low rates, No profit

[kozakvod]

I can't make opinions what-so-ever about they type of freight that most of you haul, I know NOTHING about your businesses. As a car hauler when it died, it died! At the end of March I was told that everything was shutting down and did it ever.

Five weeks I sat at home. Got a WHOLE lot of things done on the truck so in that regard I was thankful for the time. The buyer that I haul for called the end of April and said we're going back to work and since the 2nd day of May we've moved our sixth load as of yesterday morning.

We see more and more car haulers on the road every day, more and more new cars moving now as well. So in response to the automotive industry getting back in gear it surely seems to be happening.

I hope for everyone that things will keep moving forward in a good way. And more, I hope that this country has learned it's lesson and NEVER allows anything this idiotic to ever happen again.

[Chamberpains]

(05-18-2020 )74bassman Wrote:  The only thing I want is for fuel to go back to 3.00 a gal. This cheap fuel is costing me money.

Come fuel up in Pennsylvania. We're still there..... $0.74 /gal fuel tax keeps us uncomfortably high. Its murdering us compared to everyone else in the country. I can't compete at all with companies from other states.

I'm currently pulling freight @ $1.40 /mile average. Thats after the fuel surcharges tacked on. And freight is barely a trickle up here in New England and most of it is short haul. So there's not enough miles to make up for the low rates. Rates get worse to take OTR freight and still nothing coming back home (2 months and counting)

[Rawze]

(05-18-2020 )Mr Hagg Wrote:  Rawze with all the add on what it the pay per mile total.... SO one can get an idea ...SO when they compare 1.30 a mile freight to yours..

my rate does not change. I get fixed cost per mile,all miles. Fuel sur-charge, I do get that too, it is the national rate, based on 6 mpg.

Here are some numbers ...

In the last 106,000 miles (2019) ... Truck did not run as hard as it should have, much down-time due to personal reasons and not truck issues, but we did not mind. Still, but that is not bad for mileage for only being out for a bit less than 8 or so months of the year in total.

Total Gross earnings: $128,776 --- (averaging $1.21/mile after FSC)

Total of Bank deposits from carrier after all fuel and other expenses came out: $85,098 --- ( averaging just above 0.80c/mile take-home pay after fuel and most other expenses). Total operating cost including fuel, qualcomm, etc.etc. was ~ 0.41c/mile thereabouts.

Total Truck Maint. costs (including oil changes and repairs/parts): $8147
===============

Money I kept in my pocket: $76,950 --- Some of this was re-invested into the business. Things like new computer or 2 and such things that we decided to get, but not absolutely necessary, were just investments )

If wife and son had run harder like they usually do, and had gotten say 175k miles for the year like we did the year before, that would have equated to our more normal amount of about $115,000 or so that we kept in our pockets.

Back when I was driving with the wife, I pushed the truck non-stop all year around. We rarely ever came home. It was not unusual to get 230,000 - 245,000 miles in a single year. Back then, our maint. costs were a bit higher, but even so, it was quite normal to take/see about $170,000 in our pockets by the end of each year after all expenses and maint.

-- My rates have not changed one bit, as I am on a fixed rate empty, loaded, and otherwise. If it moves, we do it cheap, but get paid for every bit of it.

[Rawze]

(05-18-2020 )Mr Hagg Wrote:  I had a driver just yesterday show me his rate haul for 2 months ago and he took home 3100 .... he pulled the same frieght same loads and this week he took home 580.. Its for sure not looking good for these guys that are use to more money...

My operating costs last year were about 0.42c/mile after fuel.. how much you want to bet your friend is likely up in the 0.80c/mile in operating costs after fuel, etc (maybe even much higher) ... because his truck is sucking the fuel like a drunken sailor,.. or other issues that he has not gotten a proper handle on that have taken all his profits out from under him.

Who cares if he was getting high dollar rates before... get with the times and adapt or get out of the way!.

Trucking is an ever evolving and always changing career where a person needs to be able to adapt quickly.

[Chamberpains]

I'm not down playing how important and how brilliantly wise Rawze's way of looking at trucking is. Its the real main reason I'm seriously not freaking out and scarfing up every load i can get on the deck and running till I face plant in a couple months with junk beat up neglected equipment. Those days are done. Rawze opened my eye's to the enormous amounts of money in slowing down, taking the stress off the equipment and keeping it in great working order. And that alone will get me to through these hard times with out killing myself with shear stress and work over load. I can't thank the man enough for sharing that piece of business knowledge.

But besides high fuel milage and low maintenance bills, Rawze working with a mega carrier all the time allows him 2 key things that make his business much more stable than the vast majority of O/O situations, especially in times like these. The biggest 1 is the shear freight volume coupled with the distance the loads travel. That allows his operation to pick up paying freight any where at any time and make money on the distance the load travels. Where as a pile of us are looking for any kind of work and then finding there is none at the other end. Or not having any work at all for days and weeks. Thats too much down time that allows the overhead bills (insurance,
reg., equipment payments, home bills, etc...) to eat in to things.

Then the the 2nd part of Rawze's gig helps him keep things at an even predictable level is he gets paid every single mile that his truck moves. This isn't a huge game changer to everyone else at normal times because the loaded mile rate usually covers this easily. But the vast majority don't have that and those deadhead miles just chew the hell out of these already crap rates. Especially when they equate to the exact or more distance you pulled the paying load.

So yes, im making more money per loaded mile at $1.40 than Rawze but when its only 1000 miles for the week and a 1/3 to 1/2 of those miles were unpaid deadhead miles. Then multiply that into 2 solid months and counting . With no end in sight because of shitty weak panicky governors and a media hell bent on scaring people in to being attached to the TV so they can make huge sums of advertising $$$..... ya, trucking and the economy is in a hard spot right now.

I'm glad I listened and learned all the lessons from Rawze and the members of this site plus kept my equipment out of the money stealing shops while the grass was green at a $1.80+ and loads were plenty and deadhead was less than 1/10 of paid miles. I have a cushion that I can ride for months. Couple that with Rawze style of O/O'ing. I think I can survive for a solid year in these conditions before I have to make huge changes. With all the downtime this allows me to intelligently pick my loads and my next business moves. Because I'm not panicking, stressing and to busy blindly turning miles.

I'll say it again. Thank you Rawze you changed the world for me. And I seriously can't thank you enough.

[Rawze]

I think a lot of people do not know that before I owned a truck, My take-home pay in the automation world, where I was out almost 90% of the year and never saw the house (it required 100% travel) was in fact roughly $110,000 - $130,000 / year take-home. I always looked at it as .... "How much work did I do" vs. "How much by the end of the year did I make"?... ANd when looking at the overall picture, I was satisfied with what I was doing vs. what I got in return.

Fast forward that into truck ownership...

I still do that to this day. I look at the overall picture. What efforts did I put in for the year vs. What moneys that I got to keep?. ... I always looked at it this way. Still to this day, I'll take the mega-fleece deal over other options so far. I don't need to look for loads. I don't need to pay for insurances. I do not need to deal with what happens to the trailer when my truck breaks down, someone else will simply finish the load for me and I will get paid to that point. I don't have to worry about what happens when I want to come home and stay for a few weeks. I don't have most of the headaches that other truck owners have. I don't pay for things like insurance, IFTA, tolls, or much of anythign else. Total deductions from my settlement each week is a steady $130/week to pay for my qualcomm rental (although I do have the option to buy it outright if I like, I choose not to) and bobtail insurance. Trailer and cargo and all the rest is paid for by the mega-fleece. Its their trailers and cargo, not mine. Everything else, even tolls and fees, IFTA, etc. is paid for and does not come out of my pay. They just pay it. They pay for all of this stuff straight up, as part of the deal.

All in all, when I look at it, I call it "Owner-Op on Training Wheels"... And yes, I absolutely know that I could make more somewhere else. Problem is that i do not want the headaches and responsibilities that come along with it. I am always seeking to minimize any needless amounts of "Efforts" or "Headaches" on the business side of things. My situation leaves me to focus on the only 2 things that help (or can hurt) my bottom line. Those are basically fuel mileage and Maintenance. Everything else is taken care of for me and I get HUGE discounts on fuel, like $0.40c on the dollar kinds of crazy discounts, and on tires and some other things too.

- That is the level of responsibility vs pay that I choose. I am very satisfied with what we do vs. what I get in return. That ratio of effort vs keep-in-your-pocket money is still fairly decent.

Now ... Combine this with always being in high demand when we are moving, combined with not having to think about anything outside of keeping my fuel mileage up and keeping my truck running, combined with being able to take as much time off as I want to in between, no one else cares. I have never been screwed out of my pay, i have never had someone tell me they can't pay me this week, I have never seen one damn red cent that was a discrepancy by the time it all is added up. I pay for no tolls, no lumper fees, I pay for nothing and on the occasional time I do pay a toll or fee, I get reimbursed 100% for it back as long as I send in the paperwork for it. All That security and stability in itself accounts for a lot in my book. - In my eyes, all that non-headaches and still decent revenue is worth it because I do not struggle when everyone else around me is. I also do not see other people who have much higher paying loads taking home and then subsequently keeping much more than I do by the time they pay out all their insurances, IFTA, and everything else. That higher level of pay vs headaches and unpredictable income is just not worth that bit of extra in my book. I'll take the mega-fleece low-rent training wheels any day over that. That is what works best for us, but I also know very well that it is not for everyone.

[hhow55]

I'm seeing flatbed freight in pa. for $5 per mile
I know this going to cause an uproar
May want to checkout truckstop.com

[Lonestar10]

My dad has a friend with new $300,000 heavy haul western star for hauling windmill parts he makes money on the windmills but return heavy freights trying to pay 2.50 a mile or less. His truck trailer combo is capable of somewhere near 250k lbs can't remember axle count.

[Explosia]

(05-19-2020 )Rawze Wrote:  And yes, I absolutely know that I could make more somewhere else. Problem is that i do not want the headaches and responsibilities that come along with it. I am always seeking to minimize any needless amounts of "Efforts" or "Headaches" on the business side of things.

This is why I never will have my own authority. I’m leased to a big carrier also, and while I have to pay for many things that rawze doesn’t, it works for me because I dispatch myself. I could never be dispatched, I am way too picky about shippers and parts of the country I refuse to go, and also why I won’t pull nothing but a dry van. There is always freight, albeit most is cheap, but you are still able to move your truck and make something. I’m not as efficient as rawze, but I know how to work the board. Averaged 7 mpg for the last two weeks.

After sitting home for a month I came out and had a great week. After fuel and all deductions I brought home $3,900, then went home $1550 for last week, then did $4,576 this week, all on a company dry van. Could have made more if I had my own, which might be in my near future. I will say cheap fuel helped a lot the past three weeks.

And I owe all my success to rawze and this forum. Thanks all you guys for the info you post and especially huge thanks to rawze!

*Edit* And many thanks to Jerry too, without him and his great family, my job would be a lot harder!!