Do owner operators have gold plated toilets?

It depends at how well you can manage a business. There are driver's who run into the ground and go bankrupt trying to be owner-operators, and there are owner-operators out there who make a good living out of it.

 

Well, you have to consider they own their truck, which means they pay for the truck, the permits, the upkeep and repairs, all DOT violations, fuel, taxes, and don't forget how they all seem to be obsessed with adding those retarded extra lights, chrome and drive base covers that shatter if they blow a drive tire....

Gross pay they make bank. Net after all these expenses that pile of cash thins significantly. It all depends on the driver. Does he manage his loads right, does he subcontract, does he run his own loads, does he spend his money wisely, and does he right off every single exemption he is entitled to?

It all depends on the driver, and since O/O love to one up each other and over exaggerate I am doubtful you will get many pleasing responses.

 

jptrick, I urge you to read as many posts in this forum as you can. The answers to all of your questions are here. Otherwise, OOIDA has a calculator on their website that will help you understand the costs of doing business and the amount of money you can make based on what rate you are able to get.

 

If you want to do it the right way you can be very successful being a O/O. This is just a rough estimate on my part and doing this with a new truck. Obviously if you buy a used truck what I am about to list will be less.

If I can pull this off I will buy a new truck but I have been convinced it would be better to put down a good down payment on the truck and go from there. So most new trucks are anywhere from 140-170K dollars. So a down payment of something like 75-85K or so would be a good start and that should make the monthly truck payments more affordable.

Now for how much a O/O makes this varies greatly. Most O/O I have talked to make anywhere from 140-180K a year and they run fairly hard. The ones closer to 140 drive 5 to 6 days a week and get home a day a week. Now after all the truck expenses they probably put anywhere from 50-80K in there pocket.

That number might be off if other O/O want to chime in on how much they put in there pocket at years end. I dunno how accurate these numbers are in general terms but this is just a general idea from the people I have talked to that are doing this.

 

Im doing ok

At first, YES!! That feeling never goes away for me. Every loud clank and strange shimmy will make you think!!

For me, YES!! I cant turn the clock back that long BUT it's nice having control of my truck and my time-off!!

Now I could possibly make more as a company guy with my experience and driving record BUT I enjoy having more responsibility!!

O/O's dont deserve any more respect then a company guy. We ALL do the same job and 9 out of 10 times, a SMART company guy can be just as successful as any seasoned O/O.......


*I'm leased on to a company; not running my own authority*

 

Yes I do have a gold plated toilet, thanks for asking! There are a lot of variables that goes into an O/O 's cost per mile but a good figure to kinda get an idea of what it cost to run would be around a 1.30 a mile. Truthfully theres a lot of Lease operators (they buy from the company they run out of) that wouldnt know the first thing about using a calculator so they havent a clue what it really costs to run. You also have to figure out that if I made 2 bucks a mile then the 70 cpm I am getting is not pure profit as most would think. Yes some gets paid to me but what about repairs and taxes. I own my truck and trailer but do lease to an all O/O company which is a heck of a lot different than leasing a truck from the company you work for which is a bad mistake.

 

I just started looking into O/O's and this is what I put together

Generally speaking you're gonna pay
50 cents per mile for gas
$750 for insurance a month.
Misc (tags,heavy highway use tax etc) $100/month

Then if you took out a loan for your truck thats another 400-800 a week but lets say 500 a week


So we got a monthly payment of $2850 ,then we have to deduct 70 cents/mile for gas and repairs


@$1.50/mile were only making 80 cents a mile after gas and repair fund,which means you'd have to run 3563 miles just to break even ,say 8000/mile a month that leaves us with 4437 miles for a profit of $3549

 

Like any business, you should at least have some knowledge of how that business functions and what costs are involved with doing business. If you have no idea the cost of doing business, you'll be in the red rather quickly. In order to stay in the black and still get a paycheck for yourself after everything is said and done, you should have a REALLY good idea at what your costs will be.

Also, having or not having a truck payment is a deal breaker for some people. If you break down, that truck payment doesn't stop. Save up, buy a truck out right if you need to. The fewer costs you have, the better of you'll be. That's just common sense. Maintenance, fuel, permits, insurance, etc. will always be there. If you know those costs and can keep them minimal, you'll be in the black. This business is just like any other. Only thing is, you don't usually have employees. You're the sole proprietor.

For me, I'd want my business to run debt-free. Way too many companies out there reliant on debt to sustain them. Again, those debt payments don't stop when the truck isn't making money.

 

Yea that's something else that was stressed to me. If doing this is even going to get you close to going into any kind of DEBT DO NOT DO THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!! You must have the finances in place from the start before trying to do this.

Basically meaning you need to have enough money set aside to cover at least the first few months of all the truck costs before you can count on getting all the money owed from hauling freight.