Hell I have a 3500 payment and it is not that big of a deal to be honest. Never had any issues since I was used to making a payment on other truck at 1300 and also paying 20-25K a year on maintenance.
I was working 1 week out and about 1 week off most of this year until recently. Not that hard to take time off when you get decent loads and understand the market enough.
42k is still a lot of money and what happens when fuel is $4, $5, $6, or $7? It adds up super fast not to mention actually taking time off vs working on your truck or paying someone to work on it.
I personally don't like the idea to make payments of 1K+ per week when I'm off, because it's lost money for me. I'm getting nothing in return, it's a very expensive time off. Not many pay less than 1K per week for a new truck + insurance.
42K for 5 years, a little over 8K yearly. A new truck will lose at least 30K of its value for the same time. Taking time off is not a problem since I don't intend to work more than 8 months in a calendar year.
There are those of us that have multiple trucks. Far more beneficial to us having new equipment vs old. Lot of tax benefits with new vs old, especially with a continuous cycle. Been through plenty of high/low priced new/used over the years. Evens out over time so looking at prices now means nothing. Not everyone pays that "sticker price"
Last year when the prices were up I sold 3. 3year old trucks for 25-30K less than I bought them for. So 7-800 dollars a month "rent" for 3 years. Sold multiple trailers that I wouldn't even use for storage for 50-75% of there cost new. Just a little perspective into the theory that new is no good.
Seems lots of people that run older stuff haven’t ran newer stuff, therefore they have no comparison to make. I’ve done both, and have the tax returns I can look at, and I can 100% say that for me it makes more sense to run new when I compare everything across the board versus when I had older trucks. When I was running older trucks I couldn’t make the numbers jive in my head either and thought guys were nuts for running around with a sizeable payment. Then I bought a 2 year old truck with 220k on it and that was the moment everything clicked and I realized that a lot of other expenses dropped considerably. Then I bought a brand new truck and everything dropped more. Plus I have the added benefit of when I take time off I don’t have to look at the truck other than taking my bedding out to wash it. When it’s time to go back to work the truck is ready. No lost days of tinkering or fixing little stuff that would nickel and dime you at a shop.
