How Much Do You Really Make per Hour?

OntarioVanMan · Jul 4, 2016

JohnWC said:
Yea yea
Just seems to me every time election year rooms around rates drop
Everytime they raise wages rates drop
Its getting close to the time to just say the hell with it and go on disability

Rates in over 15 years have never risen either ...

Moot · Jul 4, 2016

blizzard said:
I always hated sitting around at truck stops, but I actually never considered driving actual work. I loved driving and was just thrilled to death to be getting paid for it.

I agree! I love driving and getting paid for it makes it even sweeter. I was always the "go to guy" for road trips. I delivered a friend's pickup truck from Minneapolis to Cle Elum, WA. Threw my motorcycle in back for transportation home. Went from Minneapolis to Grand Rapids, MI to fetch a car for another friend. I even had a part-time job on weekends for about 6 weeks in Waukegan, IL while I was living in St. Cloud, MN. Talk about a commute.

Moot · Jul 4, 2016

brokcanadian said:
Anybody expediting with a van should already qualify for mentally disabled

In this country that's a Catch 22. I applied for mental disability assistance but was turned down because I had the wherewithal to apply for assistance, thus deemed to be mentally stable. What a mistake on their part.

ATeam · Jul 5, 2016

brokcanadian said:
I calculate the hourly, with deadheading, just as a gauge to see whether I should be looking elsewhere or not. But think of all the people driving to work that don't include that...or taxes...you can be misguided as an employee too

Such a gauge is meaningless. It accounts not at all for your business expenses, taxes and your actual productivity as an expediter. By the formula you imply, an expediter could pay $30,000 for a brand-new van, run one load per year, derive from that load a $20 per hour value on one's time (including deadhead) and use those numbers to prove that he or she is better off in the van than working for $10 per hour at a "real job."

When the banker signs the repo order for the van, he or she will care not a bit that the expediter claims his or her time is worth amount per hour the expediter thinks it is.

brokcanadian · Jul 5, 2016

No. Point one...this business does not support a financed van. Paid cash, that's done.

Point two...after 10 years I know what my expenses are, and I'm talking about the net.

What I take home after repairs, fuel, licensing, insurance and tolls is what I use to get the hourly. And when I'm in a pessimistic mood, I include the hours spent fixing the van myself.

There are no other expenses, and I will never have a huge repair bill, over 3000 and I'll just throw this one out (after stripping EVERYTHING)

Net is net, and net / time is comparable to an hourly job.

Taxes are there for employees too, and I'm aware of the difference between gross and net pay for employment, they have tables for that

ATeam · Jul 6, 2016

brokcanadian said:
No. Point one...this business does not support a financed van. Paid cash, that's done.

What depreciation schedule do you use for your van and equipment? How do you account for the replacement cost of such things?

brokcanadian · Jul 6, 2016

ATeam said:
What depreciation schedule do you use for your van and equipment? How do you account for the replacement cost of such things?

I put aside 1 or 200 a month for van replacement.

In 2006 I made the mistake of "leasing to own" at 695 a month (810 after taxes) and 3 months in I realized I still have to pay for repairs...170 to change a 20 dollar u joint...then filled up the van with my own tools on the sides. Grand total for that van was 32,000 plus repairs (it had 250,000 miles to begin with). Drove it just past 1 million miles to make it right in my head even with floppy steering column and random shutdown problems.

Next van 4500. Drove it 600,000 and swapped for a CNG van at 2100 and enjoyed 25 cents a gallon fuel. Put 300,000 on that and rather than dump money into it, 2 years later put on rust free 1650 dollar CNG van again.

Trust me, there is a lifestyle difference with no payments and sub $1000 fuel bills for 15,000 monthly miles.

So to answer...depreciation...i don't care. I get to write off 15% of that 1650 the first year and 25% thereafter (on the declining balance), and my tax rate being 25-30% a full write off is worth 30 cents on the dollar, it follows that depreciation works out to a few hundred in real dollars. I'm better served price hunting on every part. BTW I sourced free tires, or 100 dollar a set range for those years, only bought 3 new sets when I couldn't find any used...

Gotta cut this short, think I've said most of it before...either you keep money in your pocket or the whole world is standing there waiting to take it from you. It doesn't have to be that way