New owner op too be. Need honest assessment

Wages? What wages? We don't need no stinking wages! LOL

 

Wages shouldn’t be included in what your overhead is. That number is basically so you know how much it costs to run your truck and at what price point you will either make, or lose money.

My salary is not going to be the same as anyone else’s. I can cover my bills at home and be comfortable at $0.20 a mile. Everything I make is to expand my business to buy more trucks and more trailers. I just have a salary big enough to survive. You might be different.

 

two things, first is NEVER EVER EVER figure out a budget with fuel discounts involved.

Second is how Fuel Surcharge works.

it is easy.

Take a baseline of say 5 mpg and the base price of $1.25 to figure it out.

So if the price of fuel is $3.00 at the pump, you subtract $1.25 from it leaving you with $1.75.

So you take that $1.75 and divide it by 5 leaving you with 35¢ per mile.

.... Got it so far??

So you take a load from say Detroit to Cincinnati - 262 miles.

Your FSC is for that load - $92.40

I use fleet averages if I set my own FSC, both my fuel costs plus 10% and my average MPG. I do not deal with the national fuel database for that offset.

So when you are going to do budget, always do worst case scenarios.

Use 5, not 6 mpg.

Stick to $1.25 a gallon and always do it for projected loaded miles with your estimated DH average.

 

I'm not going to wade too deep into this and I'm certainly not disparaging any of the advice given by others, but you want to pay very close attention to what @Scooter Jones and @Ridgeline are saying to you. These are authoritative and accomplished businessmen in this industry.

 

So....

Free cell phone?
Free ELD
Free accountant
Free health insurance
Free retirement
Free workman's comp
Free drug consortium
free scale weights.
free.....

You got a lot of free stuff going on in your budget.....

FWIW, we budget $2.00 per mile and make a tiny profit at that number, but that includes back office support. Labor, (wages, insurance, retirement, vacation) runs just north of $.70 a mile.

 

Cell phone I would have personally anyway it’s not any added expense. I have no ELD. I do my own taxes (I’m also an LLC taxed as an S-Corp). Health insurance is included in the .12/mile. Retirement is part of my salary and I invest almost everything to build my business which is retirement. I’m flatbed I don’t need to scale with my truck and trailer weight gauges. I’m paid 85% and I budget $0.85 for expenses. The 15% taken out pays for everything else such as factoring.

Basically, to move the truck from point A to point B is $0.85 a mile. If I ran my own authority my expenses would jump up. I believe the key to success (for me) is I never finance equipment. Zero payments. Plus insurance is cheaper on an older truck.

 

is the fine for not having an eld included in your figuires