Some numbers for new O/O

Paid cash for it when I bought it, should've done it sooner. There's things I'd do differently, get a 379 instead of w9, or a w9 with the new style sleeper. Open deck instead of a hopper, more just to keep me from getting fat and lazy than more money, then I hear dad talking about tarping in a 30 mph breeze when it's 10 degrees and I'm glad I have my electric tarp I can close at a push of a button from inside where it's warm.
My expenses where ridiculous last year, 20k on an overhaul, 3500 on a used tranny, couple grand on tires. My insurance is still high at 24, but if I behave myself a little this year it should be better next year. All in all it's the easiest money I've ever made, not getting rich but not living on mac and cheese either.

 

Rates per mile are always based on supply and demand. You can’t compare different Operations. No matter if high, low, or even. It all boils down to overall average. $3.50+ $1.30= $4.80, Avg. $2.40 pm. Beats $1.85 both ways. Tall Joe, and DuneT got it right. Just the way it is. You have to price lanes accordingly. Supply and demand will dictate, the maximum amount each way. Going east or to Florida, or Texas, Arizona, wherever, has to include the load back, or out of there.Too many go too cheap, because it sounds like a great rate, only to find out why, and lose it all getting out. The whole point is net income, in a certain amount of time. The bottom line. The only # that matters.

 

The return rates from anywhere in the East Coast and South East are not money makers. There is nothing anyone can do anything about it. There are no negotiations that would result in convincing them to pay you $2.5 dol per mile on a lane that pays 1.2 per mile for a given day or week. The only exception could be when you wait till last minute at the risk of not getting loaded at all. But if you can get it for $1.5 per mile, while everybody else gets $1.2, that's outstanding. That does not mean that running for $1.5 on all miles, or even for $1.8 on all miles is outstanding in absolute terms.

There is more effective negotiation on fat lanes than thin lanes. It could be easier to be be paid even as much as $500 - 1000 more on a lane from say... Green Bay, WI to Miami, FL than $50 - $100 on the reverse lane.

 

Wait a minute, I have to revise my initial perspective on that 60k a year number, I think. Especially if you paid over $23,500 on maintenance and are paying over $24,000 a year for insurance. Add fuel and a few other variables on 55,000 mile at $1.85 and that couldn't of been anywhere near 60k take home. Or, am I missing something?

 

Insurance was just under 14k, high at 24 years old is what I meant by that. Made about 40k or so, I haven't done all the precise math that's just dartboard math on what I keep a running tally of in my head all year.

 

Watching this thread makes me happy I pull tanks.

 

Reading some of this #### makes me want to sell my ####!!

 

Some of us like mac and cheese. What are you trying say?

 

My insurance was $3200

 

I like the occasional bowl of mac and cheese, doesn't mean I'd like to live off it.