The Year In Review

Okay, 2005 is over. I sat down and went through last years logbooks and tallied up the year. I spent 139 nights out in the truck for the year, traveled right at 120,000 miles, and brought in 61,500 for the year. Ended up with 51.2 cpm overall. That's slightly below last years cpm rate, but I had some longer runs this year without backhauls, and while they paid well, they dropped the average. Additionally, I was slightly down on income, due to a slight slowdown at the end of the year (for the first time since I have been here) combined with us learning how to schedule around the new hours of service. I lost a few dispatches that I would have done, but my dispatcher was trying to set up proper break times for me. Overall, I ended up somewhere between 1500-2000 less income than I expected to make based on the midyear projections I made.

About 85% of my loads were preloaded trailers, all I had to do was hook on and go. The rest was split between live loads at a customer, and loads out of a railroad yard where I loaded myself. No spills or contaminations, which are big no no's in my business.

Primarily stayed within 250 miles of home, though I did run as far as new Jersey, Philly, Louisiana, and Atlanta. Longest time out from home was four nights, so not too bad on that score.

Rode the towhook three times this year. Once for a failed turbo, once for a broken bolt holding an injector, and once for an accident that did major damage to the front end of the truck.

Got the new pole barn/truckshop built, doors on it, and part of the concrete work started. That's one of the needs for owning my own truck in about 2 years. Planning for that is progressing, and I picked up a new laptop computer for record keeping so I can track revenue not only as a company driver, but also as an owner operator. I have a pretty good handle on the income our owners make, but need to confirm that info plus the ratio between loaded and empty miles.

Overall, not a bad year, and I hope for things to go even better in the coming one.

 

Be about another week or so until I tally up the final nuimbers, but it looks like it will be in the 125-130k range for miles, and pay will be about 52-54 cpm for each of them. I have all the info on computer this year, but I have to wait until I get the settlement sheet for the last week to do the numbers up. I ran some places other than my usual runs, and don't know what those loads paid.

All in all, a good year again.

 

By the way, this might just be a new record. Looks like it was about 358 days from the time I originally posted this until it got it's first response!!!!

 

Al lot of that also has to do with the area that I run in. The midwest is a good area for shorter hauls, and I am rarely far from home, both things that have a major effect on that. If I lived where you do, the freight lanes I run would be different. I have always felt that there is a big difference from one part of the country to another, and this kind of bears it out. and theose difference show up in income in a big way.

 

True, the wilds of Choiago are not the wide open spaces of Wyoming, but the traffic is a manageable problem. I do tend to get up early a lot of times so I can go in and grab my load before the traffic builds up, and there are times I simply park the truck and shut down rather than play in the traffic. It's something that you learn to live with, and it's not as bad as many people think it to be. Actually getting stuck in a traffic jam is the exception rather than the rule, and i know the area well enough to route myself around the worst of problems. And my employer is mart enough to not restrict us to specific routes, and allows us to use our judgement in how we get where we are going.

We all have to make choices and compromises in what we are going to do and where we are going to live. I chose here on retirement after looking at other areas, including one that makes where you live look heavily populated, and settled here as a matter of choice, after looking at work opportunities, cost of living, and a hist of other factors. Amazingly enough, the fact that I had family living near was one of the least important factors in the decision.

It's a life of choices, and I am content with the ones I have made, and you have set the priorities for where you are.