The Rev has a good point, it might be worth some study. He doesn't give an answer, but his question is a dead giveaway.

I, for one, care if the money is better on percentage, and better than that, I prefer 100 percent. It doesn't really take more sense, but it does take more effort to work off of a percentage.

I could be wrong, but I think the same calculator that works to calculate miles is also capable of doing percentages. :wink: lol

I did hear a guy explain to me the other day about leasing on to Landstar, that 78% of 98% from Landstar would be better than the 100% I'm getting and paying my own insurance. I suppose he could be right, but at least my future is in my own hands.

After his long speech about how good Landstars percentage was, I asked him if he was leased to them, and he said no, he was independent.

I always get a kick out of people that recommend me to do something they won't do themselves.......

As far as companies that pay by the mile, it is common for them to not give you enough miles, or if they are making lots of money off of you, they will run you to death and wear out your truck.

I'm too old to run a bazillion miles a week just to make my truck payments and try to hang on another week. There has to be a better way

jonboy

 

No, it's quite an opposite! With the mileage pay, you've got to work real hard to make a living, % on the other hand, gives you the chance, to be smart about it! :wink:

I have some real life experience about that. Working with the same company, after switching from mileage to %, my RPM jump about 20%, doing the same deal!

Also, 100% of what?
I'm leased O/O, pulling dry box(lowest rates), and i could compare my 72%, with the 100% a lot of folks post here, and in a many occasions, my 72% beats their 100%! Not to mention lower CPM!

I know, it's not an option for you right now, just want to give you some perspective! 8)

 

It is for these reasons why I advocate not even calculating your revenue by the mile, especially if you are getting paid percentage. It serves no purpose other than to put you in that "gotta run, git r dun" mentality. Are your expenses paid by the mile? When you pay your truck payment, do you write the check for it as "750 miles", or do you write it as "$1500"? The only figure you should really EVER calculate by the mile is your variable costs, as they are the only one that is dependent upon the wheels turning. Everything else should be calculated by the day/week, etc.

I can give an example of this in a real-world scenario. I've got 2 trips. The first one covers about 2000 miles, and takes me about 2 weeks to do. It pays me $7120, or $3.56 per mile. The second trip covers about 1300 miles, and takes me about 5 days to complete. It pays me $4290, or $3.30 per mile.

Which one pays better?

If you are calculating by the mile, then the 2000 mile trip appears to pay better. But, it also takes over a week longer to do. But, when you calculate it out by the day, you'll see that the first trip is paying $508 per day, while the second trip is paying $858 per day. If you are calulating by the mile, then that figure will never come to light.

Now I'm sure the choir will come in preaching that it shouldn't take 2 weeks to do a 2000 mile trip, but I ask you: why not? Why do you feel you HAVE to run 500 miles per day? That is the "gotta run, git r dun" mentality of working harder, not smarter. I drove less than half the miles you did last year, and earned a lot more from them than you did from yours. That's working smarter, not harder.

Our good friend Steve Booth is a victim of this exact problem. In his blog, er THREAD, he commonly posts that he is doing a short trip that pays $2.00 per mile, usually never posting the miles he is driving, nor how many days it will take to complete. But let's say one of those short $2.00 per mile trips covers 500 miles, and takes him a day and a half with loading time and unloading time. His great $2.00 per mile trip is paying him $500 per day GROSS. If his variable expenses are $0.70 per mile (I have no idea what Steve's variable expenses are, and I doubt he does either), then that 500 mile trip is going to eat up $350 in variable expenses. His $500 per day trip just became a $325 per day trip. That hasn't taken into account ANY of his fixed expenses yet, which will eat away at it some more. While that trip looked good when he posted that it was $2.00, the numbers really show that is a sub-par trip.

 

Why would anyone take advise from you. You couldn't make a living at driving and now your moving and setting up office furniture? I have plenty of cash on hand and happy.

Watch out when moving those desks Rev. They are full of gum and boogers.

 

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

Hey, go easy on the Rev!! He means well, I think?

jonboy

 

Steve has no clue as to what he is talking about, and is only pissed because I call out his half-assed numbers he posts.

 

Rev's method is the most accurate way to gauge how well your doing. When I bid a trip, I break it down into two components, mileage-based (variable) and time-based (fixed). The two added together are what I need to run.

 

I like to use mileage to calculate all my costs because;

1) by and large, stuff wears out by the mile. The more you drive, the more it costs. These are the variable costs we're talking about and I think we pretty much agree on this.

2) even with fixed costs I express them by the mile because (in our operation, having our own outbound) we pretty much run the same miles every year anyway, so it really doesn't matter in my case.

3) It simplifies my bid process. When I'm talking to a broker, I need to make a decision quickly so it's just a matter of knowing DH miles to PU, loaded miles, DH miles back to the yard and how many extra miles I need to drive compared to if I didn't take the load. I multiply extra miles by my cpm of $1.65 and that's my extra cost to pull that load. Then I'll tack on $500/day profit expectation and that's my minimum.

Obviously if I get a lucky reload with 0 DH then my extra cost is zero. that doesn't mean I pull it for free. i.e. if the minimum works out to something ridiculous like, $1.50/mile, then I'll jack the rate up to whatever the market will bear.

works for me.