Opening up a trucking company. Limited experience. What could go wrong?

I want to ad also that I can see why guys get in trouble in this business. I am obsessed with knowing the cost of things and the profitability of things so ive been working up the numbers for trucking.

I made up a sheet to calculate the fixed cost per mile as well as the variable cost per mile based on number of miles run per week. Now I can absolutely see how guys end up in binds. If you pull 2$ a mile freight and do 2500 miles a week, you think your doing great but the truth of the matter is, your not. You have to save loot for the tires, maintenance and truck replacement and I'm guessing most don't.

Here are the numbers ive used now after adjusting some things from this thread



Those are the fixed costs per year to keep the truck on the road. Obviously they can vary and some have room for improvement



I discovered yesterday that my truck has averaged 4.6 MPG since I bought it in October so its time to look into that and figure out what the problem is but heres the table I'm using. Currently my variable cost is .53 cents a mile plus driver @ .45 So .98c variable and then fixed

based on 125k a year fixed works out to .36 a mile so my operating cost is 1.36

Hauling 2$ freight with some DH has resulted in my average mile loaded or unloaded paying 1.53

Not a very profitable business if my costs are 1.36 and my revenue per mile is only 17 cents higher.

I'm going to have to tune some things up. Granted I'm making money on the fuel side of the game so this continues to be a good business for me but for a lot of people I can see how it isn't.

 

I don't think there's anything unethical about paying someone 56250 a year to drive a truck. Is it a great deal for everyone, NO. but I don't think its unethical. Its a lot of hours away from home.

I'm a landlord too I own over 50 properties. I take applications all the time for people renting and I can tell you less than 10% of them make more than 4000 a month where I live. So it really doesn't seem unethical at all to me. The choices are 10-14$ an hour at a ####ty job they hate or 55k at a ####ty job they hate.

If your going to hate it anyway you might as well make money doing it.

 

The roi is good even with the poor profit per mile and also switching to w2 is fine if that's the ultimate direction. The truck gettin 4.6 needs to go for tuneup this week!
I hope my 13 cascadia does better!

 

I have about 30k in each truck after recon and I have 26335 in each trailer.

For this to be a good experiment I want to see 60k gross profit per truck per year

I think it can get there. I still haven't decided if the 2006 or the 2013 are the way to go?!?