need advice quick...

Menards pays ok to better if you call direct. Some of the loads do take a while to load.
Just an option as it sounds like the OP was asking for options and wants to be home more than......
There are a few regional producers of brick, block, bagged goods. Peat, fertilizer tree bark. Many around the state of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois if you chose to search. IS it going to be 3 bucks per mile. Will you load in an hour, NO. Will you be local or regional yes.
Give and take.
Good luck.

 

Trucking is a profession where you are not always going to have your cake and eat it too. There are good weeks and bad weeks, good years and bad years. If you expect that kind of treatment you will be out of business before you get started. Being an O/O will give you some freedom but that is a rational word. Sometimes all it means is that you are switching handcuffs. There are some jobs that are dedicated but they are few and far in between. Before you buy or lease a truck, find out what kind of runs the company has to offer that will suite your needs. And most importantly, don't ever buy/lease a truck from someone that controls your dispatch. If you don't take what they throw at you, they will have you sit and before you know it, you are out of business.

 

One of the biggest differences between being a company driver and an OO is that you don't have "the man" standing over you with a whip. You get to do that part yourself.

 

The key is to keep your costs low enough so that you can afford to run where you want when you want. There are plenty of short haul loads in the Midwest that pay decent. Find a good local broker that will get you out of MN for good pay per mile and create a relationship with them. Sounds like most of the guys putting you down on this forum are just too lazy to try to do what you are, and just take the loads that they can get, or enjoy being away from home for weeks.

I would probably stay away from the hopper loads. I did that for awhile and the load/unload times can be horrible and you will compete with the farm trucks and farmers that haul for a lot cheaper than an independent carrier. Unless you get a 6 or 7 axle set up to haul some real weight, I don't feel like the money is there.

 

There's 3 places I can think of with a captive load board that let you pick whatever freight you want for whatever rate is going.

Buy you a truck and trailer and go trailer trucking!

 

1500 a week for truck note?

 

Got those numbers from lone mountain tuck lease