How do Owner Operators make annually before and after expenses?

I am about to make the move to o/o this month or early next month at the latest. Im currently truck shopping. I believe i know what to realistically expect. I have 7 years driving companies. My first gig was a lease from Prime inc. I did well there before deciding to move to a more regional gig. After much time spent researching the industry and becoming an o/o i know that i have no real info to offer because i have not walked that walk yet. One thing i do know is that you will have a far better chance of success if your personal expenses are in order. A couple years ago i thought i was ready. I quickly found out that my credit wasnt near where it should be, nor were my finances. Debt isnt always a bad thing but it sure isnt a good thing to have personal debt when trying to start a business. Pay off your debts, get your credit score up and work on getting some emergency business credit cards. Slowly build some business credit. I have a wife and 3 kids so i really had to work on my self discipline to be able to save money. We cut out many wasteful subscriptions and things thatr were draining our money every month. The whole family sacrificed. Once we formed these new habits and followed a budget, it seemed like we both got a pay raise. There was always extra money and we saved it. At this point the capital to start a business just piled up pretty fast.

This is what I have done so far. I think i am ready to make the move to o/o as my personal expenses are much lower and i require less to survive. My wife also works full time. Basically my only advice would be to prepare hard and really really work on your self discipline. Study successful business owners outside of the trucking industry and mirror their habits.

 

You'll make 15-20k gross monthly, $1400-$1800 weekly fuel expenses, $600 weekly (insurance, Qualcomm, ezpass, prepass, trl rental, cargo insurance etc..) +tolls, $400 trk service every 1.5months, average $1000 monthly trk repairs, $1800+- monthly trk payment. And whole bunch of aggrivation on daily basis to the point that you want to kick many peoples butts, leased to companies will try using you to cover garbage loads that pay very low, they will bullssshit you tgat no loads are available and their low paying contract load is all they have, brokers are stealing sometimes if you go ahead and pay lumper fees yourself then sometimes they won't give you your money back, i could go on and on.. Even when you take your truck to the shop to fix it they'll try to get as much money as possible out of you telling you that they found something else wrong with the truck. Basically its a business where everyone is trying to f you over. Everyone's trying to get money out of you.