James Hardie, Pulaski, VA - DIRT CHEAP TARPED LOADS.

We just have to agree to disagree Pedigreed Bulldog. Hey it's great that that works for you but it don't work for me.

 

And what happens when your direct customer no longer requires your services? Unless they are family, they don't care about you nearly as much as you think they do. It's business, and their business needs might change someday. If you've been servicing them exclusively, you're up a creek. By hauling freight back, you're making contacts with other businesses when you pick up and deliver their freight. Those local businesses the back hauls go to probably ship out, too...and perhaps you could get in on some of that action if your primary customer falls through. The old saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket" works in business, too.

Keep working hard. I've made my money for the day and I'm going inside where the wife's got dinner waiting, same as every night. That's what works for me!

 

It seems quite obvious you've never had a good direct customer. Home every night means nothing to me I could care less. Ecspacially if I gotta knock my rate by almost 70% to get there. I provide a service to my customers many like you won't because you stumble and fumble around with crap freight instead of taking care of your main customer because Ya gotta be home. I'm sure shippers absolutely love to see you in there town. But customers love to see me in there town and I'll take customers over shippers anyday.

I'll keep my eggs in my basket and you go ahead and keep those shippers happy working your arse off tarping loading unloading for pennies. That business model works and has worked well for swift, western express and cr England. So Ya it works keep her loaded.

I think that there's lots of us here that will let you have right after those loads and you can grin and smile cause there's no waiting to load cause there's no trucks in line cause we got better things to do.

As I said before we agree to disagree.

 

I just don't have time to waste on crappy back hauls and I don't believe in the words backhaul.

 

There's more to life than trucking. I work to live, not the other way around. Because of that, I prefer to make the most per mile for EVERY mile the truck rolls, rather than running around for free chasing "good" rates which end up averaging mediocre rates for all miles ran. Every load needs to be profitable, and every run worth my while. You bag on me for saying I'd run a $2.60/mile backhaul when you aren't doing much better for ALL of your miles. That is what gets me. If you think that $500 backhaul you could grab is "too cheap", it isn't much different than what you're already doing. Only a matter of time before someone comes in with 2 trucks and works 4 day weeks...loaded both ways, same 8 loads you bust your butt to get done, but they can do it for $1000 and laugh all of the way to the bank while enjoying every night at home AND a 3-day weekend every week. You don't think your customer will jump at the chance to save $1200/week? That's like getting a load shipped free every week. And quality service really isn't all that difficult to provide when you aren't pushed to the limit of what can be done. 10-12 hour days 4-5 days per week vs bumping 70 every week trying to squeeze it all in. Running that hard, it'd probably a good thing you've got a new truck because you can't afford down time repairing it with your only customer relying upon you like that and all. I've got my paid off truck that'll be 17 years off the line this summer...not even 1.1 million miles on the odometer. Why? Because I make the most out of EVERY mile it runs so that I don't HAVE to run twice as many miles to make a decent paycheck.

But whatever floats your boat. Keep saving for your next new truck so you can run the wheels off it, too, chasing after those "high paying" loads. In the end, though, your per-mile average is mediocre at best. Glad you're happy doing what you do, but you might want to lay off guys who haul those loads that pay profitable rates that are nearly identical to what you're running anyway once your empty miles are accounted for. Kinda hypocritical to bag on the guy with the better per-mile average for running cheap, don't you think?

 

$3.7098 for all miles last year. I'm down 20.21% from last year in overall gross, and down on my average rate per mile as well. That's EVERY ODOMETER MILE.

Tell me more about your awesome #'s and why you don't chase "elusive high dollar loads"

 

And I worked 161 days total.

 

How many miles if I may ask. Not trying to offend.

 

A bit over 55k

 

Working smarter not harder