Rates are crashing and fuel to the moon!

I always take other people's numbers with a very large grain of salt. I'd need to see a 1040 with a completed Schedule C to get a truly accurate picture.

 

248k last year, missed 2 weeks for repairs and 9 weeks from taking a Kia head on

2023 I did like 280ish and I missed 2 weeks for general repairs, 2 weeks for a second inframe in 3 years, and 4 weeks for another not at fault accident that totaled my trailer.

from thanksgiving to thanksgiving I missed a total of 18 out of 52 weeks…

I did save 13k on insurance this year by changing companies though

 

Geico? Lol. Seriously it sounds like you still did pretty good. You had a lot of bad breaks. I remember. You didn’t give up. Impressive.

 

I had progressive and swapped to safety for truck and great American for cargo, 60k or 68k miles I think for the year. I’d have to double check my cheat sheet, and I’m pretty much saving my new trailer payment just on insurance.

thought about it but I really couldn’t see myself doing much else, and I really like where I’m in with right now,

I actually just got my deductible back today after the other insurance company accepted fault, once it’s all settled I’ll upload the dash cam for the class

 

I did a little spread sheet just to see how last year looked like and see if it's really worth it to keep trucking even though I'm pretty tired of it and unfortunately it is. Doing the math I figured that to find a job that pays me as much per hour as I make trucking after taxes I would need a W2 job here paying about $90 per hour and all the jobs I see posted are paying 15-25 so that sucks.

58,308 miles
$136,532.99 revenue
$2.34 Rate per Mile (power only operation so no trailer costs)
$63,128.93 cost of operation
$1.08 cost per mile
$1.26 profit per mile
$62.95 profit per hour
$73,404.06 total profit
$0.58 fuel cost per mile

These numbers are excluding my payroll/benefits/retirement contributions, but include taxes paid. Since I'm a single truck owner operator everything leftover goes to me and I have enough in reserves to do 2 overhauls so there's no real need to set aside money for maintenance. Also my gig has pretty minimal wasted unpaid time since I work with one shipper that always has my trailer preloaded and ready to go when I show up. The stores that receive all unload pretty quick as they're pretty eager to get the product on the shelves.

 

Heck I was pulling in $60,000 profit in 2019. I was foolish to give up.

 

Eh, if you kept at it you'd probably be burned out like me and if I had quit like you did I'd probably feel like you do sick and tired of working for the man for #### money and being micromanaged. It's the seasons of life I suppose lol.

I'm pretty fortunate to have a set up like I do having a big shipper just 2 miles from my house that always has work for me that goes straight out, unloads fast and pays me to come straight home so I never have to sleep in the truck or stay out more than a day. If I was running the spot market I don't know that my profit per hour would look near as good or would even really be worthwhile. Show up to load, wait 2 hours, take an hour to load if you're lucky. Drive to the consignee, but they've gone home already. Stay in your truck overnight at their front gate. Next day you can't find any good loads so you debate bouncing, but wind up just sitting the whole day calling on loads "working" with 0 money to show for it. Get stuck 1000 miles from home sitting on a load over the weekend.

If you factor in all the time you spend away from home, the lost days, the waiting to load/unload, sitting in line at fuel pumps at loves behind a guy from a village in Somalia who can't speak/read english or drive a truck with a manual while he's washing his feet in the bathroom sink I'd say your profit per hour would look pretty ####ty and wouldn't be worth it at all.

If you do get back into it I'd say you should find a niche like I have and stay in it. Running the spot market is just not a viable business model at all IMO unless you don't mind living in a truck for the same hourly rate as you could be making working at Mcdonald's, But I consider every hour from the time I step off my front porch to stepping back on it to be work hours unless I'm sleeping.

If I was gonna do it living in central Montana I'd be looking to pull a quad axle flat running freight and don't be too proud to go pull someone else's trailer servicing their customers or their direct freight if it's a shipper. I've only owned my own trailer for 2 years in 10 years of being an owner operator and I averaged the same per mile for those 2 years as I'm making power only right now. Often times the people with good paying work have their own trailers and trailer rent isn't that big of a deal. Otherwise a 53' step with a hay rack hauling Hay and/or a Quad axle Cattle pot hauling cattle or maybe even logging if you're a real nutcase

I'm debating hauling cattle again just to do something different, but even that has a lot of wasted time if you're running local. I've staged and loaded/unloaded with up to 30 trucks making big moooves (pun intended) lol and even though everyone helps and loads really quick you're still looking at about 5-10 min a truck and then if you're going to some ####ty packing plant like JBS Grand Island it's nothing to be sitting out in line for 2 hours to unload.

Life's a bunch of ######## no matter which way you go. Just gotta find the ######## that suits you the best I figure.

 

Lots of ways to look at it.

 

Yeah. I know a lot of guys say you need to be setting aside money for a new truck or only count profit after payroll, but as long as I'm trucking it'll be in my E-Log Exempt Cat Powered W9 and I'm not interested in expanding beyond my 1 truck so my view of things works for me. If you wanted to trade in new trucks every 4 years before warranty expires, hire a bunch of drivers and drive a desk instead of a truck then you'd have to look at things differently. But this is the "Ask an Owner Operator section". Not the "Ask a Fleet Owner section" lol.

 

You do realize 73k is company driver wages and not even high company driver wages. There is no opportunity for growth and essentially buying yourself a job