My lease adventure

So I guess it is a good time to do a mid year update. As you know there have been some pretty expensive brakedowns this year compared to last year and the winter weather sucked also. With that said I am still chuging along. So far to date I am at 26K profit for the year so far. Not really as good as I would like but I understand it with the above mentioned things. This profit margin does not include my personal expenses and that has made me take a good hard look at things and make some changes. I am now using QuickBooks for accounting so I can get greater detail on where the money goes. I am making changes in my spending both at home and business to thin thigs out where I can. I also changed the way I am doing my banking to make it easier for me to keep track of.

So here is some real talk. Being a business owner I have learned that you have to constantly adapt to what your financial environment is and that is what I am doing. I have made some mistakes but I learned from them. I do my best to find ways to better my situation and that's all I can do for now. I am thankful that I am making enough to meet my goals and stay afloat. On the downside I am not in a place financially to start investing in my business as I hoped I would be yet. I had planned on buying my first piece of equipment this year but it is looking like it may not happen. If not that is ok. It will happen when it's meant to. Things are picking up now and hopefully I can get in a few months without any major expenses so I can get some money built up. Only time will tell.

 

So dealing with yet another breakdown. I took some vacation time last week and decided to have my truck looked at while I was on vacation. It has been having issues with shifting out of gear while I'm driving. Got to love the stinking automatics. The truck has been in the shop for a week now and will most likely be in there for another week. They figured out that the main wire harness had several spots where it was rubbed through. And that was what was causing the electrical issue with the transmission. Unfortunately that wire harness has to be built from scratch and they will not release my truck until they fix it.

Here is the reality of this situation. if it weren't for the backing of the company that I am leased onto I would have gone out of business as a result of this issue. The company has an account to rent trucks through DSU peterbilt. Luckily they had a spare truck at our yard and I am in that while mine's being worked on. But I also had the choice of renting a truck on their account and having it taken out of my paycheck. the part that would have put me out of business would have been the fact that most rental companies well not rent to a company as young as mine and I definitely do not have the finances available to weather two weeks down. This is been a huge reality shock for me and a big learning experience. This is why I will not leave this company until I am financially stable enough to do so. There is a reason that most O/O's will tell you to have a good amount of money set aside to give you the best chance at success. This is that reason.

 

Finally got the truck back yesterday. Hoping the repairs are going to be covered by the warranty otherwise it's a 8k bill.

 

The only breakdown of the motor itself was a fuel system problem on the motor. The rest of the breakdowns have all been electrical issues and sensors. I do agree though the motor is freaking gutless. I only made it about 70 miles and had my throttle position sensor go out so I had to take it right back to the shop. Hopefully I'll get it back today

 

Got my truck back and hoping for some good luck for awhile. I did talk to the shop today and found out that all the repairs that have been done to the truck recently we're covered under the warranty. Now I just got to wait to see if these last two repairs work covered under warranty.

 

So I got the truck back pretty quickly and I have been running like a madman sense. The truck has been running really good and I have not had any other issues thankfully. Manage to have a good month and pull in a little over 17 k to the truck. I got the repair bill for the wire harness and my warranty paid two-thirds of it but that still left me a bill for a little over $2,300. No problem though the company I am leased onto paid the bill and it's taking it out of my settlements as I can pay it. Things are looking up and I am keeping pretty busy so hopefully this trend keeps for a while. I am hoping to have enough money set aside after tax season to buy a trailer so we'll see how that goes.

 

Boy I got lucky this week. On Monday I noticed that my display for my inverter was telling me my alternator was only pumping out 13.5 volts. When it normally pumps out 14.2. I decided to keep an eye on it. By Wednesday it was down to 13.2 and my inverter quit working because if you turned on the microwave the voltage would get so low within seconds that the inverter would shut the power off. When I got home Friday it was down to 12.8 volts
I did stop on Tuesday and buy an alternator for $189 just in case I had to fix it on the side of the road. Luckily that did not happen and I took it to the shop for a p.m. and have them throw the alternator on so now it's all fixed again LOL.