A good opportunity for the right o/o?

It takes a lot more than busting ### to succeed in this business.

 

Freightliner got at least one thing right:
Work smarter, not harder.

 

From what I hear, you need at least 2 years before insurance is affordable if you want your own authority. If you lease to someone else, many/most companies won't take you with less than 2 years. I had 6 years before I got my own truck and authority.

I've only been an O/O for 8 months or so but I think I'm doing pretty well. I've made 135k so far and drove just over 55k miles so I'm averaging $2.45. This is strictly off load boards, I don't have any direct contracts. But I do have fully paid off equipment and very low monthly expenses so I can afford to stay home and work on my projects there if rates are ####ty for a few days.

Here's what helped me get here:

1. Savings. On top of saving up to buy my truck and trailer for cash, I had about 2 month's worth of estimated operating costs saved up and 3 months worth of personal payments saved up. I'm working my way up to 6 months for both. This means I don't really have to worry if it's a little slow. If I can't find anything good for a month, I might get worried. But I've never had to stay home for more than 3 days due to low rates. A solid savings also means you don't have to factor and lose another 3-5% of your gross.
2. Paid off truck. This goes back to savings but it's a huge one. I've talked to guys who have a $2000 truck payment each month. It might not seem back when you're up and running but what happens when you need repairs and you're down for 2 week? Or longer?
3. Low monthly payments. This isn't always possible for everyone but try and get rid of any necessary payments and debt. My mortgage is $1500 and my bills are around $500. The only other payment I have is $700 a month for my truck insurance. I can survive off $3000 net if I had to and I can earn that much in a single week.
4. Maintenance. Don't cheap out. Luckily, I learned from my first boss' mistakes. He would be to cheap to fix small problems until they became big problems. I noticed my turbo leaking a tiny bit of oil, I bought a new one right away. $700 now is much better than $2000 on the road and being late. Drivelines started to vibrate like crazy from worn u-joints, so I had all of the rebuilt and the drivelines re-balanced. It did cost me $3600 but that's much cheaper than a u-joint exploding on me when I'm going over the pass. Steering super loose? I put in a new steering column and gearbox. That was $1300 but now my steering is more solid than my car and it makes the truck much easier to drive. My point is, whatever it might cost now, you can double or triple that number if it breaks on the road.

There's obviously a lot more than that, but I think those are the main reasons why I've made decent money so far and haven't gone under. Only time will tell how I do in the next year or two but so far the O/O life has been good to me.

 

If you need a spotter let me know. I like the hood on my truck as it is undamaged.

 

yeah yeah yeah internet Rambo