Millis OTR journal

Ok guys. For all of you who are wondering about per diem, here are some raw numbers based on the mileage I got this year. I say it's raw because I am on straight pay. I DO NOT have numbers for what the checks for per diem pay look like as far as amounts and taxes. I am hoping that this information will put this topic to death on my threads so that you can ask more important questions about a job that will completely change your life. Your personal life, your daily living, your home life, all of it. To me, THOSE are the questions that matter. As an incoming student or a person who just finished class, those are the questions that should matter more to you as well. But apparently that's just me. So, here we go. Forgive me if I take a few take a few liberties, starting with my mileage. I had 123,500 for the year, but I'm going to round up a little to 125k for the sake of easy math. Y'all cool with that? Ok. Right now, I'm making 43cpm because I've had my one year raise. As a new driver, you'd be getting .42, and that's on straight pay. On per diem, you'll get 35cmp and you'll get a few perks. Now, that .35 isn't a static number. There is a weekly mileage bonus that you earn based on how hard you run. If you get between 2000 and 2499 in a week, you'll get an additional 3cpm for that week. 2500-2999 will get you an additional 4cpm instead of 3cpm. If you get 3000 or higher, your bonus is now 5cpm. The bonus you get from week to week will be always be based on those miles, and it does apply to every paid mile you've driven. Ok, here's where the math starts. You'll notice that the max amount you'll get is 40cpm. So where did the other 2cpm go that the straight pay guys get? No idea. David explained it to me but to be honest with you it was way too much information to take in and remember all at once. I mean, it made sense to me at the time as a former business owner. But it was a lot of info. What do you get from per diem? The two biggest things are paid vacation and a bigger safety bonus. By the end of your fist year you will have earned three weeks of paid vacation. Definitely not bad at all. The safety bonus, in all reality, is a gamble on your part. Why do I say that? You are betting that nothing will happen while you're navigating that giant pig of a vehicle down the road. There are plenty of folks that do it every day without incident. But if anything happens, no matter how small, your bonus can disappear. If you think it won't happen to you, good luck with that Sparky. A curbed trailer tire, a bent cab extender, the list goes on and on. All of those things can and will most likely remove part or all of your bonus. We see the accident reports 2-3 times a week on the Qualcomm. All of those drivers probably thought it wouldn't happen to them. Back to the math of this thing. Now, that 2cpm that you lose is essentially paying for the vacation you get. But, that is only if you come out of the gates as a super trucker and somehow manage to get 3000 miles a week. Every single week. If you don't hit that, the amount of money you're sacrificing goes up. It's harder than it sounds. You have to run hard, that is no joke. And have good dispatch. I have mad respect for @keen98 because he runs like a beast. He gets 3k every week. I don't. I can count on one hand how many times I got it this year. My average pull is 2800. But, I don't run with his animal-like intensity. And I don't want to, either. I am more than content with the money I make. I've got more than my share of bills, and I have child support, but this money is doing just fine for me. I don't feel like exhausting myself and killing every mile I can in a day. I ran like that at first, and it sucks. Based in my mileage of 125k this year, that 2cp comes out to $2500. That's money I don't get. Now, we're going to raise that number to $3750, because I would only be getting 4cpm based on the miles that I personally ran. Now we are going to raise it yet again because of home weeks. On the weeks you travel home or come back from home, your mileage will obviously go down. So we're going to if push that number to $4000, and I feel that I'm being generous with that. The true number is probably a little higher, but not by a lot. Not enough to worry about for easy numbers. So, $4000 is a decent chunk of change. You have to decide for yourself if THAT amount is worth some vacation time. Again, vacation is all you are guaranteed. The safety bonus has to be earned, and you had better be flawless out there. Another "upside" of per diem is lower taxes. You will pay less taxes because your reported taxable income is lower. That can either hurt you or help you depending on your personal situation. Consult an accountant, for the love of god, before you decide. Now, if you are in a situation where you pay a lot of child support, that may be something you want to consider. Lower income = lower payments. Honestly that is the only situation I can think of where that would be an advantage. Or maybe if you are getting financial aid for your kid for college. Lower income also results in lower social security income in the future, if social security still exists then. And, less money in the event of a worker's comp claim should that situation ever arise. So, that's the gist of it in a nutshell. Now, what do I get by being on straight pay? A massive deduction at tax time. Per diem isn't a Millis thing. It's an IRS thing. I get a per diem deduction too. Right now, the IRS per diem rate is $64 a day for every day I'm in the truck, multiplied by 80%. That means my deduction would be $51.20 per day. I also get partial days for the days that I am going home or leaving home. I had roughly 5 months in 2016 on the road. Both with my trainer and on my own. I had 122 full days and 8 partials in that time. If you extrapolate that out, I would have had about 300 days in the truck for the year. That's a tax deduction of over $15,000. Plus I can itemize on top of that. Items purchased for the truck, paid parking, etc. I can potentially end up with a deduction nearing $20,000. That's real, and it's huge. So, If you want to feel like you are "sticking it to the man" by giving him less tax money per week, that's cool. "The man" will be thanking you while he is celebrating with lap dances in the Diamond Room and guzzling champagne because you "stuck it to him". That's my two cents, take it for what it's worth. And as always, CONSULT A TAX PROFESSIONAL REGARDING YOU SITUATION. I can't stress that enough. Now, can we PLEASE be done with this ridiculous topic on my thread? Pretty please?

 

Holler at me if you'd like to join me. I'm getting ready to head on over

 

Thank you sir Hopefully you read that after I was done editing lol. I prematurely sent it when it was unfinished. Oops.

 

Well, again, you aren't taking a 7cpm hit. Your mileage bonuses will correct for some of that.

 

Do you mean the safety bonus? Yes, that's different. If you mean mileage, there is no bonus.

 

@keen98 can correct me on this, but this is my understanding. As a straight pay driver, I get a quarerly bonus of 1cpm per quarter. I believe (please don't slug me if I'm wrong) per diem drivers get an additional bonus paid yearly in one chunk that is an additional 1cpm for the year. But again, welcome to Vegas. How lucky do you feel?