To be or not to be

I have been looking around on this site for a long time and can't seem to find a thread that would be close to my personal situation so I finally decided to start my own thread. I want to buy a truck to lease on to the company I currently drive for. It is a smallish company with around 200 company trucks and about 8 o/o. I have been around this company for about 10 years. I love the company and it has a lot of great people and even the owner is a great man that shows up to the office every day and greets everyone by name and a firm hand shake which means a lot to me. As a company driver I average around 3200 miles per week, home every night and off every weekend running regional, and gross around 1k per week. Our O/O run the same loads that we do. There is no forced dispatch and you can pretty much walk in to dispatch and say, "I'd like to go to this place" and that is where you are going so your miles, or lack thereof, are really up to you. Now here are the details of the O/O program. I'm looking for advice on if it would be a wise investment to buy a truck and lease on or just stay a company driver.

-Truck: has to be 5yrs old or newer to lease on. Once it is on, it can stay as long as you like. I would like to stay in the neighborhood of $60k if possible.
-Fuel: We get 1 fuel-up per trip from at our yard i.e. If I were leaving today going to Indy, I can fuel up a the yard for free. I could stop in TN on the way back and put $100 in fuel at a truck stop to get me back and fuel back up for my next trip for free (atleast that is how our other O/O do it). We can get additional fuel at our yard if needed and it's heavily discounted because the owners brother owns an oil/fuel company in town and that is where we get our fuel. They set up an escrow account for fuel taxes and you get it and pay it quarterly
-Pay: The pay is .84cpm or .83cpm if they furnish the IRP tag. That seems low given what I see from other companies but I guess with the other "perks", it seems alright. $6.50 per drop/hook
-Freight: We haul for a major auto manufacturer. We go out and bring parts back. No multiple stops and it's all on company trailers so I will not have to buy a trailer.
-Maintenance and repair: We have a shop and get a discount on parts. O/O can use the shop and tools (which I have my own) to work on the trucks. I worked in our shop for 2 years before I started driving so most of the maintenance and repairs will be done by me thus cutting down on operating costs.

I spoke with almost all of our O/O and the lowest paid one I could find said he grossed $160k (he is not at base pay and I wasn't going to ask his cpm because that is a little tacky to me) and he took a good bit of time off because of family. I'm not in this business to get filthy rich but I feel that I can do better by buying a truck and leasing on with this company. If there are any other questions let me know and any and all advice will be greatly appreciated.

 

I'm just going by what he told me. I'm sure you know how truckers can be with tall tales. He has also been at the company for 13 years so he wasn't making .84cpm. That is just what you start at. They climb in pay a lot faster than us company drivers at this company. Not to sure I appreciate the crack comment. This is why people are afraid to ask questions on here because they are belittled for asking about information that they were told. Lets try to keep it clean and informative, driver.

 

Sorry I knew there would be parts that I left out. They do pay fuel surcharge and that is separate from the .84cpm. When I leave our yard, I usually have empty totes or empty racks so at the most 2,000lbs going out and fully loaded coming back I usually have anywhere from 5-10k lbs. Most of the stuff we haul is things like head liners or the foam for seats so its pretty light. We do get the occasional 33k lb load but those are few and far between. As far as asking him how much he paid taxes on and what he made for his net, I can't ask him because he no longer works there and even though it would be solely for the purpose of education, I don't think I could ask him how much he makes after taxes anyways. He is older and decided to buy a dodge 3500 and haul travel trailers and I never got his #.

I don't know why I didn't post what I make as a company driver. I guess that would help wouldn't it? As far as what I make, I average between 3,000 and 3,200 miles per week (usually 4 day week) we are still on paper logs so read into that as you will. .33cpm and average gross per week is right at or just over $1k. I get killed on taxes so I usually net around $750. I would run more miles but I told them I wanted to stay close because my wife is 36 weeks pregnant so the little man will be here any day. If I had my own truck, I would definitely run more miles.

I guess my biggest question is is the perks with fuel and parts and having a shop and all that outweigh the low cpm? Even as a company driver, I've had a lot of people tell me that they wouldn't drive for .33cpm but I can be home every night if I want, Im home every weekend, I can be off any time I want, and we can pretty much pick our loads. Sometimes, the perks balance out the lower pay. I'm just wondering if they will balance out the pay when I have a truck payment. I can sit here and crunch numbers all night and I am pretty good when it comes to business and budgeting, but in the end, I would rather hear from people who live this every day rather than what my calculator tells me.

 

I'm not sure what the FSC is as I'm sure it changed with the price of fuel. I will have to ask when I go in this afternoon is they are still in the office by the time I go in and I will update it on here when I get off tomorrow morning. We ARE paid loaded/empty/deadhead/bobtail/backwards/forwards/sideways etc. If you are rolling, you get paid so that is a plus. I'm not sure if they pay hub miles for O/O or if they use the same program for the company drivers. It's usually pretty close. It's usually within 50 miles by the end of the trip so I wouldn't think that its too big of a deal. My usual load is 946 miles round trip. They pay 926 so its close.

 

I'm sure they would notice if I was filling up 350 or 400 gallons per trip. The FSC is not in lieu of the free fill up. The free fill up is basically a way to justify lower pay the way I see it. "Ya it only pays .84cpm but you're getting 250 gallons of free fuel per trip". That sort of thing. Ill check and see what the FSC when I go in.