Need Advice form O/O Veterans

YOU DONT NEED ALL THAT MOEY TO BUY A USED TRUCK that is just plain nuts , i caan take 20.000 and buy tractor and trailer and insurance and all the permits and load it and still have a few thousand in the bank, course i dont have to drive a new peterbilt and i dont have to look quite that good BUT it makes just as much money and guess what i wont have payments either, but i guess having a 1800.00 dollor payment can be important but not to me ./ southernpride

 

Agreed! A good friend bought a Century for $7500, a trailer for $4000, put all new tires all around, taxes, licenses, permits, etc...and he's doing well. He'd love to have a stretched out low slung Pete, but he'd also like to eat and pay bills.

I'm just venturing into this myself after being a company guy, a God-forbid England lease guy, opened my own brokerage, which the wife will run, and I just signed on with a company out of Canada running Canada to Mexico, border to border.

Any suggestions or ideas will certainly be welcome.

And jarhead, thanks for your service from a fellow veteran..USAF SP, first Desert Storm.

 

My idea was brokering freight for only a 5% cut, having been a driver, knowing that MOST brokerage companies try to get 20-25% of the load..and some I've seen, while my wife was working for a small company in Spokane..were trying to get 40-50%...and some DID. THAT is where that .88 cent a mile freight is coming from - brokers trying to kill us, and idiot drivers, or foreigners who don't maintain their trucks, don't pay insurance and other things, and cut holes in their sleeper floors to poop through...these are the people that are willing to run for .88 cpm...and the shipper doesn't care about competency, customer service, pride and professionalism that an established owner/operator has to offer.

That said, it started slow, I should have had customers in hand before trying to move and post loads, one of those things you can only figure out by trying it. We tried it, it didn't work, so we moved on.

Leaving this weekend to head back to Texas, then flying up to Ohio to start the new gig and get my new (to me) truck.

 

By the way....Marine Corps Scout/Sniper School, March 1984, only Air Force guy within MILES, got my butt kicked until I realized I was supposed to fight back...met GySgt (ret) Carlos Hathcock. I was stationed in Athens, Greece and supported the embassy mission, was on the base emergency services team (like SWAT) as a sniper, got selected for the school through a GySgt in the base's Marine Intel Det.

 

IMO your only going to make as much as the company your leased to will let you if your company only has crappy loads you will make nothing if they have good freight ya make more ya get the idea at a $1.35 you will be running pretty hard to get what ya want and i dont know of many leased on companys that you can average that much for all miles bin at this game for 20 years as an independent and its not easy i wont run for nothing less than $1.75.