Profile For Aaron M.

Yeah, I knew he was lying. That's why so many people called him out on it. I have no experience in real estate but from what I have heard it is far better at making money than in trucking.

If there is already a post on this subject, the mods can either delete this post or merge it with the other one.

I saw a youtube video about a guy who said that owning your own truck was more lucrative than real estate. To be clear he meant being a landlord and renting out properties. Obviously, selling homes or flipping properties makes FAR more money than trucking.

His main argument is that it takes a month just to make an extra $300 or so if you have a tenant (mortgage is $700, you change $1000 in rent for a $300 profit, not including other utilites, maintenence and taxes). He said with trucking you can make $1500 a day. Therefore, owning a truck business is better.

I read some of the comments and one guy disagreed VERY strongly. He said himself that he owns a small trucking fleet and although he makes a profit its nothing compared to what he does in real estate.

I personally don't know what to think. I do know that profit margins in trucking are very slim and any profits you do make can disappear with a breakdown. I tried the truck lease thing a year ago and failed so badly I'm surprised I didn't get locked up for it. Never again will I do that.

However renting properties, although it may not carry as much risk, if you have bad tenants they can possibly ruin you. Seeking good tenants is ideal, but usually you may need to raise the rent, which reduces the amount of people who are willing to rent out your place, which eats into your money pool. That mortgage doesn't stop.

What do ya'll think?

I did the lease thing a year ago and failed miserably. I have a post somewhere on here about it. Of course I am not saying that just because I failed at something you will too. I mean things could work out for you. I hope things work out for you. I'm just saying that when you lease onto a company like that you assume ALL risks with hardly any pay.

Some companies might give you an advance if you have a breakdown on a lease truck to cover the expense, but please believe that they will get their money back when it comes time to pay you. It is just an advance after all.

I've heard from MANY lease ops and even owner ops that the profits you make are so tiny that any medium breakdown or accident or even family emergency will wipe out any profits you do make. I have heard that after all taxes and expenses taken out, you might make a bit more than a company driver. Not worth it in my opinion. Even with a paid off truck it may not be worth it. Again just my opinion.

But in the end people do what they want to do. However, few do make truck leasing work. You might be one of the few, in which case I hope things work out. I failed at it and I will never do it again. That's just me haha.

I guess I will add my $0.02 into this conversation.

Very interesting read here and excellent advice from the members. I have 2 years experience. Had one preventable last year as I was backing into a dock. I hit the truck besides me. I didn't G.O.A.L. 100% MY FAULT!!!!

The damage to his truck was so minimum however, you really couldn't see it. He told me not to worry about it and he wasn't going to report it to his company. He was a company driver as was I. It was a few light scratches. Good thing I back slowly haha.

Anyways, I still reported it to my company i was working for. They appreciated me reporting it but I did get into trouble and had to go through verbal counseling, as well as a backing test. I don't think they put this on my MVR though. It was with a mega carrier.

During the counseling, my DM asked me what could I have done to prevent that accident. I told them "G.O.A.L.!!!" They agreed.

Regardless of how minor the damage, IT'S STILL AN ACCIDENT!

I take the blame 100% and was mad at myself for a few weeks after that. I'm good now though but I will never forget it and it will NEVER happen again. 2 years ago when I was still training to get my CDL, the instructor at the school told us to "protect our license". NOBODY can make you do anything you don't feel comfortable in doing.

Now granted, i've never had a DM tell me to keep driving even if I was tired, but if I did, that truck ain't movin. I have called my DM's to tell them I was too tired to keep driving and they told me to PARK IT!! I did and everything was all good in the hood.

There is a youtube video of a guy a few years ago who called his DM to tell him he was too tired to drive. The DM tried to make him drive that truck but he wasn't budging. The DM threatened him and even told him he will get a service failure but the driver didn't care. He was tired and didn't want to cause an accident. He was "protecting his license". From what I heard the DM got into trouble but I don't know if he got fired or not. Either way, the driver got his rest, and still has his license.

Moral of the story: PROTECT YOUR LICENSE!!!

Oh no, i got along well with office personnel. Even as a company driver. The problem why I didn't get more miles was because I was on a kraft dedicated account. The had me going mostly out east and I never saw that many miles out east like that. I got less than 2800 miles a week and i've asked many times for more miles by going out west and sometimes they would give them to me but most of the time they wouldn't. Why, I don't know. "Kissing butt" meant that they wanted to do things for them that they could potentially get me into trouble.

Either way, it doens't really matter any more because I realized that the issues that I had doing OTR just wasn't worth my time. Although local isn't that easy, at least I have time to spend at home, sleep in a warm bed, take showers everyday, and am able to eat a lot healthier and that is far more important to me.

Hey Aaron, can you do me a favor?

Read over your comments as if they weren't your own. As if you're a different person reading someone elses material. Let us know if your jaw doesn't drop haha.

Good luck with local my friend. Its totally different but has its advantages. Take care!

I don't understand. What am I looking for lol?

Thanks everyone for those kind words. Brett, I didn't mean anything negative about what I said about kissing butt lol. I should have worded it differently. Also I wanted to add, i still think Swift is a great company to start with and gain some experience. If I could do it over, I would pick swift again. Minus the leasing part this time though lol.

Also they might put me in collection since I left my contract early. They sent me a letter explanining that they will continue to charge me $726 a week until someone else re-leases the truck. I heard some people who turned their trucks in at swift were able to walk away with no penalties. I guess I wasn't so lucky haha. I read the contract and didn't quite understand it. Rule number 4587521. Never sign a contract you don't understand lol.

I'm really glad you got out fast and relatively unscathed. It's so much extra work for very little more, if any, money.

If you're ever looking for "local", our Glenwood terminal is always hiring. It's home daily and they tend to run them around 250 miles out and then back.. say to Wisconsin, Iowa, central illiinois, etc.

That is exactly who I am going to go with too lol. They called me today and asked if I had filled out the app yet. I told her I will do it tomorrow because I wanted to take a full 2 weeks off from OTR to clear my mind a bit.

I been with swift for 1 year and 3 months. They were my first trucking company I started my trucking career with. I Started with them September 21st 2016 and quit December 30th 2017. In September 2017 I was contemplating whether or not I wanted to stay for another year or leave and find other trucking work. I watched a lot of videos and read a lot of forums and articles about leasing. I really didn't want to leave swift because I wanted to have a full 2 years in with the company I started with because I didn't want to be looked at as a job hopper. But I wasn't making any money as a company driver.

YES I KNOW, you won't really make any good money until about 2 years but I honestly couldn't see that with them unless I started kissing some butt and I have no interest in that.

I came here and read that awesome post a member posted, I believe a few years back, about the negatives of leasing. There was (and is) nothing good about leasing. I found NOTHING positive about leasing a truck from a carrier or even a dealer for that matter. Some people can do it. Most cannot. I am in the "most" category.

After thinking about it for a week I decided to just go for it.

Just for reference, I have no kids, wife, mortgage nor do I pay rent so leasing this truck from them wouldn't be a losing situation for me. I knew that if (and when) I fail, it will all be on me and no one else. I know how to take resposibility for my actions.

I do not regret leasing this truck. It was a nice truck. A blue 2017 freightliner that had 174k miles on it when I got it back in September 2017. It ran really good and didn't give me any issues during the 3 months I had it. I returned it with about 215k miles on it.

But after 3 months of using this truck I got to experience what it was like and I won't be doing it again. Nobody died so that is all that matters to me.

I was really tired of doing OTR (lease or not) and decided that going local would be a better fit for me driving a company truck. I live in chicago. Not to mention I wasn't getting the miles I wanted to justify that 1.12 per mile I was making. I was on a kraft dedicated account and ran mostly out east. I've asked repeatedly for more miles going west but they always told me they had nothing going that way. I never turned down any loads even though I could have and I ran my hours as far down as I could. My DM told me repeatedly that I was the best driver he had on his fleet. He didn't want me to leave and he asked me what would it take for me to stay? I told him if I can make 1.75 a mile loaded I will stay (most drivers I talked to said anything less than 2 bucks a mile isn't worth it but I only have a year and 3 months under my belt and was trying to be realistic). He told me to hold on and he went to talk to his superiors and about 5 minutes later told me they could'nt do it. They didn't even offer me an alternative.

They were charging me about $120 a month for "over mileage" penalites or something like that which made no sense to me since the truck needs to be moving in order to make money and they started charging me about $150 a month for fuel taxes which also didn't make any sense since all that is supposed to factored in when I buy fuel.

I put in my two week notice, when those 2 weeks were up I returned the truck to the Gary Indiana terminal in the same condition I first got it, cleaned it out and signed a resignition form and left. Called my DM, he wished me luck and said if I change my mind to give him a call. I still have his number in my phone.

When I was company with them I averaged about $650-700 a week after taxes. As a lease, after all expenses and taxes I averaged about $700-800 a week net. Maybe a bit less. This local company I am going to start with told me I can expect 1100-1300 gross a week.

I am not here to tell people whether to lease or not. I'll leave that up to Brett and the mods. For me, it was a fun learning experience and for me I am glad I did it now and got it over with so I know not to do it again than to wait 5 years down the line when I will have other more important things to do than to start a lease at that point.

I can hopefully put this behind me.

I was on youtube and a video of a guys 2018 freightliner cascadia review was recommended to me.

He mentioned in the video that is the company he works for.

I went to their website and they seem to mostly specialize in reefer and hazmat. I drive reefer for swift but don't have my hazmat endorsements yet.

The ask for 2 years otr but I only have one year.

Has anyone heard of this company or worked there?