.95 per mile? What am I missing?

And though you can do ok i did it drives you nuts during peak produce times to end up at the right place at the right time for 135 a mile when the freight pays 3 each way like taday

 

Whats really sad is the number of carriers that advertise this rate. This was the going rate 20 years ago. Big deal they throw a fuel surcharge on there. I take it these people havent seen the cost of living increase along with everything else today.

 

I completed a four-year lease on a new truck with base pay near .95 / mile and it wasn't that difficult. Owner-operators who haven't researched the topic and rely on the wisdom of the intertubes can't imagine a way that anyone else could make a living at half (or less) the rate they are willing to move for.

In my experience over the years they miss these salient points:

1) All miles are paid miles, loaded and empty. An O/O has to charge higher rates to the shippers to cover the inevitable deadhead miles. For me deadheading a hundred or two hundred miles between loads becomes a profitable light load instead of an expense.

2) All miles (at least on the contract I signed) paid the prevailing DOE FSC.

3) Some of the expenses normally borne by an O/O like base plates, registrations, HUT and IFTA are paid for by the carrier. At the company I'm leased on to now (as an O/O as I did end up purchasing the truck I leased), I pay for none of those things.

4) Since the carrier handles dispatch and I'm paid the same regardless, I never worried about finding a backhaul, taking a bad load to get out of a bad area or any of those things. Move here, load, move there, unload. Rinse, repeat.

Over the four years of my lease I averaged a shade over $1,200 a week net to me after all truck expenses, before taxes. I didn't work that hard and I never had to do foolish things like "train" other drivers on my truck in order to make a profit. Nothing I did was revolutionary and my modus operandi could be easily duplicated by other drivers. Most of the time I spent 11 days OTR then took a 3-day weekend, with a few extra weeks here and there when I wanted.

Good luck,

Jim

 

None of your 4 points are missed by me. It's just that I don't see a dollars worth of value in any of the pennies per mile in benefits you mention. And empty miles for me that technically pay zero are also considered lightweight, less wear and tear, better fuel mileage as the next customer in line actually pays to cover those just like the one before paid them. And the overall average is still well above "paid" miles from any company out there offering 1995 rates these days.

 

you are correct, if your goal is $1200/week, such a deal is not bad

run 2500mi a week, that should cover it

but i would need to make about twice those miles, so that mileage pay would do me more harm than good

 

I guess our goals are different mine has been to clear 1.00 a mile after all expenses i normally hit semewhere in the mid 80's over the last five years but i,m allways pushing that up to each his own

 

Those are fine points. All four of them. But what you, and others like you that like these all inclusive cpm contracts miss is, if you got a good percentage contract, pulling the exact same freight, you would be making another grand a week. Easily more than enough to pay for plates and permits. Not picking on you, I'm just pointing out how much money you leave on the table. I'd also be curious, if after the end of the year you compared your tax return to the typical company driver, running the exact same miles, how much more you made than him.

 

Take your TRUE CPM ( cost per mile ) divide by .79 and that's the least amount per mile you should haul for and still be around next year

 

Thanks for the replies. My response was directed at the original post in this thread which said, in part: "For the life of me I can't figure out how to squeeze a living out of this rate. What am I missing? Thanks!" In my reply I noted I squeezed out just over $65,000 average, after all truck expenses and before taxes, each of the four years during my lease. To someone living in Manhattan that probably would be poverty-level wages but I suspect that for many they wouldn't mind that level of income.

For those of you arguing how much better your situation is, or how much better some other type of contract is, those will probably make wonderful threads as well.

As far as comparing my tax return and that of an average company driver, this is easily accomplished. I posted all of my settlement information on a spreadsheet available to everyone and according to the Department of Labor the average truck driver made just over $34,000 net in 2012 (the latest data I can find).

Good luck,

Jim

EDIT: For completeness sake, in my original post I wrote that I netted just over $1,200 per week during my lease as opposed to $65,000 a year. The numbers are different because of certain bonuses and repaid escrows being returned or paid at the end of the lease. Potato, pah-tah-to.

 

are you comparing driver to driver or owner op to driver.
an owner op has more expenses and more risk. If you own a truck and your goal is to make what a company driver makes , sell your truck. Theres plenty of company drivers that make more than some o/o without the headaches and risk. You shouldn't use cost of living, paid off truck
or a truck that gets 10 mpg as an excuse to run cheap and line someone elses pocket other than your own.