Deal or Start Looking Again

You're still new, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here, assuming you just don't know any better because nobody has sat down to explain it to you. Your cpm is more than just truck payment, insurance, and fuel on a weekly or monthly basis. Driver pay is also included, as well as long-term items such as maintenance, repairs, upgrades, as well as eventual equipment replacement. Even the cost of your registration, HVUT, as well as any other state or local taxes you're going to be responsible for should all be factored into that number. Last but not least, you want some profit built into your cpm, because you want your business to grow, and without profit there really isn't any reason to BE in business. If you're thinking $1.28/mile is sufficient, you'll be OK...until your first major breakdown. Then, if you had enough stashed away by then, you might even be OK for a while after that. Things tend to go sideways in a hurry, though... @Ezrider_48501 has a thread going about the troubles he's had with a seemingly simple repair. Paid good money for the job to be done at a shop that should have known what they were doing, and the shop botched it costing him downtime, a motel in another country, and uncertainty in just how much of the rework is going to be covered by the original shop. It would take YEARS of "just skimming by" at $1.28/mile to build up the reserves needed to pay for something like that...if you had it at all.

 

the amount of money i have watched fly out the window the last couple months is unreal. highly frustrated at this point.

the initial part of this whole thing would have sunk me if i was running for 1.05 per mile + fsc there is no way id ever consider running my truck for that rate.

 

...assuming nothing else breaks in the meantime. You're already financing your repairs, and you've barely begun. Yet you're quick to claim $1.28/mile is plenty, and anyone requiring more than that has "too much truck" . You have a lot to learn, and I wish you luck.

 

Forget the megas and everybody else paying per mile. If you want a piece of more lucrative freight, you need to be paid on percentage. Especially if you want to be home every night or several nights per week, your "per mile" average needs to be higher than what those mileage-based carriers are going to pay. Why? More time at the dock loading and unloading, and less time actually driving due to the nature of "short haul" ...the loads simply aren't going as far. Percentage is especially lucrative on the "hot loads" , where it has to get there yesterday. The carrier is charging more because the customer is willing to pay more because of the necessity of the load moving. There are ways to do well, but it's not going to happen at $1/mile+fsc.

 

i am into my ordeal out of pocket around 18,000 dollars right now, not counting downtime, or other business related expenses. i have about a whopping 1700 coming back to me. and iv run less than 13k miles over the last two months.

iv been at it a while and had (had being key word here) substantial reserves. but at the rate we are going i will be at the limit of what my company can support and have to start going into personal savings before long. hopefully this ordeal will be over soon.

anything under 1.90 per running mile to the truck is just asking to loose your ###.

should have made sure you knew where to find decent rates before you bought a truck. even at the best rates trucking can still be a gamble at times.

as far as all mega's only paying .90 per mile, mega's are not the place to be looking.

 

i wish you the best of luck, hope you find something decent.

 

Isn't triple crown a container outfit? How many people have you talked to or seen a actual settlement showing the numbers? $3500 and only 600 miles, you know the old saying about too good to be true, if you had your own authority I could believe it.