Picking my own freight baby! My journey to & of being on Schneider choice, the Adventure & Numbers!

Lol, the ungoverned truck plays no part in my decision to want to go Choice.

Here's my reasoning:

I run on average 3000 miles every week as company, with slowest truck and always MAXED OUT loads.

Company: 3000 miles×$0.40+per diem= $1250 gross, $1000 net

IC Choice: Same 3000 miles×$1.50 mile average (me looking at the average of all the loads on the board=$4500 gross-$1100 fixed expenses-$1000 fuel= $2400-20% taxes= $2000 net

At the end of the day, a company driver and an owner operator do the same thing, picking up and dropping loads. Granted there are things Oo have extra to do, but that this the nature of the beast.

When it's all said and done, were all just driving a truck. Might as well work towards paying the truck down and eventually owning it within 5 years.

 

Hope you were setting a little aside for that, or just go a week or two digging yourself out the hole. Then back to your $2000-$3000 weekly paychecks. No big deal!

But at least you have a CHOICE to take all that time off, with a reason or not, lol.

Us company drivers....meh... Plus, I wish I had an APU, and I hate this OnGuard. Even after 3 months, I'm still not use to it.

One question though freightwhipper, if you had to choose again, would you pick the T680 still, or go with the Cascadia Evolution with better MPG?

 

First of all, we choice ops are on %..we don't need miles just revenue per mile...also with that mentality that you want to come to choice because you can run faster and only run certain loads, you're setting yourself up for failure before you even come...you can run 60mph over here and make very good $$...but if you only want to come over here so you can run faster, I wouldn't even bother.

 

I have only two reasons to hop over to Choice.

1. Make 2x-4x what I make weekly now.
2. IC Freedom

Everything else is icing on the cake.

But to make your point about % pay even more relevant, one can't help but try to achieve maximum efficiency as a Choice driver, choosing the best loads available, as well as maximizing the most loads within a given 70 hour week. That should result in peak efficiency as a Choice driver, whereas a company driver is only permitted to drive relevant to the peak efficiency of the company.

 

I generally keep my truck at 58 to 60 mph and average$1,700 to the bank... Now there are times when I will step it up to get a load there on time or such but most the time I keep my speed down because I will say this much I don't care what you're running for if you don't manage your fuel you will never make it simply because your fuel is your biggest expense and the only one that you really have control over so therefore if you don't manage your fuel cost you'll find it very difficult but on the other hand if you can manage your fuel costs very well you will succeed

 

It is alarming when noobs with dollar signs in their eyes get intoxicated with tall tales expressed on these forums.

Not long before I left Schneider (or they kicked me out) I was sitting in Tunkhannock pa speaking to a 6 month company driver that couldn't wait to switch to IC. He was intoxicated with all of the stories he heard on here about $3000 plus weeks.

Problem is after further discussing his situation I found he struggled to hit $3000 GROSS in a week, and his wife was complaining about a lack of home time on top of that.

Bottom line is the less actual trucking experience that you have the less likely it is that you will succeed. A very few people can pick up on it quickly, the rest can't. Myself personally I ran schneiders system for 3 1/2 years prior to becoming an ic. I learned their freight lanes, their ocs and drop yards, their various customers and the dispatchers tendencies. After 3.5 years of this I made the move over to the ic side.

With that said, these "get rich quick" guys that want to sacrifice the bare minimum before switching over to IC are basically setting themselves up for inevitable failure

 

you're exactly right and then when they sell they come on here and scream and blames Schneider because Schneider won't let them make money... The fact is yes you can make more money over here but you will do twice as much work as a company driver because what they don't realize is your run a business as an owner operator driving the truck is the least biggest part of the job...

 

Man... I'm sorry, but please, get real.

I don't care to read the whole thread, but you posted one back in July (http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...rs-ago-making-120k-where-do-i-pick-up.289649/) about going from making $120k/year as a trainer at CRE, to then trying unsuccessfully manage *multiple* businesses that flopped, losing everything and being left with a young son to take care of and $3 to your name.

First of all what's gonna happen is the rep at Schneider Finance is gonna look at your trainwreck of a credit history and *IF* by the grace of God they decide to let you lease a truck you can forget about being that big cool lease-operator in a T680 because your only option will be a Cascadia on a one year lease. So go ahead and choose a black one, throw on those spiky lug-nut covers and a couple RoadPro coil CB antennas, angle them forward at about 35* and hit the road.

As per another of your posts (http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/posts/4855069/) you're gonna stay below I-70 during the winter months. So your whole dream of pulling off 3000-paid mile weeks at $1.50 a mile has already gone out the window. You'll take off a week to spend at home with your kid and that sub-$1000 paycheck you made the previous week from running for peanuts down south at 85 MPH trying to get those miles in will immediately be cancelled out as SFI hits you with a $1100 bill.

Next thing you know you'll be on the trucking subforum of Reddit going on a tirade about how Schneider and Schneider Finance are illegally repossessing "your" lease truck and how you have yet another failed business, lost everything, still have a young son, and now Schneider is coming after you for the remainder that you still owe on the lease.

Like stevep1977 said - delusional. This isn't what you want to hear, but it is what is gonna happen with the current mindset and blinders made of dollar signs that you have on.

You're on track to make over 60k this year as a company driver with health insurance, 401k, and a truck that is paid for and maintained/repaired by someone else. Stick with it.

I've worked for SNI as a company driver, lease operator, and an owner operator. I'm not saying you can't do well, but the failure rate is VERY large because honestly a good percentage of the guys that get into it seriously have no clue what they are doing and read about how they could easily make over 100k on the internet and thought it was time to get their share.