WHY, did you fail?... WHY, are you succeeding?

It's been running around 32-35% for me. I finally got some issues figured out and with a load at 76,000 gross, I am pulling 6.9 mpg on the truck right now. Up from 5.6 mpg. I don't truck the computer though, but it's just an indicator for me at the moment. When I figure it by hand, it's more been around 5.8 lately.

Pushing into the wind today, I was definitely not hearing the turbo load up as much as it's been lately. (no, I don't have a boost gage, so I couldn't tell you what it's running.)

 

Lately I have had a lot of 41-44,000 lb loads. More than I care to enjoy.....

 

Wife an I team drive O/O with our ownauthority.


We failed when working for the largerbrokers and using the load boards. In the 2 years we tried it wemade around $30,000 ($15,000 each a year) after cost and taxes.


For the last 3 years we have failed bynot buying new equipment when we should be. We have a new trailer onorder for this year. Started looking at new truck and will order onein the next 18 months.


We had decent success the year weworked for a shipper that put out 3 long haul loads a week and usedload boards for back hauls. The great rates from the shipper made upfor the cheaper load boards and when driving empty.


I have had great success working for asmaller local broker that has networked with other smaller brokers inthe states they ship to for return loads. The cheapest load I havegotten working with them was a load of paper and foam to go boxesthat still paid over $2.50 a mile. They care about the drivers andthe shippers unlike a lot of companies.
The down side is that we can end uprunning more or less the same loads every week unless you let themknow you want to run something different.
The other down side is there companyname is on top of our company name on our company name on our tshirts, but they buy them for us.


No I would never lease something. If Iwas to get a loan on something I make sure I added 6 months ofpayments into our emergency fund to cover the payments.

 

A side benefit to running these loads, I have been home nightly. My weekly miles are 700 or 800 miles for the WEEK and I have had as much NET income as when I was running 2200 miles a week.

I have been logging it all as 100 air mile radius work and been only working about 7-8 hours a day. With about 2-3 hours a day SITTING at a loading dock