Finally got my own truck

Yeah I think my dispatcher and I should try to do better about booking a day ahead. But sometime there's nothing. Right now I'm somewhere in east/central Iowa, and snowstorm is gonna hit tomorrow morning/early afternoon. I've been having a much better week than the last two so far, but I need a good weekend run back down south somewhere to beef up the week. Right now, at 9:30pm, there's just about nothing on the board going to FL, GA or AL. I'm looking for another 1000-1300 miles for the weekend. I hope stuff pops up in the morning while I'm getting offloaded.

I really need to finish this week strong, so I'm praying tonight that something pops up good and we grab it for a decent rate.

 

Absolutely nothing popped up on the board today anywhere within 250 miles of Cedar Rapids, IA going to FL. Only a small handful were posted going to GA or AL.
Ended up taking a load 120mi deadhead going to Mobile, AL area for $1.92/mi, like 850 miles or so. SO SO disappointed. If I was able to get a good load to FL, like 1250 miles, and get even $2600 for it, I would have grossed $6200 for the week on 3200 miles. So now I'm going to end up with $5,330 on 3000 all miles and have to start next week off in Mobile, AL. Kinda disappointed. Going to try to head back up to MN. Couldn't do that yesterday with big snowstorm coming through, and I was empty near South Bend, IN anyway and nothing out there. Had to deadhead to Joliet, IL to get reloaded.

So my week wasn't bad, it's just ending crappy. Started empty in MN got $2.20mi to Alabama with 20 empty miles, then $1.40 to South Bend area, with 6 empty miles. Then 100 empty miles to Joliet, 282 loaded to Iowa for $600 and then this crap, southeastern IA to Mobile for $1.92. So the week wasn't bad, it's just ending on a disappointing note - but it is still slow out there.

When empty Thursday morning in South Bend area, I was trying to find anything shorter going to IA, WI, MN, hoping to set myself up for a really good weekend run. I thought my dispatch guy had done well in finding the short load to Iowa for $600, to set me up for today. But this morning I got empty really early, and the board was bone dry on anything with good miles unless I wanted to go to Utah or AZ or some crap. Utah was paying almost $2/mi probably because of snowstorm, and there was a load to MT going for almost $3, that got taken down pretty quickly, but I'm not going out there.

Starting to get the picture that the freight is flowing mostly north to south. I bet in a month or 6 weeks it might start reversing, so that spring and summer is probably south to north, and the rates will reverse. It's just the constantly fluctuating market volumes and even rates is throwing my head into a spin. It's difficult to keep up with what I could get from where and when. It's not just as simple as picking a load from the board and having at it and stuffing your pocket with money. Sometimes it's just as much work trying to FIND the right load than it is hauling it.

If anyone is in my position where you're thinking of buying a truck and going spot market, really take a minute to think about where you're getting your freight from. Spot market is like Stock market. It's like roulette. Gambling. It's a game that's played by many and mastered by few. I'm still at a beginner level. Hoping to get to novice level sometime in the next 2 years. And yeah that is probably accurate. Not gonna say I'm in over my head, but it's just tedious.

Ok looks like I'm loaded. See yall later.