34cpm

 

i gues they do it that way so they could pay 90% of the load.

 

this is a great time to get into trucking IF,IF, you have a lot of money. when the industry is as slow & the worst(unpredictable) as it is now, you have to have financial resources set aside to make it. when the freight is moving at good rates & there is plenty of loads, then you have a better chance of starting out on a shoestring budget & making it. it is all about available work. for the most part. i.m.o. even if freight is not paying top dollar or fuel is a lil high, if you can do 4000 miles a week, you can pay for some of the things you need as you go. as the cost of living has gone up I have to work longer & harder to maintain the same lifestyle. as long as the work is available for me to work the longer hours, I can still keep things going. no or slow freight changes everything. when I used to run 3000 miles a week, buy a set of tires did not bother me. running 600 -900 miles a week is a slow death. you can work for months making just enough to get by, but have nothing to fix anything that goes out. that is why it is important to put aside some money when the times are good.

 

anybody else wouldnt mind to share info on these two most important questions for me

The one most important I would like to know is Average pay for 1 mile (loaded + empty). If you would take income of a year or two and divide it by all the miles of your truck of that period of time does it come out around $1.20 a mile?

The maintenance cost was just my guess. Would you be able to share how much do you spend on all of the maintenance of the truck per year including how many miles you drove per year and what is the mileage on your truck.

 

That is virtually impossible to answer, as there are far too many variables. Everything from the type of trailer pulled, to the area of the country you run, to who your contacts for loads are. For the one guy who claims $3.00 per mile for all miles driven, there will be another who claims $1.00 per mile. Does that mean the average is $2.00 per mile? Hell no.

IMO, if you have no idea how much your average revenue will be, you have no business getting into business for yourself. If you are relying on what other people earn to determine what you are going to earn, you've failed already. The same holds true for calculating expenses. What the guy parked next to me earns or spends has no bearing whatsoever on my operation.

 

I have posted my quarterly numbers here a few times. They wont be of much use to you though. Mine are all brokered loads and drop decks.

$47,000 / 300,000 miles / 3 trucks + 4 trailers. You would be less since you'd driving your own truck. Maintenance costs go way up the minute to start hiring drivers. I think $10,000 would do it...$15,000 the first year. You may not need that much, but you best be prepared.

The first year for a used truck seems to be a killer. Not only do you need to get the truck set up that way you want it, you have to fix all the surprise reasons why the previous owner sold it. Bought a '98 T800 a few years back and dropped $13,000 in two months on a turbo, cylinder head + main and rod bearings. If you don't have that money, it can get ugly.

 

With the cost of fuel, when loads were running at $2.50 a mile plus for ALL miles, up to mid 08 in my racket, things were manageable with my own authority. When rates got down to your numbers, $1.20, end of 08 to present, it was a slow lingering death. I had to drop my authority at that point and leased on to an outfit for that $1.20 a mile freight, I kept 85% and had my own plates. There was no way in hell I could make it on that, my last load paid me $79 from NC to Lansing MI after fuel and expenses (ins., food and a shower)

I just sold our last trailer in August. All of my equipment was paid for, 07 Volvo 780 with an APU, avg right around 7 mpg +, along with an 06 Great Dane Conestoga flat and an 03 53' Blanket Wrap trailer, all had clear titles. I walked away clean, but I saw this coming, unlike some of my friends who have pretty much lost everything.

If you are crazy enough to try, good luck. I just could not justify working for free, because that is what it all boiled down to at $1.20 mile. If fuel were around a $1 a gallon and freight was falling from the trees, I would have rode it out. But after 20 years of this cr@p and seeing where this current administration is taking us, along with more rules, regs and taxes that look to be coming our way, I said enough is enough. Like I said, I cut my losses and have not looked back.

 

those wages are not worth buying a truck at the end of the day your ahead as a driver.$1.20 a mile is not worth test driving a truck,sorry but its just wearing out a truck for nothing!

 

Hey there, I actually offer software that does all this math for you and quote rates, if you're interested. Just started about 3 weeks ago (got to love government self-employment programs) so pop by my website and see. What it does, in a nutshell, is helps you take everything you know about what you're spending and turns it into your cost per mile, keeps it in the program and uses it to figure out your rates so you don't get into situations like what you see on a certain tv show about trucking (you know, guys pulling down their pants and dropping rates below their costs just to get work.) Anyway, come have a look. I'll knock $25 off the price for you guys (enter 'classa' at checkout)

On a side note, don't forget about what you need to keep the lights on at home, if you know what I mean. Look at all your expenses. Easiest way is to look at your bank statement and break it down into a budget and then you can see where your money is currently going. Then you'll have to combine that with the operating cost of what you're looking to run with and that way you won't wonder why you're short of money. Using your expenses from last year is preferable. When you're doing this, look at all of your numbers as annual numbers, including the total miles you ran (empty and loaded.) If you don't have mileages from last year, just budget your miles by saying what kind of miles you need to run to make "x number" of dollars (example: need 2500 miles a week, let's say.) Times that by 52 and use that number as your annual mileage target then divide it into your total costs for everything. The OOIDA website has resouces on this too. Hope that helps. Shiny side up, y'all.

Shawn
Contrast Logistics Software
Welcome

 

Well first of all you will not run 3000 miles a week all year long,,you will miss time for repairs , weather etc.
A used truck with 670,000 miles is due for a major overahul at any time,,even if the engine has been overhauled there are many other items that can and will fail,,transmission, rear ends,,brakes,,etc.. At $1.20/mile you will spend at todays $4/gal prices 67 cents per mile or more for fuel,,when you figure at minimum of 15 to 20 cents per miles of tires, repairs and mainenance plus your business overhead insurance,meals, health insurance,tags , permits, tolls, accounting/tax prep fees, self employment tax ( 15%) and drivers salary ( you own the business and should be paid as a business owner and driver) you are better off as a company driver. Many companies that run New York pay as much as 52 cents per mile,, You need to make $1.75/mile or more to beat what a company driver makes,, And as for a used Volvo,,it has no resale value,,with a million miles on it even with an overhauled engine is worth about nothing,, Stay driving someone elses truck.