Wondering about starting grain hauling operation have exp and connections re: biz sd?

Apologies ahead of time for being long-winded, please tell me what you think and if i'm on the right track at all:

Hey, I've worked on two different grain harvesting crews way back when. I have over the road experience. I have no bills. And I'm banking two thousand dollars a month. By that I mean my bank account is getting two thousand dollars bigger every month.

I've made so much money in my life but its taken a long time to get to the point where I understand money better. I have developed the habit of taking my daily spending receipts (anything that comes out of MY MONEY) and stapling them to daily summary sheets and recording the info, and tracking my expenses. That has helped me figure out where the holes in my pockets where, and having done that and having that new understanding I believe I can be successful hauling grain in the future.

I want to hear all you got to say... but guess what... i'm not going to be discouraged even if you think it can't be done. There are people in life who make excuses. I am not one of them. If I want something badly enough I make it happen. Thus with that said... I will not be starting that business until I get COMPLETELY PREPARED.

To me that means saving up a ahead of time. Having my own truck AND TRAILER paid for in CASH. No debt. Having my own customers. I have connections in grain from the harvest crews I worked for and getting customers won't be a problem.

I also know how to run a truck cost effectively. Trucks dont have to break down all the time even if they are used ones. If they do break down you can fix them yourself except for really complicated stuff.

On the harvest crews we always had a service trailer. What a brilliant idea. But this would be a one truck operation at first, just me and my girlfriend. In time when I save up money I will buy my own combine and she will run that, thus we will get paid (the business will get paid obviously) for the hauling as well as combining.

But back to service trailers... without a "scale operation" we wont have that at first, but we will always be prepared for fixing our own equipment because it's really quite simple: hopper bottom grain trailers are upside down "V" funnels. But many hopper trailers are RECTANGLES, thus there is unused space in the trailers. We will modify a grain trailer to also be a service trailer. It wont have a lot, but it could easily one or two tons of tools/equipment and that wouldn't really make a difference on what you can/can't haul on the trailer bushel wise. Not enough to really make a difference if you are operating more efficiently by being able to self-repair, and not have to wait for a service trailer to show up.

Truck already has air compressor. And with a hose that connects to the air lines and has an air chuck on it... whalla... neat useful stuff you can do.

But the grain trailer could easily house generators, welding equipment,tool drawers, spare parts, spare tires, a metal lathe... all sorts of stuff like that. Think about it... a rectangle grain trailer is really like this: ^VV^. In the ^ areas... if you put a floor in their theres litterally about the amount of space as in a sleeper cab. Times two thats a lot of unused space.

So that's that. One part of being prepared.

Another part: FUEL EFFICIENCY. I know lots of people look down on that concept. Too bad. It works. I used to work at Prime. I got a ton of miles per gallon by driving 55. Bet you don't know of too many grain carriers who go that slow. But I will. Why drive ridiculously fast burning more fuel to "get one more load" when you cut into your profit and MAKE LESS MONEY??? You can also get one more load by breaking down less.

Than there's this spreadsheet (scroll down to page 10 and look at table 5)... HERE

On one of the harvest crews I worked at since I know my way around a computer the harvester had me put grain tickets into a spreadsheet. And he already had that set up with auto-spreadsheet-formula stuff in it. So when I put ticket info into the spreadsheet I could see what he wound up charging the customer.

Believe it or not THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS IN THREE WEEKS.

Sure he has a TON OF EXPENSES. But with two trucks and a lot of combines he pulled in that kind of money.

I dont need to make that kind of money, but I think based on that... and the fact that his costs really shouldn't be that high since the trucks didn't go very far... and that this was only three weeks of gross dollars...that this could be profitable stuff if done right.

Gross and net are different. But still... 300k?

So lay it down on me please let me hear all and don't be afraid to really enlighten me. Just know... I don't make excuses and lots of people think they dont but really do so while some people cant make it im not one of them but what do i need to do to be successful faster? How can I get better prepared than i'm already preparing to be?

Thanks.

 

also... not having a combine at first means i wont be burning through S#$T tons of fuel like those things do. So more profit out of the gross figure.