Flated rates suck!!!

The good stuff is gone before you can pick up the phone I called on one today picked up at 4pm and had to be In Houston 790 miles away at 7am I said so this is a hot shot run he said no just had to be there paying $1,400 I said for $2,000 I'll have it there by noon and $2,400 at 7am he said I'll call you back when I called him back he got it coverd for that $1,400 WTF is wrong with people

 

Any new info on company

 

See it all the time. Dummies that don't know how to price time sensitive. Flip side is, if there's lots of empty trucks there's guys more than willing to do that for $1.95 and think they got a good one. Hope that driver has fun getting no sleep. Probably a solar powered truck who at that rate is doing well.

 

What??????

 

My math says its $1.77...into a dead zone

 

That was just a quick cell phone reply from a bad rough guestimate. $1.77 or $1.95, flatbed or dry van really no difference either rate or trailer, that is a stupidly cheap load and whoever did it got boinked. Serves 'em right. Now someone with solid contacts for reloads out of Houston might be able to make $2.25-$2.50 work out good. Someone like me or you would have to get $3.25 plus going in and likely swallow our pride booking a $1.00-$1.25 out to our main lanes if there were no intrastate shorthaul loads worthwhile.

 

Cheap freight is brought on by people who ignore or don't know what they need to make to survive. They take freight just because its there and it goes where they want it too. Freight volume has increased some I believe last I heard this year was 3% better over last year. Which is not saying a lot. Most likely its still about 15% below highs of late 2007. What I am seeing a lot of is the lack of decent rates coupled with a fuel surcharge. A lot of freight is at least being posted
with no mention of a FSC. I certainly think freight brokers have had much more opportunities of late to move cheap freight because of the internet and more drivers wanting to become O/O. Its not that their not freight out there. Their is a lot of freight still looking for trucks. The problem is that the freight is so cheap it begs the question sometimes if it will even pay for expenses let alone make a profit on it.

 

My CPA told me anything less than $1.65 a mile pluse fuel I'm braking even so as of today I need to be over $2.16 a mile seems like I'm not getting ahead trucks 7 years old now and has 915,xxx miles so it's at that point I'm spending alote of money on it $34,k this year already and I need drive tires so that $4,000 more I'm not seeing the end madness

 

I totally agree. Landstar has a lot of freight barely grossing a little over $2 a mile. Given that my cut of that would be $1.34 that is certainly not enough. My figures show I need $2.50 a mile gross like your CPA says to break even.
I have seen a lot of guys go belly up because they kept hauling freight that did not pay and then they get a huge repair costs they cannot afford. I know one guy who sold his flatbed because he needed money to fix his truck.
Its good your at least having someone keep track of what you need to be doing. I think a lot of O/O are running on a hope and a prayer. I keep thinking at some point the economy will get going again and will force rates up.
But a lot of trends don't make that look too likely.

 

So, $1.65 is break even? But you cant survive by "breaking even", you need the $2.16 that you quoted. If Swift only needs a $10 per day profit on each piece of equipment they lease, that is $3650 per year or $7300 truck and trailer. 70 hours per week times 52 weeks is 3640 hours of work per year for $7300 is $2.12 per hour plus the $3 or $4 per hour that Swift drivers average) comes to about $6 per hour that you get to live on while being away from home and spending $8 for every truck stop meal you eat.

I keep doing the math but I dont see how o/o can compete with supermegacarrierfleets like Swift. Swift has free drivers ($300 per week may as well be free). Quantity discount for leasing 15,000 per year. In house repair/maintenance, etc...

Two full time jobs at minimum wage doing 70 hours per week earn you $33,000 per year. Thats about what most o/o's bring home now. But then again wheres the fun in being home with your family for a couple hours a day when you could be livin' the romantic dream of taming the open road?