Can anyone explain how to operate at 1.75 a mile and stay in business!?

It seems your expenses are way to high . 30,000 for insurance, should be half that . What kind of truck payment do you have ? You are driving too fast slow down you'll save on fuel . The load board is a learning curve . Are you negotiating better rates ? I used to call at least 5 brokers before I found a load . It's fine to say no thanks your rate is to cheap . If you're doing 300 mile runs how many are you doing a week ? Once you find the good shippers receivers you may be able to get two loads a day on certain days . Always deliver early pickup by noon and should do 6 loads a week . If you average say 800 a load that's 4800 . 4800÷1800 that's 2.66 a mile . I'm not aware of your expenses but 1.75 is insane . Find out your cost per mile to run the truck . Mine is closer to a dollar . You're in deep now I hope you can dig yourself out . I wish you luck . Hopefully you find some advice on here to save your business.

 

Politics as usual. My advice would be to sell something such as your home that would reduce the expenses, take that money and hire someone to do your load acquisitions. Your dealing with human nature which can be inconsistent, unreliable, biased, and misleading. I'd say you have to cut the last few pieces to fit the puzzle, not just the final one. You gotta know your limits as well. O/O is not for everyone. I feel for you as this is a situation that's easy to fall into. I'm not an O/O but I have been in business before so its interpretable your problem. Do you have the experience to go back to company and meet your dollar demand?

 

Going 75 mph your blowing a lot of profits out the stack. You got to drive for fuel economy, low rolling resistance tires help. I had my own truck for 10 years. Finally had to give it up just not enough profit to be made. Plus the truck repairs on the emissions system. I dove for Landstar and they take 35% of the load pay. That includes a trailer and insurance was pretty cheap and discounts on fuel and tires

 

You had to do the research first before you jump out here. You have to ask yourself can your business support your lifestyle. Here is my take of where you have to be. If your truck was completely lost do you have enough money (or another truck I learned that ) to get back up. We have to prepare for the worst & hope for the best. The cost of insurance for new businesses now is high. It maybe you needed to lease on to a company before you ran your own authority to get the insurance down & build up some revenue. Be encouraged. Step back a bit re-think things you can still be successful. I hope the best for you

 

No rate suck, and it is will be hard to run for 1.75 with those expenditures. Big companies offset cost by having more then a few trucks.

16,100.00 at your current pace has you in the hole, and I don't know if that is including taxes.

I parked one of mine due to rates. The other is leased out, and I drive short runs for a company 4 days a week.

Try leasing onto someone with a good insurance rate, discount fuel, tires.
Warren Transport has a good bobtail rate, mile rate not the greatest but they have good discount program on fuel and tires.

I don't run with them but was in talks a while back, then just decided too park one for a while and drive local.

 

No, brokers don't work for drivers. They work with drivers. Brokers are in the business of making money for themselves.

If you're getting 1.75 to the truck (ie after the brokers cut), you should be able to make it work.

Your two problems that I can see is the insurance and your financing. Why will only one company underwrite you? This was your first BIG RED FLAG. Something about you makes you look like a bad insurance risk.

The second problem is you're financing a start up with credit cards. Using credit cards to provide back up cash flow is one thing. Or for a very short term investment where the finance charges would be greater than the potential interest charge.

A third problem is you're not looking at revenue per day/week. The RPM doesn't matter if you don't have the ROD. A 1,000 3.00/mile load that picks up Monday morning and doesnt deliver until Fridat morning is worth less than running 4, 400 mile loads paying 2.00/mile. Both take the same time to do, but the latter results in 3,200 in revenue over 4 days while the former only gets you 3,000 in 4.5 days.

 

1.75 could be all right for long hauls at 4500 miles a week ( I don't think, you could do more legally not to exceed 70).
The insurance 30k? That's insane!!!!! Look I hate to think that them, insurance pigs, play golf now, laughing at you, while you're sweating.

 

You sound like you failed to do enough research. 30k for insurance, no way.

If you jumped in this business, (as most do nowadays) with no idea of markets and rates that was a mistake. If you jumped in based on June rates, you made another mistake. June is the best month of the year.

Wait till it really slows down and all you see are 1.25 per mile loads from brokers. And they are flying off the board being taken by other desperate o/o who got in over their heads too....

 

These are the threads I hate. A guy jumps in with no idea. That hurts everyone, friend. You're in so much of a jam that one thread wont even began to help you. And people are trying to help you.

1. TIME MANAGEMENT
It's the stuff that life's made of. When you see a short hop load, dont look at what the thing pays per mile, look at the TIME you have involved with that one load. Does that load pay for your time? A 200 mile load that pays $3/mile pays you a gross of $600. On paper, it looks good, but it will tie up your truck the entire day. Bet on it taking all day! You need a minimum of $1000/day! I said m-i-n-i-m-u-m. Understand what that means.

@Ruthless?