Crst malone flatbed.

Are the fuel discounts through Malone as good as they say?

You get the discounts from Loves, TA & Petro. I usually try to stay with Loves cause they offer the best discount 95% of the time... anywhere from .10 to .35 off the sign price. If you buy 1000 per month at Loves, the next month you get unlimited showers and drink refill. I try to get my 1000 in and then fill up a couple of times if price is close at TA & Petro in case I am somewhere where I need a shower and no Loves is close.

Do you mostly haul steel? What kind of steel...coils, rods, tubes?

I have hauled rods, plates, square bundles and tubes, but for the last 3 months hauled nothing but coils.

After expenses, what do you figure your earnings will be compared to working for someone else? You said you gross close to 4 grand per week...how much of that do you think makes its way to your house?

If I run 4 trips, gross is 4760.00, after
Bond, Transflo rate, Tool Rate, Lisc/Permits, Maint Fund, Tk Pymnt, Tlr Pymnt, Insurance, Cell Phone, Pm Service, and Fuel I net 1835.40, 3 trips 1129.00, 2 trips 516.00. So as you can see it does not pay to stay at home, but run and run hard in order to get ahead on your bills and prepare for a rainy day or week.

One thing that is not on here is my wife and mine health insurance, which is 650.00 per month, and alot of times people overlook this when they leave a company job. Insurance can be costly and sometimes unable to get due to prior medical issues. If you company has a 401 plan to which they contribute to it can be missed much.

Malone says I don't need a headache rack because they have boxes on their rental trailers...I think I want a rack anyway. What would you do?

That is all up to you. When I started I had the HR that came with the Truck, and the Rented Tlr had a rack on it as well. I bought a Trailer already set up with a Side Kit and it has the rack also on it. I am debating on taking mine off to save some weight, but not sure about it yet. If you haul items that are tall it will go over the tlr HR.

THey said they keep track of calculating fuel tax...do they deduct that out of your pay every quarter, or do you have to mail in a check?

On the fuel tax, they will keep up with it for you, and if your not careful you could owe a few hundred dollars every qtr. My first qtr didn't owe but 150.00, 2nd qtr BAMMMM owed 476.00 OUCH!! But this was due to my own fault.

I now understand the IFTA system and pay attention where and what state I buy fuel in and plan on it doing better this qtr. By the way if you owe they will take it out in 100.00 weekly deductions.

I can't thank you enough for all the info...I truly appreciate your time and honesty!

You are most welcome. Before I made the move I had a ton of questions and asked so much from alot of people on OOIDA (that is before I knew of this site). If you go to that site, you can look up Papa Rick and read my post about the questions I had on CRST.

Back when I started as an O/O which was 2006, I was a company driver, making 15.00 per hour from the time I cranked the truck every day until I got home that afternoon or night. If I was going to pick up machines and they broke down and had to be worked on I was told get a nap (sometimes 10 hours later they would tell me ok we are ready to load you), I still got paid.

I made some great money doing this, didn't have any insurance buy my wife did so it worked out good for us, but in the back of my mind I always wanted to try having our own business. I discussed it with my wife and we did a WHOLE LOT of PRAYER before we did it.

I asked a ton of questions, I stared out O/O hauling pulpwood and lumber from the company I worked for prior to starting our own business. Things I never imagined would go wrong did go wrong, people who I trusted lied about business deals that almost cost us everything. Had it not been for God, we would be writing a different story about what I am doing now.

I spent alot of time praying and crying and wondering if I had made a big mistake in doing this, and things started to turn up and look good and then BAM, both companies I was hauling for went down.... more praying and crying about what to do.

Feb of this year I traded a paid off 2003 W900L Daycab (Very Sharp) in on a 2007 T600 Sleeper Truck (Sharp Truck, but nothing like the W900L I Had) and hit the road.

The first month all it would have took for me to quit and come home like a whupped dog would have been my wife tell me to quit!! I went to the wrong places, picked the wrong loads, wound up laying over when I should have hauled butt, and learned things the hard way.

Saw the buddy system in place where I was there unloaded first but reloaded last cause I didn't know the system, you name it more than likely I did it, but I LEARNED FROM MY MISTAKES, and quick.

Sure they pay you good to go to certain places, but the question to always ask yourself is this... What can I get out of there and to where.

I am on dedicated run now that. 1. Doesn't pay as good as some. 2. May require a long load out time,, I have been in the mill sometimes 7 to 9 hours to get loaded. 3. You don't know how many or how they will be processed until you get to the mill so you have ot sometimes shoot from the hip and hope you get the weight scaled out right. 4. You always haul heavy... 45,000 to 47,500.

But the upside is this. 1. I always know where I am picking up, go within 15 miles of my house both ways. 2. I know where I am delivering. 3. The Scale Houses are used to seeing me and after a couple of inspections with no violations they usually don't mess with you. 4. I like doing this as I am close to home on my way, money although could be better, it could be worse.

God has been so Good to me and I am thankful for it!

I always said if I could help anyone I would do so, for there were and still are many wonderful people out there to help if you only ask. One thing I have found out is FB People are always willing to help out if you only ask.

 

It is not mandatory, I just thought it would be good to set aside some money and then if I needed it, which I did when I bought 4 drive tires, I just called maintenance and they give Loves the ok and a PO for it. I also did this when I bought my steer tires this way as well.

If I need it for maintenance I call them and they ok what I am getting done if they estimate it won't be over what I have in my maintenance fund. If I need to transfer it out of the maintenance fund into my comdata account, I call my pay clerk and let her know how much and it is done right then. As long as it is during normal business hours. Then if I want to transfer it to my personal account, it goes from my comdata account then I can place a transfer to personal, usually takes 2 business days for this to happen, but to comdata it is instant when I speak to my payroll clerk.

I appreciate all the questions you answered for me as I bugged you and alot of other people with questions on here about CRST and so far it has worked out good for me. I have been trying to find out more about LS as I have heard it is much better paying freight.

 

If your asking if I am still with CRST, Yep sure enough!