Not an interesting topic I gather?

 

Your mind is probably telling you wrong. If you can look at a load and guess the rate you are better than most.

You see a load of army trucks on a truck, they might pay $1 a mile or $5 or more a mile lots of variables, I saw hay loads last fall paying $2.50 a mile. looks aren't everything.

 

What is a good paying load for you may be a cheap load for me. I haul a lot of different types of loads. A rate might be good in Tennessee but not in Massachusetts. I look at rates a little differently than some people. A rate is cheap if it is below my minimum haul rate. I know of people who will haul freight for much less than I will. I won't go to the West Coast for $2/mile. There are those who post on this board who will run to that area for less. We could get higher rates if these people and others would stop hauling the cheap freight. But that is another post.

I have rates for flat bed, step deck and over-sized. It will vary from one region of the country to another and type of freight that I am expected to haul. For instance, I will charge top dollar to go to New England or Florida. My rate is a little less to New Jersey. I have a higher rate for South Texas than to Mississippi. You can't tell a rate why what the truck is hauling. Heavy Duty is right. Rates are all over the place for military freight. I have been offered loads for more than $3/mile to around $1/mile the last several months. Most hay loads seem to not pay much. Again, there are those paying $2.50 or more. I have a shipper that I could haul hay for on a regular basis and get rates of well above $2/mile. If it came from a broker the rate would probably pay somewhere between $1.05-1.25/mile. Most over-sized loads pay well, but I was offered a couple of them the last couple of weeks that were not worth hauling. One only paid $2.50/mile including permits. They may have found someone to take it, but it won't be someone whom I would have trusted to haul it. You get what you pay for in this business. If you see someone hauling cheap freight they probably don't know any better. They probably think everyone is hauling the same cheap freight they are hauling.

One other factor that can affect rates is the time of year. For instance, right now we are in a slow time of year. In a coupe of weeks or so freight should start to pick up. Hopefully, we will continue to have reduced capacity. When demand is high and capacity is low rates will go up.

 

Ok, topic changed.

What is considered cheap freight? I assume that when I see a TMC flatbed hauling straw or hay, that is a cheap load. When I see flatbedders hauling oversize heavy equipment, my mind tells me that is probably a high dollar load. Break it down if you can. For each type of truck, what is considered good paying freight?

S1. Flatbed
2. Reefer
3. Dry Van

What type of loads will you not touch with a 10-foot pole? What parts of the country have the highest paying freight?

Be careful of pre-conceived notions of what is cheap/good freight. On the spot market (one time loads from brokers, which is 98% of what's on the load boards) prices can vary greatly. I hauled a load of no tarp hay last week that paid $900 on 364 load miles, that's $2.47/mile. Normally, I wouldn't have been interested in hay but when she said it was no tarp and told me the rate, I jumped on it, because I was also in a poor freight area (Myrtle Beach) where I was finding very few loads on the boards and none of them were paying this well, even for much shorter runs. So every day, every area, is different and it behooves you to keep an open mind.

I can tell you about some loads that I probably wouldn't take again: crushed cars, and baled recycled metal... made a mess of my trailer and I was very lucky not to get any tire damage at the recyclers. In both cases, though, they were paying above market rate (as best as I could gather from the other loads I called on) and involved virtually zero deadhead miles as each time the pickup was in the same town I had just dropped in.

Specialty trailers will get you better paying loads but I'm guessing you will deadhead a whole lot more to find them. I say I'm guessing because all I have done is general flatbed freight and I have only been at it for a short time (5 months on my own authority, 1 year before that with another company). So I am still learning and adjusting, and I believe I probably always will be in this business.

I run regional in the southeast and occasionally into the southwest. Most of my loads are in the 200 - 500 mile range and I get home every weekend and usually at least two nights during the week.

I've kept very close records of all of my loads as well as deadheads so far and this is what I have averaged thus far this year: $2.43/mile loaded and $1.96/mile for all miles. I realized after the second quarter that the shorter runs weren't helping me all that much, even though many of them paid $3-4/mi or so because of the percentage of deadhead miles involved in getting to them. So I've made some adjustments in my strategy and my third quarter all miles average is up $.05 even though my loaded miles average has actually gone down a little. BTW, the all miles average is the figure that I look at. For every load before I book it I take into consideration the deadhead investment and calculate my minimum take price on the total miles.

NotSteve is probably averaging closer to $1.80/mi loaded but because he runs such long loads his percentage of deadhead dwarfs mine, I'm sure. I wouldn't be surprised if his all miles average is about $1.75.

And even though my average is significantly greater than his (and I'm assuming much of his for the sake of argument) he is probably making a much tidier profit at the end of the week than I am because he is running so many miles.

So again, you have to be careful about gross generalizations. There is no one right setup. Each must find out what works for him/her. And the nice thing about having your own authority is the flexibility to experiment. It's a big part of why I love what I do. I'm going to new places and meeting new people and learning about different businesses almost every day.

In the end, what is cheap freight vs good freight depends mostly on your cost structure. For me, my fixed costs (truck/trailer pmt, insurance, 2290 tax, base plates, internet/phone, and accounting) average out to about $120 per work day. My marginal operating costs (fuel, tires, repairs/maintenance, washes, dispatch, factoring, tolls, supplies, fines, etc) are right now about $0.96 per mile.

So it costs me $0.96 per mile plus $120 per day to operate. I try to keep this in mind when deciding whether to sit or deadhead, sit or take less than desirable rates, etc.

Didn't mean to be so long-winded, hope this helps.

 

Geat post deep dixie...the fact that you watch your data flow and adjust based on what you measure means you can react to change and are many steps ahead of the non-business types. They are the ones that will get "surprised" and then wonder what happened (and often place blame somewhere else).

Do you look at the $120 per day to operate as a monthly number (ie $120 x 30 days) or based on the average number of days you operate per month? I've always wondered on per day costing methods whether time off is calculated into that or not.

 

I've also heard one guy use this formula when bidding on loads:

amount of days X $500 per day + fuel cost = quote to broker

That way he's "supposed" to pocket $500 per day for everything else. This assumes the truck is paid for, methinks.

 

If my math is correct that comes out about 1.87 per mile.

500 miles x 2 days + 870 fuel for a 1000 mile trip. Correct me if I'm wrong, but 1.87 seems reasonable.

 

That's assuming you load first thing in the morning the first day, and manage to get it off the second day. If you don't think that's possible, add another $500.

 

Yup, I agree Dixie and good post. I also don't work my butt off. I drive on the average 550 miles per day and no traffic. I tried the high paying short runs for 3 weeks and it just wasn't worth it and very hard to do. I was lucky to do 1 every 2 days due to this and that so in the end I realized long runs was the way to go.

LTL loads are probably the big ticket. If you can find a long LTL to start you off your gonna win big time. I've done it 3 times where I ended up with $3.00 per mile for over 3,000 miles but the trick is to find that first long one then pick up and drop off along the way.

I'm doing just fine the way I'm running and will continue that way. Don't listen to the oh I get $4.00 per mile crap. Some of those people don't have a pot to piss in, factor all their loads and can't even afford freaking health insurance. You will be sorely mislead.