If it was so good when fuel was cheap then you should ask what marina is his yacht in. If fuel was .50 some people would still complain about how it used to be. :lol:

merrick, isn't your wife from Ecuador?

I know Bigmon. Believe me, people get annoyed with me sometimes cause I will ask the same quesiton over and over, but that's because people usually leave out details so I need to keep asking. No doubt this is a tough environment but I have been thinking;

At most my fuel is $.60 a mile. I am getting good fuel mileage and have an APU and I'm not paying $3.50 a gallon. I think it was DD60 who had reefer fuel at $.15 a mile but I don't think I am even close to that. Besides it seems I am doing better with the reefer fuel. I asked the reefer guy today and he said in the beginning it always burns more.

So that's about $.60 for fuel. Insurance is $14,000 for the year so based on 100,000 miles that's $.14. so that brings me up to $.74.

My truck payment is like $670 but that was with a lot down, actually how I did that was complicated so I'll just say $900 a month so that's about $.11 which brings me up to $.85. I don't know how to do depreciation but the accountant will be giving me some financials soon.

The trailer and APU is on credit but basically it's mine as I have the title and the money to pay it off. The trailer/reefer cost me $58,000 but divided by 7 is $8285 and divided by 100,000 is $.08 so that brings me up to $.96 a mile (I'm starting to get sick :? )

Then we have cellphone, load boards etc but I won't count those. First I've had the same cell phone plan for years. I do have the laptop card but I am getting several hundred back every month in cash back from buying fuel so I will use that money to offset those expenses.

Then I have maintenance, tires, ets but I don't know how much that all costs yet. But just from doing all of this off the top of my head, I can see if I ran for $1.00 a mile than I would be losing money. Say I had a driver with pay about $.35 a mile then basically there wouldn't be much left over.

Merrick. I punched your figures into my custom built truckers calculator and your cost per mile is $.38 cents so your doing fine!!

Yes she is. Isn't your's from Peru? Someone on here married a Peruvian. They are bitter enemies those two countries. Well maybe not bitter but they each claim the other stole. I went to a museum in Ecuador and they had the map of Ecuador and how Peru stole land.

This might seem a little long, but I'll try and illustrate my approach to the DH.

Say I'm quoting rates based on the following assumptions:

DH+OOR = 8%
Operating Costs / loaded mile = $1.30

With these in mind, I quote my loads at $1.50/mile loaded and $1.00/mile DH. That's just for the DH necessary to run the load i.e., distance to shipper or DH to exit a bad area. I don't worry about extra miles I might need, whether they're DH or OOR, to grab a shower, run around if there's a layover, etc.

When it comes time to evaluate performance, I do so on two levels. First, I evaluate based on the rates I'm getting. On the miles it takes to haul a load, am I getting paid enough? If I have to go 20 miles out of route because I want a nicer shower, those 20 miles aren't necessary to complete the job. This evaluation helps me figure out my position in relation to the market. If three trucks are all starting at the same place and then hauling the same load, how do you compare them if they all travel different distances to get the job done? You have to try to standardize in order to compare. Say two of us are bidding a load. Maybe my previous load required me to run all night and I didn't get a shower whereas my competitor is coming off a fresh 10-hour break. If the only shower on this next run is 20 miles OOR, I will be at a competitive disadvantage if I try to capture my cost in this bid. I try to evaluate each load's performance based on the most standardized scenario I can.

My second evaluation is more of a macro one. That's when I sit down, say at the end of the quarter, and look at overall profitability. I don't do this on a per load basis; only a period of time, in this case quarterly. Now, say I find that instead of the 8% DH+OOR I had assumed, I was actually running closer to 12%. Because I calculate my costs on a loaded mile basis these increased miles show up as an increased cost of say $.02/mile. From that point on (at least until my next evaluation) I base my bids on a loaded mile cost of $1.32 instead of $1.30.

One of the enemies of any business is wildly fluctuating costs. Costs are much easier to manage if you can smooth them out. You do this by accounting for them over a longer time horizon. Say you calculated your cost per mile on each load, graphed it, and connected the points. You'd have a line going all over the place due to headwinds, breakdowns, lumpers, etc. Now apply a best-fit line to that graph. You'd have a straight line. Which is easier to forecast off of? And that's what it's all about, predicting what your costs WILL be. It doesn't matter what they WERE, what's done is done. You either lost money or made money, neither one helps you tomorrow.

Simple, eh? :shock: :lol:

Basically it comes down to this; the cost to run any load is broken into two components. There are those things that are unique to the carrier i.e., cost to operate, desired profit, etc. Then there are those things that are unique to the load; miles, tolls, lumpers, and the like. In order to make the most competitive bid, you have to level the field as much as possible. The easiest way to start is to make sure the load your bidding on looks just like the load the next guy is bidding on.

Thanks Steve. I never was good with math, so I was hoping that I was in fact over counting. I'm glad it's $.38 cause the numbers I was coming up with was too high. :)

You are the last one who needs to comment on cost per mile...... :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Thanks No_Worries. Actually I'm going to need to read this a couple times. So I'll withhold any comments for the immediate moment.

He no_worries, when you coming back to work? :) Don't tell me you left the skiiing to now go jet skiing in Southern Cali. Boy aren't you the poster boy for living the life of an O/O :D

Yes, mine is from Peru. I have heard about the border disputes also. Ironic that those two poor countries without that much to lose, relatively speaking, don't hesitate to send their militaries to defend their borders, but half the world freaks when the US sends a few NG down to observe.

My wife lived near the border with Ecuador at one time and still has family there. I'll PM you with other related stuff.

Just learned on the history channel last night about the guano (bird poo) war between Chile and Bolivia in the 1870's. Evidently guano was worth it's weight in gold for fertilizer and those two went to war over bird poo.

Chile kicked the (bird)sh*t out of Bolivia and took the entire Bolivian coast and this is why Bolivia is a landlocked country today....ya I know, useless info but I love that stuff :)

Yes, Bolivia is worse off than Ecuador and Peru, partly because they lost their coastline to Chile. There is a current dispute between Peru and Chile regarding ocean water boundaries, lawsuit filed over it in the U.N., etc.

Peru has had a lot of trouble with it's neighbors. I didn't know that but from my wife of course and then I had a repairman come to my house from Chile and he was telling me a bunch of stuff.

I defenitely wouldn't say that those countries have nothing though. I'm not sure Redclay about the town where your wife lives but for instance in Ecuador I did see a lot of poverty but I also saw money. I have a very good friend from Peru, the capital Lima, and that kid has money too.

Red Clay, do you speak Spanish? I would love to establish a second home in Ecuador. Well actually my wife's mother still has the house there (she lives with us) but Ecuador uses the US Dollar as it's currency so it's not so cheap there. The food is, but I went into the mall and you would have thought you were here in the States.

I love useless info too geomon by the way :)

Merrick, Lets say for example you are averaging $1.48 on every mile driven. I belive you mentioned that # earlier in the thread. At a glance, you think that if your cost to run is roughly $1.00/mi. But isn't your 48 cent profit just about 100% tax-free-net? .

You are going to be deciding how fast to depreicate your $58k startup cap-ex, and even the slowest, most conservative rate is going to protect you from paying much income tax . If this was not true, your accountant would have you set up paying quarterly to IRS to avoid underpayment penalties on April 15th.

What worries me is that the in-frame is going to come due, and a set of rubber, etc, and then you will have to amortize that on top of the buck a mile number. The good news is you should be in line for at least a 20-25% decrease in your insurance premium, and you have become more efficient, and may also work into some of the FSC monies, and up your cpm rates 3 to 6 cents in '08.

Also, you may want to invest some cash in the USO fund, to hedge against fuel price spikes, but that threat seems to have subsided for winter, and with our economy dragging the world economy south, I see money leaving the fund now, and going into the bond market, so Im not advocating that move for now. In fact Oil has been selling off the steadily since Jan. 7th, and is testing the support level right now. If it punctures support, we are in store for some much needed relief on fuel prices. If not, I dont see what is going to drive it much higher for 90 days. Somewhere, I have an overlay chart of the strength of the US dollar, vs. the spot price of crude oil, and you can see how they are directly linked. Dollar strength is much more of a factor in oil price, than global demand fluctuations, contrary to popular belief.

Safe travels

Thanks Orange Andy. I actually don't know much about investing. Actually today I opened up a Roth IRA. My wife has her Series 4,7, & 24 but she's into compliance and doesn't know much about trading. This year we are going to start paying more attention. Plus she is learning more and more. Her company is about to start a hedge fund so she will be learning plenty.

I only have 380,000 miles on the truck so I don't think an in-frame will be any time soon. Also the tires are all still basically new. I just had a flat repaired and he said that tires can go down to 2/32nds I think it was and mine were at 13 or so. Plus I got the cat's eyes and this has been a GREAT decision. It takes nothing to walk around the truck when you stop to use the rest room and see if the tires are all properly aired.

Those things have saved me a couple of times already.

As for oil, my neighbor works for this company http://www.wfscorp.com/wfscorp/servi...anagement.html, pretty intresting but I don't understand much of it.

I am kind of a monomaniac. When I want to learn something I go crazy til I learn it. I personally love learning for the sake of learning and now am trying to learn the market and finances. My wife just got the WSJ online so I'll be reading that a lot now. I use to subscribe to the Economist, but like I said I learn just for the sake of learning. Now I have a business I need to be more disciplined in my learning.

That is I mean before I might go from reading some history book about the ancient Egyptians and the next day I could be reading some Mark Twain book. Now it's all about building this business.

Anyway thanks for all your comments and advice I appreciate it.

I forgot to answer your original question, I'm not sure about tax free but I have had some expenses that I don't plan on having again. I paid $1800 for that guy to dispatch me. I paid $900 for a tow bill, I had to buy a refridgerator, an inverter and a whole bunch of other stuff to get this going. My expenses have basically been dropping month by month as I have what I need now. The cat's eyes were like $800 too.

Of course there is always some expense, breakdown etc but I am doing my best to keep up on the maintenance.

Yo no puedo hablar perfectamente pero mas veces yo puedo hablar que quiero decir. :lol:

My wife grew up in Lima mostly, her family is middle-class in Peru, which would be considered upper-end poverty level living here. We would also like to retire to Peru someday, beach property is still cheap there but I bet that will change. The US dollar is also widely used in Lima, along with their currency. Most food, housing, clothing, taxis are cheap except in the few large dept. stores/malls in Lima which are like ours. Lima has a few nice areas and ALOT of extreme poverty in many areas.

Where in Ecuador is your wife from and how did you meet?

That company World Fuel Services I belive supplies to airlines, fleets, etc and based on their clients needs, guarantees them stability in fuel price and delivery up to 12 months out, (maybe even longer) so that those larger companys can price accurately, and ensure positive cash flow, without any surprises.

Dont worry about not knowing a lot about investing, just the fact that you admit it darn near saves you completely from rookie blunders. An easy topic to research, lots of info available. You will enjoy reading the Wall St. Journal, and one other that you may try a short subscription to is Investors Business Daily. IBD is very helpful to new investors. They used to have a 2 month free subscription.

And one more thing. Ive known and seen a lot of self-employed people in my 55 years. And many were not geniuses in their actual profession, just good, and consistent, but they made solid investments with a portion of their earnings, usually in real estate, and sound young businesses, and usually their portfolio out-earned their own work, after a few years. You seem like the type that could fit that pattern.

have a good weekend.

OH< ps, I was getting a trailer welded on, and a guy pulled up in a blue Mercedes powered rig hauling citrus from Ocala, Fla. Said he took something (forgot) to south TX, then brought oranges up here, to Fresno. Kind of surprised me, since this area grows the most next to Fla. But last years freeze hurt some of ours on water content. He said the bill instructed to run his reefer at a constant 39 degrees. Forgot the name, but he was a company driver. Trailer was an old dog, with half the lettering on the side wiped out! Thought of you when I heard Ocala, Fla.

merrick, I've been reading up on the market as well. If you have sirius sat radio (or tv) go to CNBC. Three shows I like are Fast Money, Cramer, Kudlow, at 5, 6, and 7 o'clock, respectively.

It's been real interesting lately, the bottoms dropping out, which is really what's needed.

Do you speak Spanish with a Tenn. accent? :) I remember one time I was using the word "cargar" which of course is to carry, but my Boston accent slipped in and I dropped the "r" and said "cagar" which is to defecate :)

Anyway my wife is from the capital, Quito. And we were actually introduced by a Peruvian. She was a supervisor where I was working, and basically she just introduced us. Best thing that ever happened to me. At the time, I was sort of new to Florida and was somewhat down on my luck and starting over again, and she was recent to this country and spoke little English and was starting over again too.

By that I mean she studied in her country but I've met doctors from other countries that basically need to start over here. She started working at a broker/dealer basically as a copy clerk for like $6 an hour. But as mentioned above she went on to get numerous licenses and is doing quite well. I am very proud of her.

How about you, how did you meet your wife? Can't imagine a heavy Latin population in Tenn. A lot of Peruvians down here. A lot of them have money too. As a matter of fact a lot of the Spanish have money here.
I listen to CNBC all day long. I've actually bought one of Cramers books and just ordered his new one. It's wierd now being home and watching the channel, I'm so used to just hearing it. I need to darken the screen so it seems the TV is off and just listen to it like I would the radio :). Actually I despise TV anyway and wouldn't even have one if it wasn't for my wife and her mother.

Actually I use to read the WSJ and did have a short subscription to IBD but like I've said I really was just reading just for the sake of learning. I always enjoyed the side stories they had but I really didn't get into the numbers side of things.

I'm the type that unless I'm actually doing something, it's hard for me to learn. For example, I can pick up languages very fast, but I could never just go to school and learn that way. I need to be in the mix of things. You really could drop me into downtown Moscow and I'll pick up Russian, or enough of it to get by in short order.

So with these numbers, now I have a direct reason to understand it, and hopefully I will pick it up quick.

It is wierd why they would send oranges to a area where they grow it. Maybe they originally came from Brazil which now grows more I think than the U.S..

Orange Andy, I'm sorry if you mentioned this before, but do you run reefer?

Anyway so now I'm home. I called the shipper I need to meet and he told me to come by next week. The wierd thing is my neighbor had a baby while I was gone, and yesterday some of their mail was in mine so I went over to give them their mail and see the baby.

To make a long story short, I got to talking with her and she is Brazilian. She works in exports/imports and again to make a long story short, she is about to start working with this shipper I need to meet. Small world.

She was telling me that she use to do a lot of business of bringing in things from Brazil but now with the rate of exchange and the economy that she is doing more of sending stuff there.

She told me to let her know if I find shippers that are exporting to Brazil. It was a short talk but I will talk with her again before I go as if she knows of people that are bringing in stuff here .. :D . She said a lot of the stuff that comes here goes on train as it is cheaper but eventually it goes on a truck. She doesn't deal with the transportation side but if I can get contacts.

I went into a WAMU branch today to ask a question and that place is wierd. There was no teller per se. There was just a big circle of podiums. I'm thinking this is the dumbest thing I have ever seen, that they are just begging to get robbed.

Well come to find out, the bank reps at each teller don't handle cash. They take care of the transaction and if you need cash they give you a piece of paper which you take to an ATM like machine on the back wall. The teller said he liked this system better as they don't handle cash.

You know probably since banks have existed they have been set up the same way, and really just when you think that you shouldn't recreate the wheel or that it isn't even possible someone goes and does it. It's kind of like "damn why didn't I think of this".

No, auto transport-11western states

Oh, so you're making the big money! :) :) I almost got into that myself.

MERRICK

With you liveing in South Fla I would think hauling cars would be a good thing for you ??? I see a lot of car haulers running in Fla all the time !!!!

I met my wife online back in late 1999, flew to Peru to meet her and we married about a year later. (I was specifically looking south of the border) My wife also was well educated, fluent in English and had a very good career in Peru working for the same university that she graduated from, teaching computing and working in the administrative offices also at times. Like your wife, mine also had to swallow her pride with her first jobs here, cleaning and nanny work for awhile until we translated and circulated her resume and it took off for her. Today she is a paralegal for a small law firm and recently her bosses offered to pay her way through a night law school here. I'm very proud of her also. Sounds like you and I did good. Alot of guys who marry women from third-world countries struggle with language, education, acclimation, etc. in their marriages.

Unfortunately I think there probably is a little Tennessee accent in my Spanish, but I try really hard to be neutral with my pronunciation. What is weirder is that some people are starting to hear a little Southern accent in my wife's English. :shock:

I have had to be careful with "cagar" vs. "cargar" also. Another time, a hot Mexicana on my route asked me if I was "casado". Sadly, at the time I thought she was asking me if I was tired. (cansado) :x Missed opportunity there!!

I'm pretty sure she was hungry and was asking if you had a casadia she could eat and you thought she said "can of soda"

We got it worked out eventually. :wink: :wink:

Merrick4 - I sent you a PM about Investors Business Daily.

Sorry been off the computer for a day or so, I got the PM and sent you one back. :)

Congratulatons Red Clay, it's sounds like you did very well too. That will be great if she ends up going to law school. Hell with yours going to law school and mine continuing on her current path maybe we can retire early :) .

That's funny about her having a Tenn accent. We live in Florida so mine doesn't "pahk her cah". However there was a kid in her class and I guess people were having a hard time understanding him but she understood him fine and it turns out he was from Boston.

Again congratulations and I wish you and you wife continued happiness and prosperity.

So been home for like a week or so now. Beautiful weather, in the 80's today but I'm bored. My wife went to Mexico last night for a few days for her work.

I went and met the shipper today. I think I am on the wrong track. Freight out of here is cheap and thinking of bypassing the broker doesn't seem like it would help that much.

He was telling me they pay about $1600 to Mass. That comes to $1.20 or so. I was talking with my friend and he told me you can always get cheap freight out of here, the thing is to find good freight coming in.

This has me confused. It's a lot easier to get good freight coming in then out. I didn't think that would be the problem.

Some areas have been so cheap for so long that even the shippers know...I think I told you about the asparagus wholesaler down there.

Remember, it's a different deal for a guy driving his truck than it is for a small company with drivers. You can tailor your schedule to fit freight to a large extent. Nothing good headed to FL this week, do some other loads until you find a decent one. When you've got trucks and drivers, you have to get people home for TAH, you have to get trucks home for scheduled maintenance, etc. On any given day from any given area finding that good rate to FL might be tough. I wouldn't be headed to FL from here anytime soon, I'll tell ya that :shock:

At least it's warm there...I'm freezing my ass off. Some vacation :roll: :lol:

First my condolences on the weather :) :) . Actually it's been relatively cool here but today was real nice. I bought the local paper and was looking at the weather around the country and christ it's cold out there. Like 30 in Detroit and I saw Soutern Cal in the 50's I think. This is paradise here though I had to go into Hialeah today and that is one nasty part of the city. Also went through Liberty City.

So no_worries, it's not so easy to get here as I thought then. But you say on any given day... finding that good rate to FL might be tough but what I don't understand is why? I mean if there is no freight out of here and plenty going in, then in my naive way I'm thinking every load coming in is good. Why doesn't it work that way?

Actually I spent a few hours with my friend the other day. I was showing him some of the things I picked up since I've been out there like fuel routing and stuff. He was shocked. I was watching his dispatcher work, and really I think as far as just running the truck I am doing better on my own then if I was him. He knows I want to work with him again and he knows what I can offer. He even made the point that I am contributing more then he can (showing him all that stuff). He has 14 trucks plus 2 other he works with plus mine comes to 17.

So I can offer 17 trucks. I just need to capitalize on the capacity. Like I said he told me to try and find good inbound freight. Like I said though I remember LCT showing me their customer list and explaining why I needed to keep returning to Florida (I wanted to roam around the country) so from this I assumed that they could come in cheaper as they had good paying freight out. Well a lot of that was juice and that's not good paying so maybe they had freight out not good paying freight.

Boy the headaches of having drivers. When I was at the office they were trying to track down a truck who didn't make it to his delivery. They had to pull up cell phone records and they finally located him. The girl that answered said he had a panic attack and went to the hospital and was given a shot. This girl was supposedly his fiancee but the guy is married.
My friend was a lot cooler than I would have been. I don't brook foolishness nor irresponsibilty lightly. Finish you work then go fool with the girl. That was a possible claim situation.

Everything is not so cut and dried as it would seem. There are regions where you can probably find a good-paying load to FL nearly everyday. But there will always be some days when you can't. Maybe a shipper is shut down that week, so suddenly there isn't the normal volume of outbound in the area. Or there's a rush of inbound for some reason leading to more trucks looking for freight. That's what makes the spot market what it is, things vary from day to day. Wait until things start hopping in FL, you'll see rates headed south go in the toilet.

The thing about the spot market is things are fairly relative. Say you're in WI and on a normal day there are 800 outbound loads and rates to FL are $3.00. The next day there are 500 loads, for whatever reason. You wouldn't expect those loads heading to FL to still be going for $3.00. Sure they'll be higher than everything else, but that does you little good.

You can't count on any area always having good rates on any given day. Anything can and will happen in the spot market. You can count on trends. Rates to FL will usually be higher than anywhere else 8-9 months out of the year. Being small makes you nimble, you can sit, you can DH, you have options because you should be running at a higher margin. The larger a company the smaller the margin...generally. That's because a much higher proportion of your expenses become fixed rather than variable the larger you get. At some point those trucks have to generate a minimum amount of revenue, regardless of the margin.

You can't always find cheap freight out of FL...at least on the spot market. There will be days when you call on anything that pops up and it's gone. People with contacts, like LCT and your friend, have a ready source of loads. For them that statement is true. However, if it was true for everybody, they wouldn't get what they do on the loads coming in. Many carriers don't want anything to do with FL because they're worried about having to lay a truck over of DH out. If it doesn't pay enough to DH out, they won't go in. Your friend and LCT have a competitive advantage because they know they can get out. Even if it's cheap freight, they have a starting point. If they know they'll get $1.20 coming out, they also know they need $2.20 going in...or whatever their number is. Carriers that don't have an outbound source either have to get enough to DH or gamble that they'll find something. That's not a strong position from which to quote a rate. You have a competitive advantage too, albeit slightly different; you live in FL. This means that even though you don't have a reliable source of outbound, you can comfortably wait until something pops up. A company couldn't afford to do that with a driver.

First thanks for the replies no_worries, I appreciate it. :) So if I understand you right, there seems to be more of an advantage of trying to get steady freight, albeit cheap stuff, out of here. That's why I didn't understand my friends assertion that it's better to find good paying stuff in.

Really now that I think of it, he has the freight out but once he's out there he loses that competitive edge. So to find good paying freight IN is what's best for him, and probably not a good general statement.

What amazes me is he didn't understand much about the IFTA stuff, he was letting his drivers fuel up wherever (and for some reason most people that aren't paying for fuel themself hate the Flying J which means he's overpaying) and he is doing some things financially wrong, yet he is making money. Maybe not much but he isn't losing.

This is a tough business. Me personally I am very impulsive and I am always looking to get things done quick. This is not going to be a quick venture. All in all things are going well I think but I still have no idea where I am going to take this.

I was reading yesterday about the guy that founded Citrix (some computer thing) and he's loaded and he retired then got into chartering airplanes or something but realized that it was a tough business with low profit margins. He's into airplanes again but another angle.

But reading that reminded me that I should not get too fixated on this trucking thing. If this doesn't work then move on.

I think as you say no_worries a small operation is much more flexible. I am reducing my expenses month by month and I think in the not to distant future everything will be paid for. Which means I will have a decent stream of income and there is where I get stuck.

What's next? I ask this over and over daily, what's next? In my heart, I believe becoming very wealthy is not that hard. If one is disciplined then that is more than half the battle. I just recently got a check for a little over $11,000. I knew it was coming but didn't know when. It has been a few years pending. You know what I did with that money? I paid off two of the credit cards I have. I didn't even so much as go out for a fancy supper.

If you are disciplined and are smart with money, then success can't be far behind. I'm hoping anyway :)

Anyway this more has been just me musing than anything else. I appreciate the feedback no_worries and all others too. I have been thinking I wish I had more people like this around me; I wish I could get involved with an investment group. You talk to people sometimes and it's just nonesense.

That's why I didn't mind not being home for the holidays. I remember not too long ago one member of the family (by marriage) and who's always in a finacial mess, well I was over his house and he was standing there pointing to his new flat screen TV to show me and I'm thinking you are an idiot.

Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with those things for those that want them but this guy is always in a mess, well him his wife and 2 kids, and looking for people to bail him out. I get around people like that and I cringe. (don't get me started on the $900 dog he bought).

It's one thing I like about this board, for the most part it's a positive exchange of ideas. I have more of a hope of making tomorrow a better day reading things here than I do standing there looking at an idiot pointing at his TV that he can't afford.

Ok that's enough. :) You see, the wife leaves me for a few days and it's like I'm back in the truck pondering on things .

LOL, I'd tell you to hit the road but I've seen the FL loadboard :roll: Enjoy the sunshine 8) We're getting tornado warnings and lost power for an hour and a half this evening :shock: I wish I could afford to work right now :lol:

If you looking for stock/mutual funds investment groups you might try American Association of Individual Investors (www.aaii.com).

I am glad to see that you used that money wisely, merrick. Most people would have opted for short term gratification and blown the entire check.

Merrick,

Their is a salesman at Best Buy that's pissed of at you for not coming in and spending it all on TV's. :lol:

Thanks ncnewbie, but unfortunately I live in a truck :) so that is out for now.

By the way Cramers book came yesterday, Stay Mad for Life and so far it's good.

I signed up with a new broker today that I had read about in a produce journal. They haul stuff into Florida and then load the trucks out. He said that unless you take their product into Florida you will not be first on the list to get the stuff out.

Those things don't seem to work out too well. It's like when H&M wanted me to do a free ltl back to their warehouse and then they would load me out to Florida. They wanted me to tie up the truck with a multi-drop load to Florida that would have taken me about 4 days for $2300.

Seems like I am doing best just putting my truck in an area that they need a truck and getting those last minute deals. That seems to be how I'm operating. That's all good for one truck but that's not possible for a multi-truck operation.

I'm itching to get back out already. I was talking to someone in Ecuador today. She stated that interest rates are about 19% there. I think that was for homes. There is so much opportunity in this country. Constatly I am trying to figure out the best way to proceed. Probably the answer is right in front of my face and I just don't see it.

This type of approach and thinking towards running your business will bring you success.

I appreciate the comments. Actually I shouldn't be praised for not spending that money.

I read something once in one of those old religious texts (I'm not religious) "Who is strong? He who controls his passions".

So as Gman said I could have gone for short term gratification but in truth I have no desire to buy anything; better the praise for someone who really wants to buy something and then holds himself back.

Well I guess it shows I'm bored; I should have went to Mexico with my wife. She was in an office all day, but I'm sure I could have found something to do in Mexico City :)