Yes I heard it on CNBC
I think I read about it several years ago in the Economist magazine. I use to love that magazine. Don't have the time anymore.
Well today was something else. I woke late, well normal for me but I wanted to get up kind of early to start looking for a load but it was 10AM.
I was gonna run over to Mcdonalds to get my iced coffee and I hear someone say something behind me; I turned around with my fists up and it was TealKW. First person I met from this board now. Nice conversation we had; it was nice to put a face to the name. Actually I didn't even get his real name. But nonetheless we had a nice talk.
So then I run over to McDonalds get back to the truck and post the truck. I must say I wasn't prepared for what happened. I wish I had 50 trucks because today was a money day.
Just an aside, I heard that Lester Coggins of LCT was a real jerk; that he didn't care if you made $50 a week. All he cared about was having the trucks for the big flower days. They must make some serious money on those days.
Well the first call was for a load from Georgia to Penn. He was paying over $3.00 a mile and with deadhead it was about $2.50. I was close to saying yes but then I realized something I hadn't planned for, namely Christmas Eve. I wasn't sure if I could get a load that Monday so if not I would be sitting in Penn. til Wednesday and worse in the cold and worse I'd have to reload out of Penn. But $2500 for basically one day run was tempting. It was the first call and I just didn't want to say yes.
Next call was from TQL. A load from Miss. to Cali. It was about 1866 loaded with about 211 dh. He said it normally pays $2400 but what would I do it for as they all knew today was payday. I told him $3800 and he said he would check with his customer.
A couple other calls in the meantime, one was to Chicago with no dh and paid over $2.00 a mile. Of course it didn't start off at that but I told him I am being offered serious money and so he goes up to $1800 for I think it was 786 miles. What to do, what to do. I don't want to sit in Chicago for several days either.
Well TQL calls back and says the guy will do $3300. In the meantime I realized I worked for this broker before and actually had a good experience with them and got paid very well (that was the $1.70 to Montana) So that was about $1.57 a mile to California. I was hesitating, and he asked if I could help them out. I told him I'm here to work not to help people out, really not in those words but I am running a business, a for profit business not a charity one.
I didn't want it for that rate cause I mean I could get $1800 for much less miles and be in a good area. He puts me on hold cause I asked if he could confirm a reload out, and he comes back and offers $3500 which is over $1.60 all miles to California. So I said yes. Not sure how smart that was in hindsight but this was for a few reasons.
I am starting to vaguely formulate a plan out here and I would like to work certain lanes and California isn't what I'm working on right now, but also I need to keep the money rolling. I have heavy credit card debt for buying all of this stuff. I have the money in the bank but I want the debt payed off and still have the money in the bank. This month has been good so I will do this and work my way back and probably end up with $5,000 grand or so after fuel and that's that.
Also to be honest, and I know I will catch flack for this, but I don't want to be sitting in the cold for 5 days. I hate it more than you can imagine, not dislike, not "this sucks", HATE WITH A FIERCE PASSION.
Anyway I'm not sure of the rates out there, but we'll find out. I'm going to Santa Fe Springs which is I guess right outside of L.A. I have decided that I will stay out til the end of January. I'm thinking L.A. is a good place for freight but we'll find out.
And to be honest all I ever hear for Cali is $1.00 a mile or so. Yes I wouldn't take that but someone is every single day. So I'm thinking this was a good rate. Any thoughts on this. No_worries? BigD?
By the way, the load I took from Arkansas which was good money, that guy wanted to "put me on the board" and run my truck. But I didn't want that. I plan on running my own board, not someone else's 8)