Yes this is really a great forum. Everyone helps out n we all get along. It's amazeing to see all the help n progress that comes from this. Sure hope it stays this way.


Stay Safe Ya'll

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


You know, Teal95KW and I were talking the other day, and he brought up a really good point. Steve has said on several occasions that he has about $20,000 in the bank, so he must be making money. But we realized, he has no truck or trailer payment. If he had a truck and trailer payment, he'd likely be running in the hole right now (or darn near to it). Even a modest truck payment of $1000, and a trailer payment of $500 eats up about $18,000 of the $20,000 he's managed to put in his bank account.

Yup. Depreciation is a bitch. Even if you pay cash for your truck/trailer you still have to account for your future replacement costs. This, I think, is why some independents with paid off equipment are still managing to survive. They are living of the money they should be setting aside for equipment replacement and ROI.

If you had put a little time in learning to tarp and secure from the start you wouldn't be having any problems. A first week trainee with any of the flatbedding companies seems to know as much as you in a year of practice. If you had gone six weeks with a trainer you would have been much better off.

IF he'd done everything exactly the way his naysayers say he SHOULD'VE done things, he'd be broke and in debt and hate driving a truck.

The REALITY is he's profiting and learning and having a great time. He just happens to be a smart guy with the cash put back and went at this the way things work for him.

That just sucks don't it?

Maybe the husband should make more money so she doesn't have to clean houses.

Actually I have almost $28k at the moment and would have more than that if I didn't buy the Rigmaster and a million other goodies that I wanted but didn't really need. A truck and trailer loan for what I have would not have been $1,500 per month like you as stated.

I think I'm in pretty darn good shape to weather the storm that I think is happening right now. I think many independents won't last the winter unless rates come up.

November 19th is my one year anniversary that I started hauling loads. How much longer before I go down the tubes? I could be a bed bugger like you guys use to and make $400,000 a year like you guys made. Still can't figure out how you two failed at it. Maybe you could start a thread and explain so the rest of us don't make the same mistakes and God forbid, end up setting up cubicles for a living.

And so what if it took me like 10 tarp jobs before I realized the bungees are better off on the bottom D ring. My God, run for the exit ramps, it's a flatbed with bungees one D ring too far up. The maniac!!!

My old boss gave me a number to call for a cleaning lady. I called and she said the price was $300 per hour and that included 2 maids with a variety of uniforms that I could pick from. All righty then. NEXT

I'm shut down early for the day because I realized I will be in Philly on Tuesday right around the end of my hours and I'm not going to deal with that scenario again. I will be hot, sweaty, dirty and have to drive hours illegally before I can be any place to park for a while and I'll be tired. So I decided to pace myself and I'll show up first thing Wed morning then off for home.

Well, time to read Paris Hilton's blog and send her another letter. She still hasn't answered yet. Gonna try putting Brut on the letter this time.

Wow - you'd have more money in the bank if you hadn't paid expenses. Who knew.

Really? Because that was a $50,000 loan, $10,000 down. Your truck and trailer combined cost less than $50,000?

Let me know when you have to suddenly replace your truck, which you've already stated you'll have to take out a loan to do.

Used to? I wasn't aware that I was out of it. But go straight to your comfort zone, with the nice personal attacks.

Maybe you could explain how you are so delusional.

Oh yeah - I got paid on that job. Just over $2900 for 2 days work. Subtract out a little less than $1200 for my labor, and I'm left with about $1700 for driving 50 miles. I wish I would have been the other I/C who was running that job. He got about $7500, because he had more trucks and labor. And not one cubicle had to be hauled or set up. 8)

I do find it humorous that as soon as someone points out a chink in your armor, you instantly go on the attack. Makes it pretty clear that I'm probably right.

First off..Steve is not profiting yet...in order for him to "profit", he has to make the purchase price of the truck/trailer, and all of his start-up expenses BACK. Once he makes that $100k back, or so that he used to get everything all set-up...then, the money that he takes in AFTER ALL OF HIS EXPENSES could be called PROFIT. You must break even before you start making money, otherwise you are just re-building your bank account.

Secondly, I never said that I made $400k a year...I said that there are guys who do it, if you want to be perfectly honest, I only made $138k last year, for 8 months of work, and I walked away with about $64k from that, after my "truck expenses"..(fuel, maint, labor etc.) I still had to pay for the roof over my head, pickup payment, insurance on my mustang, pickup, insurance on them etc. But, for a 26 year old single guy that's not bad dough. I did not FAIL in the business, my truck was bought and paid for by my DAD..he was able to do that for me, and I got out of Household due to the market being in the dump, the price/quality of labor etc., I'm alot happier now that I'm not doing it anymore. My dad is a VERY successful business man with a VERY profitable business, and that..ultimately is what I am going to do, I don't love trucking, I don't love trucks..I hate everything about the industry and always have, I was just LUCKY enough to have someone who was able to bank-roll me a endeavor I had always wanted to do..I did it, I made pretty good money, and I sold it. Nowhere in there is failure.

If steve wants to make money he's going to have to haul challenging items, things that your average CRST MALONE driver can't haul..buy a step deck, haul TALLER permit loads, oversize/weight, steel pays pretty well too..buy a rolling tarp trailer, or a covered wagon set-up and I guarantee you that if you aren't lazy with how you run things you can make alot more money hauling those types of things, and learn to stay off of loadboards...get in good with some specialized type accounts, and I can guarantee you will make more money. THat's why specialized pays more...it takes a higher skill level/different equipment to haul it.

1900 lbs. overweight? I just came out of nebraska all the way home..1100 miles, ran it straight through, at 82,500 lbs....people do it all the time, be a man grow a set and get to truckin.

I'd also like to add, that as long as it seems to take him to get places, with ihs stopping to have coffee, or sleep etc. makes my head hurt. I've ran over 30k miles in the past 2 months...I'm home every other weekend...I don't screw around, I get in sit down and get it over with..that's the key to it..I set the cruise at 70 or so, with a 12 pack of cokes in the fridge and a couple pack of smokes and I don't stop and play around...amazing how much more productive you are when you run like that.