It may paint a dismal picture, but it's reality. And it's a stark slap-in-the-fact reality to most former semi-drivers who trade in a tractor for a cargo van unless they absolutely know what they're getting into.
I should probably explain the numbers, though. Take these and massage them into your own situation and see where they shake out.
Basically, you're out here working for roughly $100 a day, same as you would be at home working an hour day that pays $12.50 an hour. That's where the differences end, tho, as when you're out here your 8 hour day is a 24 hour one, and your work week is 24/7 where the weekends rarely squish up nice and neat paired at the end of the week. Somewhere in there you get a couple of days off, often more than that, but between working and sleeping it's in chunks of a few hours here and there.
The way the revenue works, it's basically, rough ballpark, 1/3 for operating expenses, 1/3 to the truck, and 1/3 to the driver. Operating expenses are fuel and oil and routine maintenance, plus weekly deductions like Qualcomm and insurance. Truck expenses are things like brakes and tires and water pumps and other repairs. The rest is the driver's, and that's usually in the ballpark of 32 cents a mile, give or take.
All this assumes the driver is also the owner of the van and is not splitting revenue with someone else.
Or another way to look at it is 32 cents a mile to the driver. If you average 95 cents a mile including FSC, then if 32 cents goes to the driver, roughly 32 cents will go for operating expenses, and the remaining 31 cents will go to the truck. Each person's breakdown will of course be different, but not substantially so.
OK, in order to get your 32 cents a mile and make $100 a day for your five-day work week that takes longer than a week to complete, you need to average 1563 miles per week. If you can average 1563 miles a week over the course of 50 weeks a year, that's $25,000 for the year.
If you want to make more than $25,000 running the same number of miles, then you've got to take that money from somewhere else. It really can't come from operating expenses, so it's going to come from either routine maintenance, which will get you in trouble, or repairs which happens all the time when someone needs new brakes and can't afford it, and you're likewise in trouble. If you're really good and stay on top of things, you can cut costs across the board, and you'll make more money. But it won't be significantly more. If you can do some of your repairs that'll add up to even more. If you're lucky and don't have any major breakdowns it adds to it again.
And 1563 miles, over the course of 50 weeks, which is 78,150 loaded miles a year, is not the norm for most people out here. Some people get more than that, but they are the exception to the rule. Most get considerably less, in the 50,000 to 60,000 mile range, either because it's extremely difficult to average those miles over the long haul, or because they take a lot of time off. People who do those miles stay out for extended periods of time, are smart in how they work, and are both smart and lucky in where they position themselves for freight.
That's why I say that the money to be made out here in a van is neither a lot, nor easy. It takes a lot of work, and you have to be smart enough to know that a 1000 mile load paying 95 cents isn't going to pay $950, it's really only going to net you about $300 when all is said and done. People come out in a van looking for quick and easy, and pretty soon either the miles aren't there or they have a major breakdown and they're out of the business in a year or two. There's a reason the turnover rate is as high as it is amongst van owner/operators, and it's not because you can make a lot of easy money out here. It's because so many of them think you can and don't understand the reality of it all.
I've been OOS for 35 days so far this year, for repairs and just simple time off at home. That's it. But that's five weeks out of 52, already three weeks over the 50 that I need, or would prefer. Many people have far more time off than I have. Last year I had 73,000 loaded miles. The year before that I had 84,000. This year I dunno, I'm sitting right now at 58,017 loaded miles, with 9 or 10 weeks left to go. I should end the year in between 71,000 and 75,000 loaded miles.
I don't know it all by any stretch, but I'm seasoned and experienced and I know what I'm doing, and I shoot for the magical 1563 miles per week, which gives me $100 a day. If I have 75,000 miles, then at 32 cents a mile I'll have made $24,000 for the year for myself. On a 5-day week and 50 weeks, that's about $100 a day, a little less.
So there ya go. Not exactly the easy money cash cow that many seem to think it is. Most people who buy their own van and get into expediting are gone within 2 years. That's a fact. Too many come out here without truly understanding what they're getting into, or at least don't have the quick learning ability to make some fast adjustments, get eaten alive.
Most vanners' numbers are just like ChrisGa23's above. That's the reality of it.
Granted, these numbers are very rough and do not included negotiated bonuses and other things that add up quickly, and not exactly 1/3 went to the truck as I've taken some of that, too. So there is more to the numbers, but it's not like I'm in the $25,000 range while most others are in the $50,000 range. I'll end up with a little over $30,000 probably. But still, that's just $120 a day, really. I could certainly take considerably more, but then I'd find myself looking around without a paddle wondering where I'm gonna find money to fix this or that.
So, to answer your question about why anyone would do this for $100 a day, it clearly isn't for the money, because my numbers are indeed correct. It's for a plethora of reasons, sightseeing being just one of them. And sightseeing really and truly is one of them. Expediting is loaded with retired couples who want to sightsee and money is secondary to them, regardless of the fact that they do their jobs well. It's the lifestyle of being on the road, of being your own boss (relatively speaking) and doing what you want, when you want. The reasons for being out here are almost as varied as the number of expediters. But none of them, at least in a van, are out here to make loads of easy money, for if they are, they won't be here for long.
Is that dismal? I dunno. Depends. It depends on how dead set you are on that whole "I expect to make allot more than 500 a week once i have figured the business out..." thing. I've got if figured out, mostly, and I do make more than $500 a week, but not "allot," relatively speaking.
I do wish you good luck. Mostly, I wish you good luck in adapting to sitting there and doing nothing between loads, because that's not something many ex-company drivers can handle. If you can get past that hurdle, you'll probably be BEaa
