I think the big advantage you have is your truck was "paid for". We don't know if the OP's truck is "paid for" or financed. BIG difference in bottom line profits.
My take on trucking is forget about going it alone-keep the landscape biz-find some way to do both. All the newer guys I know who haul live in small homes and have lots of $$ problems. I'm sure there's plenty of guys who've been in the biz for 10-20 years who might have become successful, but it's usually because they're "connected" with someone who can feed them work constantly.
Here's an idea: Why not keep the landscape biz and open a mulch/stone/dirt yard and deliver to customers using a couple dump trucks? That way you can supply your landscape biz with cheaper mulch , dirt & stone and get your need to drive/own bigger trucks taken care of? :beatsme
I really shouldn't butt into this topic but it's another view anyway.
I've owned 6 trucks over 20 years. When I was single, and 21, I had a brand new 4964 Western Star tractor, and a 28' aluminum dump trailer. The first 6 months of business ownership, I accumulated 10K dollars in my account. I thought to myself, if this keeps going this way, I'll retire by 50 no problem.
A year later, I had a serious engine failure. I bought this truck slightly used with no remaining warranty, so that 10K diminished rapidly paying for that out-of-frame major.
Back up and running, I broke my a** as hard as a young, aggressive kid could to make up for the loss. I then purchased a second and third truck, and more trailers. Things appeared to be going good for me at my age.
Once I got married and this new female person actually needed stuff, the scenery changed a bit. Not much, but I was now supporting two. No regrets after 25 yrs., just a factoid.
1991 or 1992, fuel started to spike. I bought 100% of it in New Jersey, it was .95/gallon back in those days. Fill a truck up at 100 gallons, it cost me 95 bucks a day to run each truck. I was raking in some dough, too. Loaded both ways from Conn. to Pa. every day. Then things started to change.
Work shifted from a steady contract hauling scrap metal, to having the rate cut by 10.00/ton, and given the ultimatum to match it or leave, I left. Now all my backhauls that took me 5 years to arrange are null and void, because I couldn't break into the steady stream of southbound scrap metal freight to the same area again. Sold 2 rigs at that point.
Back to one truck, and this time a Case 580CK backhoe was added to my operation.(Can't believe I just admitted that Case thing...
) Did some smaller landscape-type work, driveways, decorative stone, etc. That was the best time I ever had involving heavy duty trucks. Soon afterward, a JD 350 dozer was purchased. I was suddenly making headway far quicker than I ever could with those trucks. It didn't take me long to figure out that buying and selling my own product was where it was at. Then, spreading and grading it for a fee was a bonus as well.
Years afterward, I once again concentrated on primarily trucking. In 2004, fuel was now 1.60/gal. and climbing ever since. It started to cut into our profit margin when we figured the increases in fuel versus the trucking rate increases. The rates NEVER seem to follow the cost increases.
That same formula that another person revealed in this thread a while ago is basically what we calculated for our expenses as well. Only thing was, I had $1600.00/month payment in there along with the rest of those ammortized figures.(Registrations and annual federal heavy vehicle tax and IFTA wasn't in there as far as I saw either.) I was looking forward to the day when I made the last payment, so I thought I would be able to pocket more money. Never seemed to happen quite that way...
You have to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and he wants more once you have little to no depreciation left on your equipment. That's another hidden little nasty. You also have a fairly worn out piece of iron once they're paid for, so repairs/maintenence is going to affect the budget.
For every guy that enters the trucking business, another exits it for one reason or another...mostly because of the lack of expected cash. I was one, last year we made the hard decision to sell again, and it was a wise one in our view. we were spinning our wheels paying everybody else, and not keeping enough to warrant the efforts. I might add, I did 99% of all work on the equipment to keep costs down. Those garages now are getting big $$.
You see steven101, what I'm trying to reveal to you is not to be negative about the trucking business if you want to go out and try it, because God knows, I tried it for over 20 years. Some people have better luck than others. You may have an outgoing, positive personality that people are attracted to and WANT you to be part of their team, I don't know...I have to say, in all honesty though, as I explained earlier about me making money buying and selling my own materials/products...don't ever stop that if you want to get into trucking. The trucking business isn't all it's cracked up to be these days. Guys make a living, some require less or more than others. Depends on your lifestyle and what you are used to. Also depends on your intentions. If building a fleet is the vision, then by all means, go for it. You'll work harder than you ever have to this point doing it, but in order to be a true winner financially in trucking, VOLUME is king. You'll need continuity, and volume, and diversity, meaning still doing the materials handling thing, to be comfortable eventually. That's it. Can't say any more, and I'm sure everybody's ecstatic that I can't. Hope I didn't sound like my Canadian counterpart here, I tried to balance the "pos". with the "neg".
Go get 'em, dude.:thumbsup
