James Hardie, Pulaski, VA - DIRT CHEAP TARPED LOADS.

I finished paying off my truck over 6 years ago, several months ahead of schedule. Never been under water, and never missed a payment. Hell, I only put 75,000 miles on my truck last year and made out just fine. Easy to do when you're running for more than your cpm. Just because it isn't as profitable as you'd like doesn't mean there's no money in it. Covering my costs and putting an extra couple hundred in the bank on my way home is preferable to needing to dip into my savings a couple hundred bucks to cover the costs of the same trip home running empty...but hey, to each their own.

 

Hey now why you Gunna go and say that? You want me to be outta a job or something?

 

If you gotta dip into the savings to get home. Maybe you should look at the rate you took to run out.

 

Bahahahahaha..... @Chewy352 , you dont miss a beat brother.

 

Here is a prime example were the $391 "back haul" is a complete waste of time and will cost you more then you will ever make on it.

For a month or so in the summer I run 186 miles one way loaded. The load pays on average $1,200. "Back hauls" that go within the most 60 miles of my main haul pay average $500. I don't even think twice I just put it in the wind and head back and reload. Why? Because if I get after it and load on Sunday and unload at 6am when they open I can bust it back reload and unload again. Essentially delivering 2 loads mon 1 tues 2 weds 1 thurs and 2 on fri. Why even waste my time with a cheap crappy "back haul"

All I'd be doing with a cheap "back haul" is tieing up my truck and enabling a citrate shipper to get the product moved.

But what if there's weather or a wreck or etc etc and I'm held up. Which happens and will happen. Now this $200 I padded my account with has cost me thousands.

 

Never going to happen. I've been hearing that for as long as I've been around this industry and there's still cheap freight so obviously that method doesn't work. The more specialized your niche, the more shots you get to call, but you don't get to call very many hauling general freight. Between three weeks CDL schools, megas and leases, cheap freight haulers are like those birthday candles you can't blow out. Every time one goes out of business, another one pops up in their place and there aren't enough people saying no to make any discernible difference.

I'm no economics major so this is 100% opinion, but I think the only way there's going to be an industry wide increase in general freight rates is when the cost of operations for the megas goes up, aka the companies moving the largest percentage of loads. When the biggest players tell the shippers/brokers they have to step it up, then you'll see an increase. Saying no to cheap freight on an individual level is fine and dandy, I'm opposed to it myself, but that's not how you get rates up. You do that by raising the lowest common denominator. A rising tide raises all boats, as they say.

 

Once a load is completed, it's money in the bank. The greater percentage of profitable miles you run, the less miles you have to run. Why wear out your truck bouncing all over God's creation in search of that "high paying load" when if you maximized your profitable miles, every loaded mile wouldn't have to make up for an empty/unpaid mile. I would much rather work every other day...run hard one day, and the next maybe 2-3 hours delivering the back haul and grabbing my next day's run...then spend time with the wife in town, riding horses, cruising on the motorcycles, or whatever else we feel like doing. Last year, we took a vacation to Texas, 2 trips up to Chicago, and a trip to Nashville complete with a stay at the Opryland, Grand Ole Opry performance, and a cruise on the General Jackson. Why? Because I'm out here profiting as close to every mile I can, only working when it is profitable, and not bouncing around all day chasing that elusive "high dollar freight".

Work smarter, not harder...and enjoy life a little, 'cuz you only get one of 'em.

 

Thank you for illustrating my point. You are perfectly OK with $1200 up and bouncing back, essentially accepting $600 for each leg of the trip. Taking that $500 backhaul gives you $1700 for the trip, and is only $100 less than you were ALREADY doing it.

So, rather than making 8 trips per week grossing $9600 running yourself AND your truck ragged, why not make $1700/day running loaded both ways? 5 trips for $8500 rather than 8 trips for $9600. How many extra miles are you running for that $1100? How many extra hours does it take to make those 3 extra trips?

Work smarter, not harder...and have time left over to enjoy your life.

 

Not to change the subject, but whoever came up with the term "backhaul" to use for figuring rates was an idiot.... There is never a "backhaul".