A&A Express Brandon, SD

I'm not sure what the big deal is?

One of the main keys to being a successful lease or owner operator is to live within your means and to pay yourself within your means. I set myself up as an LLC filing as an S Corp. I pay myself a reasonable salary once a month, including tax exempt per diem. I pay my wife a small salary for being my secretary as well. I pay my payroll taxes every month without fail.

Leave the excess amount in the bank account during the year to pay yourself when you take time off. No biggie.

If you're going to take time off, make sure you have money to cover your fixed cost % you would normally pay for a given month.

When December comes, sit down with your accountant and develop a strategy on how to disburse revenue in your account so as not to pay more taxes than is necessary.

 

I worked in an office environment and interacted with many lease/owner ops. A recurring theme I witnessed was guys taking in nice big fat settlements of 5k to 6k every two weeks and going out and buying new cars, trucks, boats, etc. Instead of being disciplined and living within their means, they spent like drunken sailors when the money was flowing, only to experience problems financially when something went wrong with truck, home life, health, taxes, so on and so on.

 

In another thread on A and A a regular poster stated that he had taken a week or two off to be with his ill dad. He stated that on the next settlement all of his monthly payments were accelerated to come out of that weeks check. He posted that in July. I posted on that thread asking for a clarification and thought I'd ask you to see if you had any knowledge of this as being policy there.
I don't have a problem with budgeting and setting aside money to cover weeks off or even downtime due to breakdowns. I just don't want negative surprises.
All leases and contracts are different. I'm simply trying to get all of the facts before I leap. I agree that a guy needs to weed through what other drivers state as being facts, I sent an e-mail to Dan over at a and a. I'll let you know what he tells me.

 

I am watching to see what happens. One of the reasons that I asked about having so much a mile taken out of my settlement and going into a separate account was for this reason, take time off an the money is sitting there so that I can just transfer from my escrow to my settlement and payment is made, like where I am now. I have .15/mile taken out every week. If am short one week I just transfer that amount and every one is happy. If take 2weeks off I just send my DM a email and remind him to transfer that weeks payment out. There is just one other item you mentioned that worry's me and that you said that you make your own delivery appointments. M worry is that you get a nice paying load that you can deliver in 2 days and you call the receiving office and get told, sorry, can not take you for 4 days. Now that nice paying load just went to crap

 

Why not hold the .15 a mile out yourself from your settlements and use it as you need it instead of having to contact an office worker to transfer the money when you need it?

 

Ok, am I missing something? So with the reasonable numbers I'm seeing on this thread and others, it seems to me I would not be budgeting correctly if I decided to take say 2 weeks off and they decided to take all the fees out. Am I out of line in my thinking? If you can't take a couple weeks off and cover my fixed expenses, I'm over spending on these big paychecks and can't afford to take off that much time?