How can people make it # $.91 a mile?

Making it on .91 base rate is realistic, if everything else is good. I get from .94 to 1.10 a mile based on length of haul. Right now, FSC is .45 plus I get discounts off of the pump cash price on fuel. All of my insurance for PD, BT, and cargo comes to $117 a month, and my plates are paid for all O/O with over a year with company. Only charges are $10 a week for qualcomm and .75 per fueling on the fuel card. Additional stop offs (p/u and final not included) get $75 for 1st and $100 for each after that. Detention comes in, on average, at around 37.50 an hour starting after 2nd hour. Minimum pay for any short run is $150.

I run 5 separate spreadsheets to track everything, and I am doing fine. At the same time I go home each weekend and holidays, and am able to do about 135,000+ miles a year on average for the last 12 years.

As was stated, you've got to run it like a business. If doing the lease on game, then you have to look at all the variables to see if it is a sound business move. Many have had bad experiences with leasing to carriers, but there are many who do quite well. Those that just look at a carrier's glossy ads and makes a phone call or two, will probably get into trouble. You have to thoroughly investigate the carrier just like you would in any business decision. Think like Donald Trump and not like Billy Bob.

 

A company that size has to pay FSC above that rate. But I am sure that some companies try to get away without paying for it but they could not keep an O/O on for long.

But the bigger question is why would people want to work so hard. I am running less than 2,000 mile per week. Home almost every weekend (got stuck under a load a couple weeks ago) and making more than if I ran 3,000 per week with one of these outfits.

Yes, you have to run it like a business. But who says that you have to keep the same mentality as a company driver - more miles = more money.

 

Good points, and I agree. Those who lease ("lease-purchase" or not) from and to the same carriers have no choice but to think "more miles = more money" because that's all they can think when the rate is always the same. They work harder, not smarter. And they'll deny it. You hear them say that they're a "success" because they got into a lease and drive (and pay to maintain) someone else's truck. However, getting into a lease is not "success." Getting out with your financial house in order and your self-respect intact is.

 

i have to agree with the last 2 post... when i was leased to swift at .92 and a FSC... they guys and gals running the trucks they leased from swift would always pass me by going as fast as they could... while i ran at 58-60 all the time...

i didn't have to work that hard and when freight was a little slow i didn't worry about it too much cause i controlled my cost and also didn't have that $600 weekly truck payment either soo

run it like a business and you will be fine and don't jump to the carrier too fast do some research

 

I Googled that phone # & found these guys-

http://www.knighttransport.com/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/

I've never heard of them. Anybody else know anything?

 

Get out your calculator folks and figure out what the cost per mile is for your insurance, truck payment and maintenance, subtract your self employed tax difference, and you will figure out that being a company driver pays better.

 

At $.91/mile to even gross $150k you would have to run a little over 164K miles a year. That calculates out to a little over 3100 miles a week for 52 weeks a year. So the math from the add doesn't add up at all.

 

Let's see.... I get between .94 and 1.10 a mile, FSC on top of that, and after all expenses to operate and taxes and health insurance premiums, etc, my net is roughly $45,000 a year. Not Bill Gates, by any means, but decent earnings for my area of the country.

True, some company drivers earn more than that, but then they have health insurance to pay for and taxes as well. The take home more than likely will not be more than my net and probably lower.

Add to my situation that I am home EVERY weekend, ALL holidays, and off 1-2 weeks a year.

Don't just break out a calculator, set up a spreadsheet and look at that big picture. If owning a truck and having it leased on to a carrier is sooooo bad, then explain how I have a farm acreage of 66.5 acres with ranch house, 2006 Jeep Liberty Diesel, 2005 New Holland ag tractor, 7000 bushel grain bin, and complete shop and pole barn.... all paid for (except the house, still mortgage on that). True, all this didn't happen overnight. It takes a lot of hard work and diligence to get somewhere. Oh, before you think that the wife's income is paying for this, she only works part time roughly 10 hrs a week.

If you know how to run a business, then things work.

 

OK, staying out this weekend and to be honest rolled out last Saturday because I had a Monday delivery in Antalanta. And no one wants to be trying to find a parking spot on a Sunday evening at the Atlanta Petro. But I degress.

So I left a week ago tomorrow. Will be home this coming Thursday and will take the long weekend (gotta make up for being out over the weekends). I will gross over $8500 to the truck, less than 4,000 miles and with worst case senerios for fuel prices and economy for the rest of this trip my all-in expenses will be less than $4,000.

A company driver making $.50/mile would have to drive 4500 miles a week to make this pre-tax.

When you drop the week that hell froze over, my worst week this year was $1,000 net-net. Average so far is $1,700 and change. With an average weekly miles of 1890. That would be 3400 miles at .50/mile.

I am not knocking the company guys. Did that. But if you are crushing your dream of being an O/O because you think the money is not good then you are wrong.

 

Hey cowpie, how much do you have to pay the girls to work in your shop and then dance on the poles in you barn?