Check My Numbers V.2

I myself take advantage of the IRA accounts which is $12,000 a year for both.

 

Who says you're gonna average 8 mpg all the time and only pay $3.25 for fuel?

What about heavy loads and grades?
What about locations with higher fuel prices?

 

The whole point of being an owner op is work for less time and more money.. Atleast in my opinion.. All these numbers are based on like 120k miles a year? But if you are specilized in something its not out of the question to be making more then a guy doing 120k miles while we only did 75k miles... I dont really think expenses per mile is the right way to figure things out .. Because you never know where ur work is going to come from if ur running the spot market.. And a 1000 mile trip with 48k payload in the northwest rockies is a hell of alot different than a 1000 mile trip with 10k payload in the flat Midwest plains... Why should they bring the same rate of money or expenses be treated the same they are 2 different losds with 2 different expenses does not matter they are both 1000 mile trip..not to mention the different freight markets in different part of the country. $2 a mile going to the midwest is a hell of alot different than $2 going to florida.. Or what about the load pays $20 a mile. Sounds good right? But its only a 10 mile load and takes 3 hours to load and 4 hours to unload. Congrats you just burned an entire day for $200. But your rate per mile is high, right? I think alot of people get lost with the rate per mile stuff because of this.. Or maybe i just dont understand it..

I think the best way to approach this is to figure out what ur costs are for the entire year and figure out where your revenue is going to come from... If its all dry van spot market stuff you may run more miles for less money compared to somebody that is specialized. even if they are specialized in the dry van market.. Specialized meaning doing a certain type of freight outside the normal market... If you can understand your entire costs for the year then u can better understand what type of revenue you need, to make the profit you want... If you have 100k in expenses and want to make 300k in revenue then figure out how to do that how many loads is that going to take and what type of loads. How many days would that realistically take, all in? Not just driving time. All your time loading and unloading as well.... And you want to figure out how to do the least amount of miles possible in that scenario... Get rid of the rate per mile company driver mentality.. I think it only limits you in business. Just my useless 2 cent ramblings..

 

I like the day rate myself and if I can hit it I know how many days I can take off.

 

If you’re planning on buying a new aerodynamic truck that is set up properly for what you do I’d say that 8 is a realistic number. I keep track of my mileage in a notebook and since Jan 2022 my lifetime average in this truck is 7.26. That’s everything, every gallon that runs through the truck, idling and all. And I know I leave some fuel economy on the table, my sleeper gap is 44”. Just having a shorter wheelbase would probably gain me another half mile per gallon. I also run all over the country hauling loads from heavy to light.

As far as cost, I’d lean toward estimating high. I’d probably figure at least $3.70, maybe even more than that.

 

the lowest MPG you anticipate, in my case we always project fuel cost at 5.5 average.

 

Mine would be lowest 6.5 and I don’t think I have ever hit that. My lowest is right at 7

 

The original post has everything drawn out for a full year also, and the average for a full year will be well above 5.5 in an aero truck. I’ve had tanks in the high 5’s and low 6’s and those aren’t even blips on the radar over the course of a year.