how much do owner ops make an average week

Thats another benefit of directing all work to one independent shop (no dealers,you dont mean #### to them). I call up my shop with 2 hours notice and im in and someone else is out. I am the top priority because of the amount of business i bring. Virtually always out same day even if 3 guys gotta stack up on it.

 

That was the shop I had a good relationship with, I booked a load that was picking up on Saturday delivering on Monday and reload on Monday, I needed to pickup the loads, those was paying more than well, just doing the Saturdays load would make me around 3000, so I figured why not to give a 1000 to a shop and still make 2 to myself, the other option loosing 2 loads, the time, and ruining relationship with customers that was counting on me.

 

@superTrucker77 ... I hate to break it to you...

Given ALL THE $$$ you have spent in repairs...You do realize you could have bought another stand-by truck...for exactly this scenario

It's all about planning, hedging and executing.

Throwing money at a problem, only fuels the fire....which has been your mistake.

You dont seem to operate on having Plan A, Plan B, Plan C....it appears that you just say "F##K it...do it, I'll make more money on the next load" and guess what, you burn more & more cash in the long run

 

In his defense having been in his position as small business owners we are inherently optimist or the odds of failure would have kept us at bay in the first place. You dont plan on losing your ### over and over you keep thinking maybe after this ill catch a break.

 

That's what I did earlier this year. Found a decent Columbia at an auction with an S60 and 750k miles. Got it for 10.5k, plates were $1700, and it sits at my house without insurance right now. It will need 4 new drives in about 20k miles but brakes are good and motor is solid. Luckily I haven't needed to use it yet, but once my truck needs major work, I'll be able to swap them on insurance and take my time fixing it at home. If I had done this from the start, I would've saved a good 10-15k on BS repairs the dealer said I had to do.

 

I am going to my accountant this week and I was intrigued somehow by the OP original question. So as easy the Excel allows this sort of play, I calculated all the calendar weeks (whether I was on the road making money or staying home) since I bought my truck, all the gross and the net I made during all this time and these are the numbers that, to tell you the truth, did not impress me much. I consider myself to be in the o/o median, so my numbers should be representative for the prospective o/os who think of buying a used volvo truck and make a living with a dry van.
Here it is:
number of days since I bought the truck: 982 (until today: 2/14/17)
weeks: 982/7 = 140.28
Gross: all the money I received: $ 531,730.17
All the miles I drove (odometer: deadhead + loaded + personal conveyance) :357,696
after all the costs: $ 293,560.76 I net: $238,169.41
which yields net income (subjected to IRS and State tax): $1697.81

Of course, I have not been all this time on the road. I was twice on overseas vacations, Christmas, Easters, Thanksgivings and such spend at home. To make all this revenue I spend 436 full days on the road. I don't count days when I go to mechanic or do a pick up and delivery, or maybe I should, but practically these days I sleep at home and these activities are a few hours at the most. So 436/7 = 62.29 weeks
so the magic number is $238,169.41 = $ 3823.56
I am happy with that. My revenue dropped since I got my own authority, but I'll give it a year at least to prove it was a good decision or not.


I had to edit it a little as I forgot to include the revenue this year which is:
$ 17,458.50 and costs So I corrected the above number. It did not change a hell lot but it is reflecting 2017 too.

 

How much deadhead do you usually have? That comes out to $1.48 all miles. I've never done van so I don't know what's considered good but my all mile average is almost a full dollar more with a flatbed.

 

I don't know to tell you the truth. Deadhead or not I still have to move the truck as I value my time more. It may be even 1/3 of all miles but I don't have statistics on this. Maybe I should start to pay attention to that too.

 

I suppose you guys use spreadsheets and can figure out how to do this on one. I have a hand written ledger that's just how I do it. On each load (pro #) I enter the start miles from the shipper's dock and the end miles at the receiver's dock (also have revenue and other info noted for each load). That's all I need for accurate breakdowns of rate, deadhead & loaded only miles among other things.

 

I should do it in more precise way too. Especially now, when I also pick and choose where I go. I was not paying attention to all the details such as exact miles for a given load. It should not be that much extra work, but I figure, that the benefits are that you know what rates to expect on given lanes based on your history and how the overall trucking business evolves for you. Also, I shrugged off the relevance of deadhead miles too much but I' should start tracking them to have a better idea of the of the opportunity cost. It is just fun to play with statistics and numbers, it gives many different views from different angles.