How are O/O making a living at $1.00 a mile

This thread is too long for me to read all the postings. So forgive me if I am repeating what others have said.

The term Owner Operator is not a good term as far as I am concerned. It should be lease on or own authority. They are very different animals.

Hirschbach has a lease purchase for Owner Operators. They pay around $1.09 a mile. Don't take that to the bank as I no longer have access to their payroll. So a O/O for them is just a glorified company driver. He has to pay for his fuel and make a truck payment out of that money. They give him a good deal on fuel, 67 cpg or something. And there is a very slight chance that he can end up with a truck at the end of the lease but still the advantages are to the company.

If you go out and buy a truck on your own, you can lease it on to a company. Some pay you a set mileage rate. Of course you don't know what the company is getting. The advantage to you is that you do not have to do all the paper work the company does and you do not have to provide carrier insurance. They also provide you freight and a certain sense of security.

Next you have your own truck and you get your authority. You can sign up to pull power only for a company. Right now JB Hunt is sending out invites to do this at $1.57 per mile. This is where you have to decide if it is for you or not. You have to have your own carrier insurance and do all the paper work. You are also stuck with a JB Hunt trailer behind you. So you can go off on your own. I did this for Pam and USA Truck. It is a good way to get your feet wet as they do find your freight.

Finally, you get your own trailer. You work with Brokers or find your own customers. The freight rates run all over the board. For example, a run from Denver to Kansas City, might get you all of $1.00 per mile. While a run from Kansas City to Denver might get you $2.74 a mile. And as you are your own boss you have to make all the right moves. Breakdown, who do you call. No one. You are on your own. Blow a tire? There goes $500. Fuel prices, you have to find the cheapest out there.

And then there is Carrier insurance. That is the one that kills me. Before I got my own authority I bumped into things.....okay, I totaled two trucks. So my carrier insurance is high. $2700 per month. If I add a truck, I add the $2700 again. That kills the profits so I can't grow yet. It goes down in April by over half. Then I add trucks but I have to add drivers who don't drive like I did.

And hometime? Forget it. I make too much money on the road to waste time mowing the yard.

The point is Owner Operators with their Own authority are making way more then $1.00 mile or they are going broke and doing so quickly.

 

LOL. I just deadheaded from Atlanta, GA up to Chicago to take care of my lawn...among other things. Well, different strokes for different folks. I guess, my lawn care is more important to me than sitting there begging for anything more than 1.1 c a mile out of that crowded place. I value my weekends and spending time with my family more than that , I guess.

 

At some point any financial rationale stops working. It is psycho-physics. You are in all that heat and humid in Atlanta, GA, in an idling truck, crowded/nasty parking lots. Nothing on a loadboard and you just say at some point F...it! You go home, where the good things are...It does seem a lot: 750 miles on empty but on the other hand it is just one day of a drive and you there...where the good things are. Screw their 1100 and 45K lbs loads and forget about the rate per mile game. I made enough that week, I can afford it or so I tell myself.

 

I seem to do the same thing quite a bit myself. Even use the same language. Lol

 

Yes o/o are making way more than 1.00 a mile, and also not getting paid redhead, paying more for insurance etc. Most of them make way more than me but the argument is that I can't make a living doing this and I am and a good one at that. I didn't go out and lay down 150,000 or more in cash and buy a brand new truck either. Also why would anyone replace all 10 tires at once? No wonder you went broke. One axle at a time son

 

One axle at a time so the new tires can wear out faster than normal? Good plan.

The point these folks are making isn't if you can squeak by on a buck a mile plus fsc. The point is why would you when there is so much better putt here. Using your provided numbers i literally made more by lunch time every single day this week than you will for the entire week. It will take you a full 8 weeks to match this single 5 day week i had. 6 days of you count me catching up on sleep last night and deadheading half of today to get home. Oh and i only bought 212 gallons all week long so i want running a lot of miles to do it.

Obviously this was an abnormally good week, but it was an opportunity i was able to capitalize on because I'm not leased to some crap buck a mile carrier where i get the pleasure of pulling very good paying freight for a buck a mile.

 

Actually my break even for the month is 1700 miles a week and that for home and the truck, but I don't have hardly any expenses outside the truck. 2000 to break even on just the truck?lmao, that's way off, like I said elsewhere, I got 1500 miles in this week and sacrificed the rest of the week tho take the load I have now for next week and I will still get a paycheck on that 1500 miles. Our will be a small one because I had to fuel extra on that load to get me in and out of California, but I will profit. If I had of fueled just for that 1500 miles I would have came out with around a $500 net give or take. The is a shuttle pay in that too though. As for narrow margins, I am responsible for lights, tires, fluids and filters, the rest is warranty work. When the factory warranty runs out, I will use my escrow account and purchase the extended warranty for two more years which runs out just before the truck is paid for so I will again purchase the warranty for another two years and run over a year beyond my lease contract under full warranty. Our costs me $1400 for two years each time. I pout that much in my escrow every couple of months. Oh, I am responsible for the apu also. And remember, I get that escrow, my maintenance escrow and the lease completion bonus when I pay the truck off so I won't be hurting any when I come out of the contract and if I want, I will have a trade in and a very nice down payment to by any truck I want after the lease.

 

Lol, not if you don't run a year between axles, wow. You know I'm really getting tired of people acting like I'm stupid. You all day I can't make money but I am, so you tell me, what does that say about the intelligence factor here?

 

you netted more before lunch than I did all week, sorry but not buying that one. Half a day, that's roughly 350 miles a day....That's about 4.25 a mile net. Gross maybe, but not net, there is no way your going to get me to believe that one. If gross is the case you still make more than me but so what? Unless you want to step up and finance me a truck then it means nothing. And before anyone says anything about if I have bad credit I shouldn't be starting a business, the credit problem was done TO me, I didn't ruin my credit Not everyone can run out and buy 150 grand truck, that does not mean they can't run a business or drive just as good as you can. If I make a good living and I'm happy with what I'm doing, what business is it of yours. I really don't understand some of you, you act like if your not sending home $5000 a week then your not living, that's just stupid, if thou have that much debt, you really need mental help, not more money. Its all about greed with some of you. Personally I can live very well on 1200-1500 a week. That makes a place payment, a boat payment, covers all the bills and needs around home and still leaves money to save. I ran a ten house broiler farm for ten years and never once went in the negative, let's see you pull that one off. Very few broiler farmers on the planet can honestly make that claim, but I can. Still think I can't add or can't run a business??? Just simply try and do the feed conversion math on a quarter of a million chickens and see how far you get, lol. I dare you.

 

maybe I missed it in the thread, but how long have you been working there? This isn't still the honey moon phase is it. Fyi my truck was 40k not 150k