Petersburg, VA - Scott

by Scott Spencer
(Petersburg, VA)

I'm a CDL-A driver. 1 year exp. Van and Refer. 3 incidents that I could have avoided and learned from, but no tickets issued. Clean MVR with no tickets or DUI charges.

I'm not exactly looking to drive someone else's truck, but rather looking to work out something like owner financing without the huge down payment that stops me from getting the financing through conventional bank loans.

As a company driver, I just can't seem to make enough to pay my bills and actually save up that ten grand for a down payment.

I drove lease for four months, with relative success, but at great cost. I say success because I walked away from the lease after four months breaking even or a little ahead financially, but overall, it was a failure, because it costed me in other areas of life. My weekly outgo, whether I drove or not, was twelve hundred each week. I didn't dare to take any time off. I was out on the road that entire four months. My life outside the truck went to hell in a handbasket. Relationship, gone. Mail, unanswered. Bills, rob Peter to pay Paul. If my monthly outgo could have been half of that, with the flexibility of a monthly payment instead of weekly, and maybe if I could have actually picked my own loads, things would have been different.

Monthly payments aren't flexible on their own of course, but if I had the ability to make a $2500/mo payment versus a $1200/wk payment and saw an average of $1800/wk in revenue...well, now you begin to see where the flexibility and ability to take a week off here and there could be made to exist.

I'm frugal with my money, but after taxes and eating on the road every single day...plus paying my personal bills, it's easy to see where the money went. Of course, the money could have stood to be better, but not when you're being tossed the table scraps of a mega carrier's loads. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the company was keeping the five buck a mile loads to put on company drivers and giving lease ops the crappy one to one and a quarter a mile loads. When they wouldn't even let us go on the board and see what was really available, it takes the bite out of my accusation and gives them plausible deniability, but when I'm out there talking to actual owner ops telling me they pull loads anywhere between two and five a mile, I know those loads exist. I also know a few brokers who have verified that those loads do exist, and in pretty common frequency. I decided I was done leasing, but not necessarily done owner opping.

Times and the economy are changing. Pretty drastically in some cases. In the past, thinking outside the box has served me well, so here I am, looking outside the box at an alternative way to be a bona fide owner op. I know in many cases, operating under another carrier's authority might be financially advantageous, but getting my own authority and having access to a few boards would give me options beyond sitting around waiting for a mega carrier's table scraps. Just hit the boards, pick a load, put the magnetic company signs over the mega carrier's stickers and wildcat that load!

I just need someone to work with me with what I have, which sadly isn't much. I have potential, I understand the business, I know a few good brokers, I understand about factoring to get some quick revenue rolling if I can't afford to take the load with what I have or don't have in the bank, and I think outside the box. I also know that for everything I do know and understand, that there's ten times as much that I have yet to learn. Would likely spend a good while picking your brain for information too.

Ready to retire? I'm willing to take over your watch. I just need a boost into the truck.

Truck preferences... I like the old classic boxy trucks. Something like a Freightliner Classic, 359, w9. I don't care that they aren't aerodynamic like modern trucks. I'm a TRUCK driver, not a space shuttle pilot. I like trucks that look like TRUCKS. A big boxy truck with a strong engine, loud horn, and loud jake. My favorite colors are blue and silver, but really any color older truck looks nice to be honest. Besides, I get the thing paid off...well, can always paint and chrome it out then. I don't give a rat's ass about going to Cali. The fruits, nuts, and flakes can starve for all I care, so emissions for the other 47 of the lower 48 will do fine for me.