How much money do you make? How green is your grass?

W

What I’m saying is after all nessasary expenses for the year you should be able to spend $100k of your gross dollars how ever you see fit. Some may be salary, some may of been chrome for the truck or some may go for a new shop on your property?
Like , I don’t spend mine on health insurance because the wife’s employer takes care of that. But I do put money away for retirement. I leased a shop for a couple years too but i used to to store the nice cars in the winter also. Chrome bumper to replace the painted black one? Comes out of there $100k.
If you can’t pencil in $100k to spend how ever you want in a year on your projection then don’t even start.

When I was 28 I thought I was on top of the world making $70k a year working for a guy managing all 20 of his employees. If I had a $10k repair at home it was a struggle. Meanwhile if he had a $10k home repair he would spend $60k upgrading only to sell that house in a year and buy another bigger one...... and a boat.

Point is, Do some research about wealth before you make a decision. Wish I had when I was your age.

My FIL is 84 and been retired from the city since 58 yeas old. He makes more now on his pension than he did when he retired from working.

Lots of ways to go if you have the right information.

 

1099 isn’t the legit way to go FYI. You really need to put them on a w2 and get worker’s compensation to do it right.

Many people aren’t running “profitably” hence the 90% failure rate or whatever it is. Or, they think they are but then have to cut into their own pay to keep the truck going. Alot of people get their companies money and their own personal money intertwined and it’s a mess. Yourself and your company should be two separate beings so to speak.

 

Why don’t you want to be rich? That makes it to where you can do all of the things you want. I understand being happy with making a decent living but unless you play your cards very very right with retirement investments then that’s a recipe for having to keep working your entire life.

I want to spend time with my family whenever I want and retire whenever I want, do whatever I want whenever I want. I decided I better try and get rich in order to achieve those things. That’s just me though. I like the challenge and ring of self made millionaire, nothing to something.

That’s one thing that is appealing about trucking. You can lose your shirt, you can make a decent living, and you can also get rich doing it.

 

Nope I’m 3 classes shy of a mechanical engineering degree. Same time I quit the track team (after injury) was when I left.

I grew up around trucking, spent childhood in a 379 then a T800. This is something I wanted to do when I was a kid, I just didn’t know there was this aspect to it.

Most times it’s the background checks getting into the base. Lady I deal with calls either myself or my father when another truck gets turned away from the base near my house. Easy money if we run over to bring their trailer in.

 

you can absolutely get some body to run your truck for $0.60 a mile on a 1099, just don’t expect it to be on time or come back in one piece

I figure my costs a little differently because i do shorter hauls and am lazy but I know it cost me just shy of $100 per calendar day just to have it parked In the yard just to be ready to go make money, the. Another almost $0.70 a mile between fuel and maintenance for the load. I do have one customer I do a lot for that I do work slightly cheaper for because they pay me within 7 days, but not for $2 a mile

 

And remember, there are wide differences in cost. That’s why they are averages.

Say, running a team with high value refrigerated from New York into Canada, vs running hay between the farm and the feedlot. the difference in cost per mile is probably close to $0.50. Ditto with insurance.

Again, that’s only ONE side of the equation. It doesn’t really matter what your costs are, it matters what your margin is. If you can generate $3 a mile, all miles, it doesn’t matter if your costs are 15% higher than average.

1099 is not tenable, legally, and means you get to cough up a lot of dough when the IRS catches up to you.

You can’t make a decision to “become an O/O” without deciding what part of this business you are going to be in. Reefer? Flatbed? Auto transport? Cattle pot? Container / intermodal? Heavy haul? Hay for your own account? Who will be your customer? Who will be your competition?

if you are looking at a segment and your competition is fly by night 1099 outfits, your career as an o/o will be short.