compare whatever your gross dollars you paid yourself ... compare to what you'd have gotten if you were in a company seat... at the end of your lease when the truck is yours outright you will likely have a truck with a ton of miles on it and in the zone of expensive repairs like engine transmission rear ends etc. Even the new vgt turbos are a few grand and are only good for 500k miles. Once you get your own authority it isn't magically just more money, it takes a while but can be done. Some people find it more worth their time to lease on to a carrier that has good work and handles all the paperwork and bill collecting in exchange for a percentage.

 

Who do you insure with?

 

I read your post last night and wanted to comment but didn't..

Trust me, your friends and family envy what you are doing with your life. Just as I envy all you folks driving for a living crisscrossing the country.

 

If you feel like this now,this early in the game,get out and work for the man.
O/O isn't for you.
No disgrace in working a compagnyjob.