From hauling desks to Landstar's authority Part 1
 

I figured I might as well start one of these things, since they are so popular here.

Sitting in XXXXXXXXXXX right now. Just delivered a 4400 lb shipment. Total miles: 1002 (including deadhead). Total days involved: 1 1/2. Total revenue: $2009.70. Fuel costs: $742.20.

Now I'm burning up 10 hours in the sleeper waiting for a reload at the same place I just unloaded at, heading to either XXXXXXXXX or XXXXXXXXX. Then I'll probably get another reload heading right back here, where I will repeat ad nauseum.

I was running short runs out of XXXXXXXXXXXX last week. Average trip was about 200 miles (including 50% deadhead miles), and they paid me around $450 on average. I did 6 of them last week, and 2 this week. Product supply issues have put that on hold for a little bit, but they were pretty easy runs, and they were close to home.

The learning curve here lasted about 2 weeks while I learned how to use the Landstarve system. There's a lot of crap on the board that nobody in their right mind (and Steve Booth) would haul. Still, I've managed about $11,000 in the 3 1/2 weeks I've been here, and most of that has been in the past 2 weeks. Running straight off the load board is a recipe for disaster, but if you get in good with a few agents, you'll have more work than you know what to do with.

There. I just provided more real information in a single post than Steve has in 4 threads. I eagerly await the claims of BS.

That's BS, MISTER!!!!!!!!!!!!
There's no way the town of XXXXXXXXXXX has that much good paying freight, it's all cheap.

:roll: :roll: fuel sounds too low.

That's one big f-ing town 200 miles??????? :roll: :roll:

Fixed

:roll: :roll: :roll:

:lol: :lol:

I forgot, congrats on the new gig Rev. 8)

ROFLMAO :lol:

Got 196 gallons at the Pilot for $3.779 per gallon, of which I'll get back $0.04 per gallon next Monday. I checked the cost plus prices for TA and Petro, and they were around $3.99 per gallon. Can't wait for those prices to hit the pumps.

I'm purposely leaving the cities out, because pretty much everything I'm hauling never hits the load boards, and the agents I'm working with are running only this freight. I'm being protective of my loads.

Worst load I hauled was from Moorhead, MN to St. Paul, MN for fuel money. $251.63 on 385 miles (including my 140 mile deadhead from Milbank, SD). That was the third load I hauled. I won't be doing it again.

hi

Whats the temperature in XXXXXX?

it's XX degrees dontcha know?

It is exactly XX degrees at 5 pm, but it was XX degrees earlier.

haha I beat you to it Rev.

Deal with it!

Sorry, I was just taking care of the complaints of negativity right off the bat. :wink:

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

Congrats Rev. I enjoyed my time there, you will do well. Assuming you did your orientation in Rockford have you met Steve Hoefer yet? He is someone to have in your corner if you should bump up against the nazis in Jacksonville. You'll meet him when you go through CABS class, good luck.

I think I met him briefly at orientation. There were only 2 of us - myself, and one other gentleman who spoke very little English, and kept asking if he could run 2 logbooks. :lol: He'll do just fine. :lol:

That's it. I'm reporting you to the admi.....oh wait, nevermind.

hey I noticed first!!!!

I have a couple of sharp tools in my shed. :lol:

Worst load I hauled was from Moorhead, MN to St. Paul, MN for fuel money. $251.63 on 385 miles (including my 140 mile deadhead from Milbank, SD).




:lol: :lol: :lol: .65cpm out of MN. :lol: Go Landstarve. What a joke. Rates out of Mn. are usually in the 2.30-2.50pm range.

Yeah. I ran a 140 mile load for $251.63 instead of deadheading the rest of the way like I had originally intended. So sue me.

If you say so.

so where were we?


(in from steves thread)

"We" are still waiting to get loaded. :wink:

So you need a lumper?

Thats gonna cost ya. :P

I don't do lumper loads.

Just wait till you end up in an area where the so-called agents you are supposedly IN with have no freight and the only load available is a nice load of Kelly tires. :lol: Have fun delivering those to Green bay and they might even give you a uniform and a free candy bar for helping out with rolling off the tires. :lol: :lol:

Sounds like you are speaking from experience. :lol:

Sounds like the service is terrible at that bar :P

I do not want to be left out..... I'm in Burley, ID and on to Chicago with potted trees that are paying 2.65 a mile and only one stop....

$.65 cents per mile. Your on your way to success.

.....and I'm getting a broken leaf spring replaced. Yay!

Nope,but I talked to some that did,and they all had an attitude very similar to yours. :lol:

That seems about right for potted trees. Actually if it is only one drop I would say that is a really good rate. Maybe I won't have to run all the way up to Portland and pay that stupid weight receipt after all. :lol:

When I worked for May back in 2004, that's all we ran leaving Brooks going back east for almost 3 months in the spring. Leave home with shrubs and then get back as soon as possible for a couple days off and the repeat.

I went to some crazy places hauling that stuff. Cape Cod, Eastern Long Island, Maine. Good times.

You're :roll:

I'll just take a page out of the Steve Booth Trucking Handbook™, and forget about the deadhead miles.

My deadhead miles are under 5 from my house to the nursery..... I did not calculate those into the rate..... :lol: :lol: :lol:

Rev, good luck with landstarve.

I wish they'd pay more percentage, I'd consider moving to them. I know generally Canadian loads don't pay well for some reason.

What!!! I'm offline for 48hrs and,
rank's breaking leaf springs,
floored has an OTR gig now,
rev is leased to Landstar,......and taking care of the grammar on this thread also!!!
Fu*k,...I'm going back to sleep :!:

HAHA - no, I'm still sitting at home.. but I might be starting a OTR gig again here in a week or two, I got the job, just gotta decide if I am ready to go back to work like that.

Some of the Canadian loads I've looked at paid decent. I just did a quick search for loads heading to Alberta, and they were ranging anywhere from $1.95 to $3.40 per mile, pre-percentage (so at 65% that would be $1.26 to $2.21 per mile for dry van loads. Whether or not those include the FSC is unknown) Flatbed loads were in the $3.25 range (flatbed gets 73%, so that $3.25 is really $2.37) with some going as high as $7.32 per mile for 1100 mile trips from Tacoma, WA to Ft McMurray, AB.

Of course, there were some garbage loads on the board as well, but those are pretty easy to weed out with their online system. They have a system that will automatically call and/or email you whenever a load hits the board that meets your criteria, be it origin, destination, rate, etc. They also have one that follows you, and automatically changes the origin city. Both of the agents that I'm pulling for were found this way. A lot of thought went into this load board system.

Every once in a while, I get a phone call from an agent trying to sell me on a load, but for the most part, I am solely relying on the "follow me" system (which I have set to only call me on loads that pay over $2.25 per mile gross - the reason I have it set at $2.25 is because some agents are not including the FSC in the rate, and $2.25 plus the FSC is pretty close to my minimum that I'll haul for).

That is one of my pet peeves with the load board - some agents include the FSC in the posted rate, others do not. Some agents put right on the load board that the FSC is included, others do not. There is no uniform standard when it comes to posting loads. I understand why some agents include the FSC in the rate - it makes their crap loads look better. It's just annoying when I can't figure out what a load is really paying without making a phone call to the agent.

So I finally got loaded this morning, after waiting for about 19 hours. I went in expecting a long wait. The place I loaded at was a military warehouse. I was bringing parts for armored military vehicles to an assembly plant. They required that I have 11 hours available to me before they would load me, although that really wasn't an issue, lol.

Other than the snowstorm that slowed me down a little, and the 60 extra miles I drove thanks to missing an exit on the toll road, the trip was pretty easy. Fuel prices shot up big time. I paid $3.939 per gallon, of which I will be getting back $0.04 per gallon next week.

Total miles = 667 (should have been right around 600, but I missed my exit)
Total days involved = 1 1/2 (stupid waiting time)
Total deadhead = 0
Revenue = $1309.00
Fuel = $777.87

They said I could park in their lot for the night, and since I'm out of hours, I'm going to do just that. Not sure if the agent is going to have anything for me to load this weekend, and I didn't look at the load board at all today for a reload. We'll see what tomorrow brings. I'm not sure that I want to drive through that snowstorm again. From what I heard, 12" will have fallen when it is done on Sunday morning. I plan to go back to get some more of these loads. I could do 2 1/2 round trips a week easily.

$.04 back per gallon? Is that normal?

That's at Pilot, where my discount ranges anywhere from $0.02 per gallon to $0.06 per gallon off the cash price. Pilot refunds once per week rather than giving the discount at the time of purchase.

At TA, I get what is called "cost plus". TA advertises their fuel cost for each truck stop on an automated phone system. I get the fuel at their cost, plus $0.02 per gallon. So if they paid $3.75 per gallon for the fuel, then my cost would be $3.77, even if the pump price was $3.85. TA is a good place to fuel immediately after the price of oil goes down, as their cost immedately reflects the lower oil price. The opposite holds true when the price of oil goes up. TA's discount is immediate.

Landstar has an excellent purchasing program called LCAPP. You can get discounts on pretty much anything that has to do with the truck, including the truck itself. They get very good fuel discounts because they have 8000+ trucks behind them.

Oh. I thought this was an FSC. Four whole cents not really gonna help much!

Me and the g/f just received a Shell Mastercard that gives us a discount of $.15-.17 per gallon. Buy the fuel like normal, pay the bill each month, we save about $10 per month.