#26 So You Want to be an Owner Operator Flatbed Truck Driver More Money Talk

the only difference between going sitting in the truck stop and going down the road is the price of fuel [Applause] [Applause] all right let's try this all right ah I thought I'd talk some more about the money um I know I was gonna talk about trucks and what kind of truck you should get in leasing everything but I think people are more interested in the money so um where we left off last time was a dollar fifty a mile per mile for every mile you put on your truck deadhead going to the house every mile I don't truck you need to average about a dollar fifty per mile so I wanted to touch on a couple of things because people get hung up I see a lot of new young owner operators they get hung up on the rate per mile and the deadhead miles that I'm not going to deadhead more than 100 miles to go get a load or the rate per mile is too cheap I'm not going to I'm not going to do it they think every loads going to pay two dollars a mile every loop doesn't pay 200 dollars a mine so I wanted to kind of explain my thinking or my theory on that that you know instead of breaking it down by per mile hey I'm not going to haul anything less per mile start breaking it down by I need to make X amount of dollars per day and I'll go back to our list here of our expenses like said these are rough rough rough estimate you got your truck trailer fuel maintenance and yourself it all comes out to thirteen thousand five hundred dollars rough estimate so and like we said you want to average a dollar 50 mile which i think is very obtainable and you want to do about ten thousand miles a month too many miles for me but you can do ten thousand mile month easy not too bad works out to fifteen thousand dollars a month gross so the thing that guys get hung up with is that they want a rate per mile or I'm not going to deadhead but if you break it down to you want to do 10,000 miles a month 30 days in a month that's 300 300 excuse me that's 333 miles point 3 3 3 3 blah blah blah so we'll say 333 miles a day average for 10,000 miles a month so that works out to a dollar a day a dollar fifty per mile times 333 equals 500 dollars a day so that's your goal is to make $500 a day 30 days a month so guys get hung up on well I'm not going to goop deadhead and get a load well when you are sitting in the truck stop and what I do it when you're sitting in the truck stop right here there it is these expenses don't stop meaning your truck payment your trailer payment and your maintenance and you got to pay yourself these expenses don't stop when you're sitting the only thing that the only expense that stops when you're sitting in the truck stop is the fuel and I always say the difference between sitting in the truck stop and going down the road is the price of fuel that's the only difference so when you're driving down the road the only extra expense that you have driving down the road is your cost of fuel all your other expenses are still clicking away every day so if you break down all your bills to a monthly amount like I did here the truck payment trailer payment your maintenance because you still got to maintain your truck no matter if you drive 7,000 miles or 10,000 miles you still have the maintenance and you got to pay yourself you still got your house payment everything else so that works out the only thing missing out here is fuel so that works out to 80 $700 a month divided by 32 hundred and ninety dollars a day so that's how much it cost you per day 30 days a month is 290 dollars a day that includes your truck payment your trailer payment your maintenance and paying yourself so your goal at a bare minimum is to make 300 dollars a day 290 dollars a day so the only difference between going sitting in the truck stop and going down the road is the price of fuel you still have to you still have those daily bills rolling every day so when you decide hey I'm going to sit in the truck stop over the weekend and wait for this load because it pays you know five cents per mile more well because you've sat in the truck stop that clock is still ticking so your daily rate is still going on 290 dollars a day that's five hundred and eighty dollars come Monday morning that you need to make to pay for the last two days that you set in the truck stop now I know that it sounds weird and it's an odd way of thinking about it but that's how I think about it is and my coordinator shout-out to my coordinator because she knows who she is she watches these so my coordinator I tell her hey I want to make $500 a day no matter how I do it I want to make $500 a day that's kind of my minimum so I'm gonna give you an example when I talked to you last time I was doing that load from Kentucky Del Paso El Paso back to Kentucky I just delivered that load this morning in Kentucky uh freights been really slow this week's been really hit and miss and and where I was in Kentucky I thought you know I'd do a lot better finding a load nothing was hidden my coordinator she calls me yesterday afternoon says hey Dan what are you going to do there's no loads what do you want to do she says I know you don't want to sit over the weekend I said no I need to make something over the weekend and that's one that's why I say that that click is always that that clock is always ticking you know the cash register every day wants $290 $290 $290 so you're sitting in the truck stop or you say hey I don't wanna I don't want to go do this you know that that catchers are still going around so she says uh so we start looking further out further out further out I got offered a load going to North Carolina paid okay but North Carolina is a bad spot but deadhead was really low it was like 70 miles 50 60 miles dead had to go get it which would have been fine with me go to North Carolina get to North Carolina we'll figure it out from there luckily that load canceled I say luckily because it wasn't my first choice to do but that was the only thing going on and right as it canceled she says hey they just popped a load in out of Cincinnati going to Michigan I said really it pays two dollars and 80 cents a mile so that load but let's see here we go but so this is my first load Kentucky to Texas I had zero deadhead to go pick it up my second load Texas to Kentucky I only pay the dollar 20 mile is dirt cheap okay I delivered in Kentucky today and I'm sitting up here by Cincinnati Ohio right now it was a hundred and fifty mile deadhead to go get this load but it's only going 335 miles Ohio to Michigan a lot of guys look at that and go oh hell no I'm not going to do that look at this it pays two dollars and 80 cents a mile a total of and I rounded it up that's why I cross that line through there nine hundred and forty dollars nine hundred and forty dollars to go 335 miles I have three hundred and thirty-five miles worth of fuel in my truck so I got a buy no fuel so you look at this deadhead a lot of guys see that deadhead and go man I'm not gonna do that why am I going to I did it but you look at that they said ma'am wait a minute I can go get that and still come out ahead go into Michigan and I know when I go to Michigan I can do okay as soon as I took it I told her what I wanted BAM five minutes it pops in the computer she says hey you just got offered a load Michigan back down to Kentucky and I knew exactly what it was where it was 70 mile dead had to go get it so this trip is kind of a funny trip because the holiday weekend so I took two days out for the weekend so we're looking at twelve thirteen days twelve thirteen days total trip when I deliver this on Tuesday and I know you're not posed to count your eggs before chickens before they hatch but anyway on Tuesday I will have driven a total a total of four thousand miles I would have grossed a total of six thousand four hundred and eight dollars for four thousand miles which averages out to a dollar sixty a mile so that goes back to what I said a dollar fifty a mile is your goal so when you have that truck payment when you have a trailer payment and you have that maintenance and you have your own personal bills if you stop and break those down to a daily amount it'll give you an idea I got to make this much money every day and and you don't get too hung up on the rate per mile or I'm going to deadhead or I'm not going to deadhead you know I see a lot of guys at man I'm not going to deadhead up 150 miles well at my company Mercer they enter all that into computer and you know if you tell your coordinator hey I'm not going to dead more dead head more than hundred miles they won't offer you anything that's more than a hundred miles away well there could be a load 105 miles away but you're not going to see it because you said I don't want to deadhead more than hundred miles or you said I'm not gonna haul it for less than say a dollar ninety a mile and you know guys kind of get fascinated with these figures and the main thing you want to look at as owner/operator at the end excuse me is at the end of the month you want to look at your mom you can't look at every single load as um this is how much I want to make you got a look start looking at the big picture so you look at weekly you look at monthly you can look at quarterly every three months and then you could look at yearly so you might have a period in there where you might dip down below a dollar 50 a mile but then you know summertime freights good starts picking back up and you're going to dip back up to a dollar sixty-five well at the end of the picture at the end of the month end of the year you're looking at all you know what I did okay so you can't get fixated on just a certain amount or I'm not going to deadhead to go get a load as you can see this load here I really don't know why pay so good but that's pretty damn good load paying two dollars and eighty cents about nine hundred and seven dollars to go 330 miles now it has a six foot tarp has to be tarp and I got and it picks up on a Saturday which I don't care I'm out here to work I don't care what day of the week it is I'll work so you know back to tarpon if you're doing a flatbed um you know if you're not going to tarp me personally I really don't think why you're doing a flatbed because that's how you make your money the more work you're willing to do the more money you're going to make now if you sit around say I'm not gonna tarp I'm not gonna do that you know you're not going to khalili there's a lot of people that don't want to do that but there's not that many people that really like tarping I don't like tarping I look at it as exercise but it gives you that little advantage if you're willing to do that and as you can see you know a lot of people that load that particular load to pay two dollars and 80 cents a mile going up to Michigan that that load did not hit a lot of people's radars because it's short it's only 330 miles a lot of guys say well I don't want to do anything that's less than 500 miles um it requires six foot tarps a lot of guys said well I'm not going to tarp uh and then the deadhead now there could be another guy closer but you know when when at Mercer when you tell somebody when you tell your coordinator this is what I want to do what I don't and that and that's one reason why I like Mercer's because you can be very specific about I don't want to do this I don't wanna do that I don't wanna do that and they don't care they'll say fine no problem pop-up they punch it in the computer BAM you get the loads that match what you want to do so when you narrow that window down you know that's that much less loads and went are tough like right now you know freights really weird right now it's kind of slow right now you know you can't be so selective you got to open it up a little bit and be willing to kind of you know go with the flow it'll all work out in the end but alright I don't wanna make this too long what I did want to say though is you know don't get hung up on rate per mile uh you know be could be aware of what you're making per mile don't get hung up on the deadhead I did hit a lot but on the other side of my expenses are way down but you want to keep moving you got it as long as you keep moving you'll make money it's when you say I'm not going to do that I'm gonna sit in this truck stop for a day or two or three to wait for a load you that that cash register is still clicking away and like we averaged out two hundred and eighty dollars a day so you know that's that's why you got to keep moving and don't get hung up on the rate per mile or the deadhead um start thinking about can I make this much money a day I haul a lot of loads that are less than a hundred miles but someone pay five six hundred dollars a lot of guys won't do that because they're like I'm at depth why do I want to haul load up that's five hundred dollars for a hundred miles you know I like you what if I did that five times a week you know how happy I would be it I don't understand why guys don't want to do loads like that because you know that is so much profit you know there are guys that know that's too much work you know all they want to do is drive from coast to coast back and forth I'm about making how much money I can make per day that that is that is my goal so if you get stuck on per mile and you're only doing a hundred miles a day yeah it looks like you're not making any money but if you get if you look at it how much money am I making per day it compared to your miles then you know even a lot of times I don't drive more than 1500 miles a week but I do pretty good um you know I don't do a dollar-fifty amount for 1500 miles you know so so you know don't get stuck on the per rate per mile or don't get stuck on I don't want a dead head and if you're doing fly bed you need to tarp you know you got to do the hard stuff that's where the money's at so anyway I know the last video I said I was going to talk about trucks but I I wanted to talk about money I I saw somebody else on YouTube they put a video up about money and some of the numbers he was throwing out there I really thought were unrealistic and like said I'm trying to be as honest as I can with you and this is just my way of doing it it's worked great for me so anyway I'm going to end it now I'll see if I can do another video today about the trucks so so anyway I'm going to end it now and I hope this helps I hope I didn't confuse too many people too much but like I said that's the formula that I use to make money it works for me um so anyway thank you for watching and I hope this helped and I'll talk to you later

Channel: SuperTruckerDan

Views: 288,759

Rating: 4.8400321 out of 5

Keywords: supertruckerdan, mercer, transportation, prime inc, peterbilt, trucking, flatbed, kenworth, freightliner, volvo, cdl, tarp, tarping, flatbeder, leasing, OTR, Truck, Driving, Driver, trailer, tutorial, trucker, dashcam, dash cam, truck driver, owner operator, truck driving, how to, flatbed equipment, trucking videos, Allie knight, semi trucks, truck leasing, truck driver training, drive a truck, truck driving company, American truck driver, driving a peterbilt, learning to drive, owner operator pay

Id: xTJJs6E99Ww

Length: 17min 4sec (1024 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 02 2016