Update on truck buying and becoming independent.

Well, I thought I should post an update on how things are going for me in my recent venture. Yes, I've finally bought a truck. It's a full-size 72" condo 2016 Cascadia 10 speed with the DD15 with 579,000 miles on it. I ended up getting it for $52,000 with $5000 down. The 3 places I went to before wanted $10,000 down so the $5000 down option solidified the deal for me. It was a PAM company truck before and at least this one was well taken care of. So my payment is around $1650 a month with a 3-year term.

I've been using the truck to pull a flatbed for a company I've leased onto for around 5 weeks now and it is going ok. I've put a headache rack on the truck and a belt tensioner and I've recently changed the trans fluid and will be doing the gearboxes soon also since it is due.

The money aspects aren't as good as I thought it would be as I'm making around what I did as a company driver but as a company driver I wouldn't be owning the truck in 3 years. That's the only difference I'm really seeing so far. The company says's there slow right now but things should pick up and thus the money should go up also. I'm grossing around $3500 a week and after expenses (tax, plates, truck payment, insurance, eld, trailer rental, etc) I'm taking home around $900. The company also takes $100 dollars a week out for escrow savings. They're saying when things are running as they should I should be grossing around $5000 a week which would raise my take-home considerably.

The company I'm leasing onto has a yard not 10 miles away from my house and I get home most nights. I've been out overnight 3 times in the 5 weeks I've been on with them so that's good. All loads have been in Texas.

The company pay's for most of the insurance. I pay around $400 dollars for everything insurance wise and that includes bob-tail insurance.

They also give me a Comdata card that gives me a good fuel discount of around 50 cents a gallon which helps. My truck's getting around 7 mpg running it at 65 mph on the highway which I think is decent. I'm sure the fact that I do not idle all night is why I'm able to get this fuel mileage.

The company only runs contract freight so no brokers are involved for the most part.

Anyways it's been an experience, to say the least so far running my own truck. The first couple of weeks was very stressful but I'm starting to get more relaxed.

I take out $500 a week for taxes and the workmen's comp is taken out of my check every week by the company. Still not really clear on if this is enough or too much. I've talked to a driver and he said this is how much he takes out.