Doing my due diligence

I'm in the same boat. 15 years at sysco in California Looking to buy my own truck. Sick of dealing with multiple supervisors and I cant see myself doing this another 10 years running up and down a ramp From my research I've been doing Looks like local isnt paying So I'm gonna go otr and keep my noise to the ground looking for a dedi run where I'm home semi often. Hell even just for my resets I'd be happy with

 

So based on your posts:

• 20+ years experience
• food service - which makes you no stranger to hard work
• 3rd shift (or close to it)
• want to be home every day and weekends

One suggestion you might consider is line haul.

I may come off as a hypocrite because that's what I'm doing now and I'm looking to get out of it. But hear me out...

With your experience, 70k isn't unrealistic in linehaul. The only strenuous part would be moving the dollies around. But you may find it much easier than food service.

You're already used to working the zombie hours, so that's a wash.

The only downside is, as the fresh meat in a given barn, you'll be given the extra board which means you will most likely do layovers. You might get lucky and get a dedicated run right away. However, the company may have a policy where the senior drivers can bid and bump newer drivers; make sure you find out before jumping ship.

That's the bad news.

The good news is the better outfits put their drivers up at decent places. And you should be home most weekends (although this will vary from barn to barn).

Do this for a while and build your bank roll while you continue to research. This is what I'm currently doing. I've noticed too many aspiring O/Os do not research enough.

And who knows...? You might actually like line haul and decide to finish out your career there. At the very least, it's an exit plan out of food service - which appears to be your main objective.

 

There are a million things going on in trucking. I can't explain linehaul to you personally but I can give you some pointers from what I've seen as an independent O/O running spot market with a dry van. I always make it home weekends and for the past 6 months I've generally worked about 4-4.5 days a week.

Figure out your insurance cost FIRST! Very important since you'll make less than OTR, especially if you want a regular schedule and weekends off. Insurance will be your biggest cost unless you buy a newer truck ($50k or more without a big down payment).

You don't need 50k and a truck already secured. If I were you I would carefully shop for a cheaper, older truck, say $25k range. Pre 2000 if you can get it but it doesn't matter if you're on ELD if you're running local, at least if you play your cards right. Reliability of the truck is important. From what I know 2000 up to 2006 or so is ok and then don't touch anything between 07 and about 2013. Those were the most unreliable years (EGR, DPF, DEF before they were figured out). This applies to pretty much every make.

I would keep as much savings liquid (meaning you can get to it instantly) as you can and have some credit cards at the ready in case of emergency. I've done fine keeping about $25k in the bank to ride out slow paying brokers and keep my fuel bill paid and the family fed. Anything over that and I'm paying down on truck/trailer/personal debt.

If you have good credit find a truck and about an 8 year old trailer that's cheap, or lease a trailer for the first 6 months to a year until you know what you want to do specifically. You'll be more comfortable exploring different kinds of hauling when you are free to make your own decisions. It changes the way you think.

On the truck, I'd try to find a small sleeper vs. a day cab for local work. It's just nice to have a place to take a nap the way dock times are these days AND don't limit yourself to always running days only before you're established. You might have to do some overnights to make some money.

I can find short runs (up to 200 miles) that pay $3/mile all day long but have never focused on staying local/regional for long. I get bored. I don't know about metro Houston though.

Good luck driver. If it's time for you to do this you'll figure it out.

 

This is the truth.

 

Unless you have to rebuild your old truck.

If he’s mechanically inclined and home daily with weekends off then an old truck would be the way to go. But if he has to pay someone to work in it then it will nickel and dime him.

 

Like a post emission truck will not dime you to death once it is out of warranty they are trash when they start acting up.

 

Unless you have some good contacts, and know how to price freight, I would lease out a year or too to start with. Do some checking on who has the best deals on freight in the houston area. Oilfield type freight is pretty good right now, and you could be home mostly every night, miss a night at times.
I would also , especially for short runs, go with a preemission truck. I have a good friend that bought a 2015 last year with, that only had 1000 miles on a rebuild, super nice truck. They gave him a warranty and it is a good thing or he would be bankrupt. it has been in the shop 10 times more than the old mechanical rig he retired ever was, in 6 months times, warranty does not cover everything, but even if it had, the down time is killing him. He has now just went ahead and put a new one on order, hoping that it is better.

 

And if it’s already out of warranty and starts acting up then he can spend the money to do what we’re not allowed to talk about here and then the issues will be gone. Then he’ll have a truck that runs and there’s a chance it won’t have all the little issues that come with a 17 year old truck if he went back to pre-emissions.

Back when I thought it was cool to have a 95 KW I can’t imagine how much all the little stuff would’ve cost me if I were paying someone $100+ an hour instead of doing it myself.