Does anyone have detailed figures for the Hirsbach lease program?

Most Hirschbach posts say something different, with one of the most recent saying he's making between 1500-2000 a week. I made that with the other reefer company I was with.

I don't care if you think I'm broke or not. I'd rather you think I was in case you try to rip me off. Half of the people on here are just salesmen pushing referrals, anyhow.

Its not up to you, but I've been both and prefer leasing.

Leasing is fine if you don't plan on keeping the truck. It's for tax reasons like I said.

 

I know. I had a loadboard with Celadon but let them dispatch me. It was faster. I only grabbed loads if they didn't have a preplan on me for the next day so I could immediately book it to the next pick up. I also wanted to stay in their good graces so I just did whatever was available. It's faster for them to plan me than me have to stop and plan out my next loads, especially not knowing if there's going to be a trailer available and what the freight is, who it's from, etc. etc. They just listed location, weight, and pay (if you were on percentage).

To me it's not about being an owner-operator. I am young, unmarried, have no kids, and don't need health insurance and all the miscellaneous perks that go along with being a w-2.

The benefits of being a 1099 contractor are self-employed retirement accounts for the most part. I can build business credit as well. I have student loans and I only pay $50 a month because of all of my tax-deductions. While I can take per diem as a w-2 employee, they charge to do it. I can just take it myself since I'm both the employer and employee. I also can't have my wages garnished if I ever got in that situation. If I did have kids and paid child support, I could control my AGI and pay less. I don't know how child support works, so I may be misinformed.

I also feel like I was given more leeway than company drivers. No writeups or anything and I could pretty much stop however long I wanted or drive the truck around without any complaints from management.

Actually owning the truck eventually would be great if it was in good shape, but companies apparently trade them in every 3 years or so for a reason. That's why I'm mostly interested in finding a truck that's under the manufacturer's warranty. PAM clearly states on their lease page the trucks are under 5 year/600k warranties. Hirschbach has some kind of "full maintenance plan" that costs per mile. I believe International only offer 2 year/250k mile warranties anyways, but the trucks will be newer. I was quoted "2018+" on the year but no telling on the miles.

Seeing as how I made it work with a 2014 Volvo with 425k miles on it for the past 2 years I think I can make it work with a company that pays so many accessorials, like layover, breakdown, detention, 2 weeks for time off, retention pay, etc. and puts me in a newer truck with less wear and tear. I got detention after 2 hours and was paid on a mileage band. I had no warranty on a high mileage truck and put almost 50k into maintenance. Granted, my truck payment was only $500 but I still averaged about $1000 a week take home. I was only grossing maybe $3500 a week but kept my fuel consumption low and barely did more than 2000 miles a week during this time.

 

Ah I guess they did, but owner operators still get it. W-2 truckers can use the higher standard deduction, though.

https://www.trucks.com/2019/02/27/tax-reform-truckers-carriers-per-diem-hit/

 

The easier route to handling that is to not marry an American. There's only 26 countries with child support reciprocity with the USA. Hello, Mexico!

https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/h...upport-from-a-parent-in-another-country-34449