dieseldoctor1
Expert Expediter
There has been a lot of discussion about making a living with a van in the expedite business. A lot of people on this forum and that I have talked to in my travels has decided that it is very hard to make money with a van. In one post on this forum it was stated that you should never expect to make $100,000 in a yr with a van. Running solo maybe not, but you should be able to do better than most people are saying.
2005 was a good yr in expediting for us (a little better than 2004) but we had some bad times that cut into our income. Wifes mother is battling breast cancer and had three operations in 2005. Each time we took a week to 2 weeks off to help her until she got back on her feet. Then both our daughters had babies this yr so you know we were off a week or more with each of them. Then keeping our 9 yr old grandson for a week and taking a week off to do some demos at an antigue tractor show with my antigue tractor and threshing machine took two more weeks out of our work. We try to get home every weekend but probably 10 to 15 weeks we don't make it. But when we do we always stay out of service until Monday night.
From this you can tell we only worked less 9 months last yr. Now we still put 150,132 miles on our van. Yeah we sitesee a lot and deadhead home more than most people. Just don't want to reveal our actual income but our loaded miles was in the low 90,000. We average well over $1.00 per loaded mile. If I annulize our gross income per week worked, one more week worked would have put us into six figure gross income.
As for truck expense, we started the yr with 109,020 miles on our van and ended with 259,152. You can check out the van we run here.
http://www.expeditersonline.com/dcforum/DCForumID16/519.html
For depreciation I took the total cost of van and divided it by 36 which puts the monthly figure at a little less than $1000.00. Fuel cost for all miles was $.161 per mile. Total truck cost was $.285 per mile. Only "repairs" was one set of spark plugs and one fuel pump which failed at 232,000 miles out in CA ,miles from nowhere. Towing and pump replacement was about $700.00. Also installed a new set of Michelins for close to $800.00. Total expenses for truck, insurance for both of us, food, and etc came to $.361 per mile.
Do we live a frugal lifestyle? Not really. With our thermostat control, when we are in the van we keep it between 60 and 80 degrees. Why keep it that warm in winter? Well we sleep nude and we are going to be comfortable! Meals, for breakfast, we carry cups and boxes of cereal with us because of my diet. We buy milk each morning. Lunch sometimes we eat a sandwich from things we carry with us or eat fast food. we do buy drinks on sale usuall at our home town grocery store. We try to always go in and have a good hot sit down meal at least once a day. On weekends unless we are on a run we will eat three meals in a resturant.
How do we do this. Buy a van equipped right, and I emphasize the "equipped" right, and take good care of it but don't waste money doing stuff that don't need to be done as far as maintainence. But most of all, I follow advice my Dad gave me when I was about 10 yrs old and doing a little custom tractor work for neighbors. I questioned why I should do a little 30 minute garden plowing job for a lady. He told me: Son, a man who takes all the work he can get, gets all the work he can take. So I went and plowed her garden. Was stopped twice by other people wanting jobs done. Wound up with two days work.
One final point: there has been a lot of bitching on here about certain trucks getting special treatment as far as staying busy. Darn right they do and if you can't figure out why, well, nah I won't say it.
You'all have a great year!
Dieseldoctor
2005 was a good yr in expediting for us (a little better than 2004) but we had some bad times that cut into our income. Wifes mother is battling breast cancer and had three operations in 2005. Each time we took a week to 2 weeks off to help her until she got back on her feet. Then both our daughters had babies this yr so you know we were off a week or more with each of them. Then keeping our 9 yr old grandson for a week and taking a week off to do some demos at an antigue tractor show with my antigue tractor and threshing machine took two more weeks out of our work. We try to get home every weekend but probably 10 to 15 weeks we don't make it. But when we do we always stay out of service until Monday night.
From this you can tell we only worked less 9 months last yr. Now we still put 150,132 miles on our van. Yeah we sitesee a lot and deadhead home more than most people. Just don't want to reveal our actual income but our loaded miles was in the low 90,000. We average well over $1.00 per loaded mile. If I annulize our gross income per week worked, one more week worked would have put us into six figure gross income.
As for truck expense, we started the yr with 109,020 miles on our van and ended with 259,152. You can check out the van we run here.
http://www.expeditersonline.com/dcforum/DCForumID16/519.html
For depreciation I took the total cost of van and divided it by 36 which puts the monthly figure at a little less than $1000.00. Fuel cost for all miles was $.161 per mile. Total truck cost was $.285 per mile. Only "repairs" was one set of spark plugs and one fuel pump which failed at 232,000 miles out in CA ,miles from nowhere. Towing and pump replacement was about $700.00. Also installed a new set of Michelins for close to $800.00. Total expenses for truck, insurance for both of us, food, and etc came to $.361 per mile.
Do we live a frugal lifestyle? Not really. With our thermostat control, when we are in the van we keep it between 60 and 80 degrees. Why keep it that warm in winter? Well we sleep nude and we are going to be comfortable! Meals, for breakfast, we carry cups and boxes of cereal with us because of my diet. We buy milk each morning. Lunch sometimes we eat a sandwich from things we carry with us or eat fast food. we do buy drinks on sale usuall at our home town grocery store. We try to always go in and have a good hot sit down meal at least once a day. On weekends unless we are on a run we will eat three meals in a resturant.
How do we do this. Buy a van equipped right, and I emphasize the "equipped" right, and take good care of it but don't waste money doing stuff that don't need to be done as far as maintainence. But most of all, I follow advice my Dad gave me when I was about 10 yrs old and doing a little custom tractor work for neighbors. I questioned why I should do a little 30 minute garden plowing job for a lady. He told me: Son, a man who takes all the work he can get, gets all the work he can take. So I went and plowed her garden. Was stopped twice by other people wanting jobs done. Wound up with two days work.
One final point: there has been a lot of bitching on here about certain trucks getting special treatment as far as staying busy. Darn right they do and if you can't figure out why, well, nah I won't say it.
You'all have a great year!
Dieseldoctor
