Owner-Operator Truckers Talk: Lessons & Anecdotes

 “On this episode of The Trucker’s Radio Podcast, host Stacey Yearout breaks down the real ins and outs of being an owner-operator. From understanding the true costs of running your own truck to balancing freedom and responsibility, Stacey shares insights from over 30 years in the trucking and transportation industry. Whether you’re thinking about making the leap or already hauling as an owner-op, this episode gives you the knowledge, warnings, and encouragement you need to succeed in the business.”  If you’ve got questions about trucking, business, or life on the road, send me an email at thetruckersradiopd@gmail.com

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thetruckersradiopodcast.com. Until next time, this is Stacey Yearout reminding you to stay safe, stay sharp, and keep those wheels turning.”  owner operator trucking, how to become an owner operator, trucking business tips, trucking podcast, trucking lifestyle, independent truck driver, costs of being an owner operator, trucking advice, freight rates 2025, trucking industry podcast, Stacey Yearout trucking, Trucker’s Radio Podcast, Sabren Group LLC, life as an owner operator, truck driver business, CDL owner operator, trucking success tips, trucking finance, trucking entrepreneurship, trucking freedom and risks 

Transcript

Dolores 0:00

“Welcome back to The Trucker’s Radio Podcast, powered by Sabren Group LLC. Hosted By Stacey Yearout, and today we’re talking about something every driver has thought about at least once becoming an owner-operator. What does it really take? What are the freedoms, the risks, and the hidden costs? With over 30 years in this industry, He has seen the highs and the hard lessons of owning your own truck and running your own business. So buckle up we’re about to break down the real ins and outs of life as an owner-op.” Welcome to the Truckers Radio podcast. Today we going to talk about what it's like to be an owner operator, the do's and the don'ts you need to know We're going to talk about owner operator strategy, what it's like to be out on the road as an owner operator, and, what's the rates looking like, for 2025. We have a guest today. His name Sam from Ohio. He's an owner operator, long time owner, operator at that. He come from a long family of owner operators and truck drivers. He has his own authority, his own equipment, truck and trailer,, he's gonna talk a little bit about rate negotiation and things like that. Just kinda like a look from the inside out of what it's like to be an owner operator. We got Sam from Ohio on here right now. Are you with us, Sam? Yeah, I'm here. All right, good deal. So you've actually been an owner operator be for quite a while. I think you kind of grew up around being an owner operator and everything. So what do you like about being an owner operator? Well, first of all, thanks for having me, man. It's an honor to be on your podcast. I really like what you've been doing lately., I love what you're doing for the truckers in the community out here on the road. We really need something like this out here. Yeah, what I love about being an owner operator is just the freedom that you have, the freedom that you have to book the loads and go where you want, I really like that when I want to get home, I can book a load get home and I can take vacation when I want and I don't have to have somebody tell me when I can do that. And I think that's the main thing that I like is the freedom of it. They definitely are something to be said about the freedom of being your own boss. We all know that there's things out here that definitely dictate. How free we really are,'cause the freedoms, it is not as wide and far as we think, as an owner operator, we do a whole lot of what we gotta do. And there's a whole lot of things, we can take our toys and go home if we don't wanna put up something That's a great part about it. We don't have to. Lose all of our seniority. We just go to the next load. If we end up with a bad shipper or something like that, we just really don't wanna deal with'em. Just call up and say, Hey, I don't really appreciate being treated this way. We're just not gonna take this load. You can definitely stand up for yourself. You do have to use some common sense. You definitely have to use some common sense dealing with customers. It is a business. You don't wanna step on too many toes because people do talk, you don't want to get the reputation of being hard to get along, whether dumping loads in people's laps, stuff like that. If you say you're going to haul a load, haul it, do your homework, do your due diligence when you book a load, and, don't be getting blindsided if you don't have to. That being said about where all do you like to run? I did primarily like I would do the East coast. I did a lot of East Coast stuff. I still do a lot of the East coast stuff. I to try to stay around Ohio. I don't like to go too far out. The only thing that sucks about running the east coast is it pays really good going out. But then when you come back, they always get you and then the tools eat you alive. But there's still some pretty good loads you can find going that way. Pennsylvania, I'll do a lot of those. Sometimes like I'll just go to Penn, like Pittsburgh, I'll come back if I just wanna do something short, be right back home.'cause I live in Columbus, Ohio, so it's not that far just to run over to Pittsburgh and then come back sometimes, I'll go down to Georgia. I might go to Atlanta and then come back, get a back haul to come back out of there. Just regional stuff really. Columbus, is a great hub to work out of. There's a lot going on around Columbus. Ohio's definitely a very rich state for industry. There's a lot of stuff that, good paying loads that comes out of there and you are correct. Going into the east coast, it doesn't pay that well coming out, but that's why we always make our money going in. We want to emphasize, don't ever go into a bad area for a cheap rate. For the guys out there that don't understand the way the lanes work, you need to learn your lanes. When you hear people talk about lanes and running strategy, you can't be a sucker to the broker or the agency and take something that's, doesn't pay a fair price because. What's going to happen, they're going to talk you into, taking that load up the east coast, and then you're going to get up there and you're going to lucky to make enough money to clear your fuel to get out. So you really gotta make your money going in. A lot of times we used to run what I call this strategy parallels triangles. We would end up, we'd take one leg over that paint really good, and we'd take a short leg. That didn't pay that great to get to a better freight area to come back, that seemed to work really well. Our numbers per truck went up a lot then, we had, we had 12 trucks at one time, and keeping them busy. I know that's not an astronomical big company, it was enough to keep us busy. A lot of times you're just making somebody else a living. But tell us a little bit about your equipment, Sam. I have a 2012 Volvo, and then I had a old, older Volvo. My dad was alive. He would drive that one that would have the old N 14, the Cummins red top. Oh, that's a good engine. Yeah, that was a really good truck. Very good truck. And then yeah, the one I currently have, it's got a ISX Cummins in it. It's just, it's given me some problems. I've had to replace a head gasket, had a fuel pump go out on me, but that's just part of it, that you just gotta. You always gotta make sure you put back for a rainy day'cause you know it's gonna happen out here. Exactly. With new people or young people getting into the owner operator field trying to jump into the deep end of the pool. Look, if you're not good with money and you wanna live like a rockstar starting every Friday, being an owner operator probably ain't for you. Because, you definitely gotta put up for maintenance and you gotta be disciplined enough to get a great big check. But put that in the bank and write yourself a small check to live on that. That's the easiest to set yourself up a paycheck to cover your bills. Try to keep your home expenses down. You can settle up at the end of the year. We did a lot of distribution under the incorporation, when we'd have stuff left over, sometimes get toward the end of the year, we may wanna go buy some tires. You gotta keep a good beat on where you're at in profit margins and, expenses, you may need to go spend a little money, you may need to go buy you a set of drives and throw'em over in the garage real quick. If you can spend that money on your own equipment, you might as well take care of you.'cause the government ain't gonna take care of you, that's for sure. I contact my CPA to schedule an appointment with her. I'd go in there and I just get all my documents, she run and see where Im at. I'd be like, well, it's kind of looking like I might owe a little bit. So I go out and buy a toolbox or whatever and, make sure that I'm not giving them any money. I'm keeping all that stuff for myself. I know we're kind of winding into the last quarter of the year about what are you looking like? I know the rates has been kind of crappy this year, but fuel's been high and everything. I mean about where you looking at, you think you'll break even this year. Are you gonna have to pay out or how are you looking right now? So far? Right now I'm looking pretty good. It hasn't been the greatest year, but we've seen better times. But I, I'm doing all right. I've had a couple of repairs that set me back the fuel pump, and then I had a turbo go out on me. But besides that, i've always put back every, I've just always been disciplined. My dad always taught me, if you're gonna get into this business, make sure that you save for a rainy day. I would say this year, I did, a couple hundred thousand dollars. But I put a lot into the repairs and the fuel prices being high and all that stuff, sometimes, even when I have a bad year, I just know that it's not always gonna stay like this forever. Just keep for all the drivers out there, just know that there is light at the end of the tunnel. You just gotta keep pushing through, stay positive because it will get better and, the rates being driven down by, people that are used to basically living in their countries for cheap. They come over here and they drive trucks and they do everything really, a lot cheaper. So it drives everything down for us. And there's a lot of things that factors into it. It just, is, a tough life out here. I take pride in being an owner operator and knowing that I can take time off when I want. There's certain things that you can do as long as you make sure that you, treat your customer good and you get the load there in a timely manner. And you're not, like you said, just dropping the freight off and doing stuff you shouldn't do. Just use, common sense. But for the most part, if you don't wanna book something, you don't have to book something. And there's a lot to be said for that. It really is., It's not all great out here. Your health insurance, you have to. I get that through the state, but there's still ways to do it. You can still make a good living out here, but like you said earlier, you just have to know how to pick your lanes. Like the DAT board will have like a 15 day average. You can look on there and see, what that lane's been paying. And then when you go to talk to the broker, if they're like, Hey, you know this lane going to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is paying.$1,200 and you're just, you're like, yeah, right. I know I can get, two grand out of that or 2,500 or whatever, but you just have to know that, you have to tell them that this lane's been going for 2,500, not 1800.'cause they'll definitely try to snowball you and undercut you on that. And you just have to know how to, look at the load board and negotiate.'cause they'll take advantage of you if you don't know. Then you don't know. And that's the thing. These foreigners will come over here and they will run that stuff for 1200 or 1500 because in their country, that's quite a bit of money, they'll just send it back home and their families will be like kings and stuff. But so, you just gotta be aware of that kind of stuff. Sometimes if you wait till later in the day. If those brokers, one of them will bail out on the load and then they'll be burning your phone up to try to get you to take it last minute. Sometimes that's when I get some good loads out of'em, calling me up last minute, Hey, you still want that? And I might even play the game. I don't know'em how, looking at something else, I might even get a couple hundred more dollars out of'em. So you just gotta be patient and you just really gotta know how to look at that load board like yourself and you just really have to know what you're doing. But there's still quite a bit of money that you can make out here, regardless of what you hear, on social media or whatever. You just really gotta know what you're doing and you have to be smart with your money. And I think that's where I say don't necessarily listen to everything that's on social media, because every owner operator is different. No owner operator is created equal. Every one manages their truck differently. Like I've said many times, you can ask eight out of 10 drivers what's, what does it cost you to drive that truck down the road? And he can't tell you. He don't know. He don't know what his operating expense is, he may make money. I don't know what his expenses is at home. He may not have any overhead, he may just live in a truck, who knows? But, he's making enough money for him and I presume that's all he needs to make. But to be profitable on a conservative level, I feel like you need to operate a business conservatively all the time. If I went over here and bought a convenience store. And I mismanaged the pricing on the candy bar racks and sold things for cheaper than what I paid for'em. And didn't manage my expenses. I wouldn't be in business very long and in the same way with a truck. You have to be a businessman. You have to learn. You ain't gotta be born into a businessman, but you gotta learn. I think that's something that. Sometimes you can learn trial and error. If you're pretty good with money, it kind of comes natural, being conservative and crunching numbers. But if you're not and you live like a rockstar, I would try to get ahold of my finances and get to be a disciplined person before I jumped into the deep end of the pool. Most definitely. Yeah, I agree with you. So tell us a little bit of how you got into trucking, Sammy. Man, it's kind of a unique situation. Like I grew up, my parents pulled me out of school when I was at, well, middle school, I was around middle school. Right before I started middle school. My parents were factory workers. It was my mom's idea actually. My mom went to my dad and said, I think it's a good idea. She was curious about the trucking industry. They would come and deliver to the warehouse that they factory place that they worked at. My mom was like, we could do that. My dad was like, you're crazy. You know that. So my mom's always been kind of like that kind of person to where like, if she wants to do something, she's gonna do it and. He looked into it, a community college in Springfield, Ohio and Clark State, and they both went there. And that was pretty much, how it all started. And they pulled me outta school and I was homeschooled in a semi truck. And I got to see all over the United States and from a young age, I always told myself I. I would never get into it. I actually didn't like it because I missed out on a lot of my childhood stuff growing up because I was inside that, little box all the time. But my parents definitely made it awesome. We'd go to different places and we'd go into the Walmarts or the different guitar centers'cause I'm really big into music and they buy me guitars or little amplifiers game Boy or PlayStation or whatever I wanted, they spoiled me, so I was homeschooled in the semi, so my handwriting wasn't very good because the truck was always rolling. But it was definitely an awesome experience. When I look back at it now, I wish I could rewind. To those moments because those were some of the greatest moments that I'll cherish forever. But in the moment, I'm just, I'm a kid. I just didn't want to be in there. I wanted to go out and do kid things. But, it's definitely been in my blood for a long time. And I got to see my dad and my mom get put in some pretty crazy situations with backing and, New York or, just crazy accidents out here dealing with these, idiots hearing my dad go off, people cutting in front of him. Yeah, it's definitely, when you grow up in a truck like that, it's almost like a transfusion. You get it whether you like it or you don't. You learn to live, but you know that. At an early age when you were a young kid, you got to see things that a lot of people live their whole life and never get to see, they get to see all out West California. There's a lot of people that I went to school with years ago that still haven't probably left the surrounding three states. And that's pretty crazy. They, a big deal to them was, Hey man, they'll run over to the beach or. Something. It's like, wow. They, they really going far. Oh my God, that's a long driving. I sitting, man, I drive that every day, yeah. Because I actively still drive every day, and it ain't looking like I'm going be retiring anytime soon, even though I'd love to, but I gotta quit spending money if I'm gonna retire. I ain't even gonna lie.. I think it's Oliver problem. I'm just like, you there saying I'm always by, I've been a musician most of my life and I'm always, looking at a guitar or something, that's something nice about being out on the road, especially when you own your own truck, you can kind of set it up a little bit. You can set you up a little micro studio on the truck. You can play, you can be more at home when it's your truck. You live a little bit on the edge with a company truck because you never know when they're gonna be like, get your stuff outta the truck and you are gonna put it over here. It is, it's a whole different animal when it's yours. And yeah, there are definitely some perks of, having your own truck and there's a lot of headaches and I'm not gonna sit here and. Make it all sudden, shine in roses there're definitely headaches to it. They're stressed just like anything else. But I've worked for companies as a company driver that probably stress me out more than the entire trucking industry and the truck of being an owner operator, sometimes. There's stresses in being an owner operator, but there's different kinds. You just gotta be disciplined, but you gotta look at it like this. If you're not going to do it, nobody else is going to do it for you. Yeah. You got to make that truck go round, you got to run that strategy. You got to pay attention to your accessorials on a load I had a friend of mine, he booked the load up to where he had to pay$400 on a ferry to get it over to the island where he got with the, the agent didn't say anything to him about it. He said, but if you look real far down in the fine prints of the editorial, it said it real plain and clear right there. So he ended up having to eat that ferry cost on that load because he didn't ask any questions. He didn't look at his geographical map. I gotta have it, when I'm booking a load, man, and I pull it up on Google real quick. I ain't got a hard map in front of me. I'm definitely, I'm. In my fifties and I'm discovering technology. It's a real cool thing. Ai, man, it beats the shit outta Google. I ain't even gonna lie, but, technology is a great thing. You can zoom right in, can't look at what you got to deal with on a real fast pace and kind of take a little better look at that load and see, hey, is this something I really want to get into here? You can ask questions that needs to be asked because you're informed. You're not depending on the broker solely to tell you everything. You've got to know yourself. Sometimes you just gotta pay attention. Usually first queue. If a load pays abnormally, well, there's usually some baggage. I'm not saying they all are, but. They usually some baggage or they wouldn't be paying you to th just that for their health. I can tell you that if they can get it done cheaper, they're going to get it done cheaper. So there's definitely some risk involved if they're paying you an abnormal amount just because you're sitting there, things don't really happen that way for the most part. So, yeah, you're right. If it's paying some astronomical price, there's probably a reason you better be paying attention to theoral things and all that. Just really looking over your bills and making sure there's nothing on there hidden in the fine print. He had to learn that the hard way. That sucks. Most definitely. I've had my own authority. I've been leased on the Landstar, I've been leased on the Mercer back. You definitely got more stress, having your own authority, the drug testing consortium, you gotta belong to all that. You got your plates. Your DOT, your ifta, all your permits. You really gotta be your one man show and you've got to stay on top of every single thing. They are rules, regulations, all wrapped into one job and drive the damn truck. That almost to possible. Yeah, that was one of the things that I enjoyed about being leased on two Land Store. Is they don't take that big of percentage, especially if you have your own trailer. I like having my own trailer, so you get a little bigger percentage when you got your own trailer. The transparency, that's a big topic nowadays is transparency with the brokers. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of, because I'm like you, I've, I've had. I've contracted on actually to one of my friends' companies in both ways. There's times I just want to go to a Landstar and give up my authority because you're right. It's just. You have a lot more on their load board. They have, they're a Mecca company. So how do you compete with that? They have a load board that you have access to with all their freight and stuff. And when you're just messing with the spot market, you're just getting everybody else's leftovers. And it can be rough unless you have direct, I have a couple of direct customers that I work with, but it can get tough sometimes. And like you said, you got the drug consortium you gotta keep up with your fuel taxes a quarterly, and then you gotta keep all your bookkeeping stuff right for your CPA and then when you go to get audited, the DOT, when you got a fresh number when you're just first starting out you gotta do an audit. They did mine over the phone. They called me and I had to email'em certain things to make sure that I'm complying with the DOT stuff. Then the second one I had, they actually came into my home office and they went through all my stuff. As long as you have your stuff in order, there's nothing to worry about. But it's just something about having somebody come through and go through your personal stuff. It's just nerve wracking because they could dig and they could find something that maybe you thought was okay, but it's not into their eyes and that can put you out for a little while. Just little things like that. And you get in an accident. You're basically leased onto Landstar, so when somebody hits you and when you're contracted onto somebody, they're hitting Landstar's name, not really yours. And I feel like there's more that company's gonna absorb than just, like less li it's, you're still gonna get in trouble but there's more of a barrier for you, especially if you have your LLC and then you're leased on to somebody. It's just more protection for you and. It's just every, everything's at you're fault for when you have your own stuff, you don't have any carrier to wipe your ass for you. When you're out here running on your own, you gotta do everything, book the load, play, do everything yourself. It's just, and then another thing too is, when you worked for Landstar, if you have a repair, it's. They're so expensive now that you could just call, Landstar up and they'll do a payroll deduction outta your check, and they'll help you with that repair. I don't have that. I can't call my mom or my uncle or anybody and get any money off of them for that. So I feel like with those other companies like that, and then like, if you wanna become an owner operator, you can just go right to, rush Truck Center or Loan Mountain or whatever and get you a truck and go right onto Landstar and just, lease one of their trailers and get their base plate and just roll with it instead of. Then you could see if you want to get your own authority by doing that for a while, then you could apply for your, mc DOT number and, get a trailer and all that and do it that way. That's what I did. I contracted onto my friend. I built my money up a little bit more. I learned the ins and outs, and then I went off and did my own thing, and he tried to tell me before I did it. He is like, I'm telling you, you think you're gonna make an astronomical amount of money, but. He said, you can make good money, but just remember there's a lot more headaches that you're not seeing that I see. And he was Right, but just depends on what you want. Yeah, most definitely. Because everybody's situation's different. Everybody's truck payment's different, everybody's expenses and so forth I mean, you can live pretty frivolous if you want buy things, stuff like that, you definitely by nature, are more conservative than a lot of us. That, I ain't even gonna lie and try to pretend like that I know how to conserve money. My wife's probably sitting over here rolling her eyes right now. I'm good at spending some money that's for damn sure. But for the most part, you do have to, you gotta know how to run a business. And you gotta be conservative and so forth. And it is a little bit different than being a company driver. You can set yourself up and if you want to impute yourself, say like you're a company driver and you want to see how this works, let's just say you're gonna get$2 and 25 cents a mile You can make yourself an owner operator situation. Even if you're a company driver. You can track all of your expenses. You can look at how much fuel you buy. You can look at just to say, let's pretend like this load pays$2 25 cents a mile. You can look at what it costs to operate the truck. You can make yourself a viable truck, payment, insurance, and so forth. You can go through the motions as a company driver and just crunch your numbers, see where you're at, see if it's worth what you think it's worth, because not always are you going to just jump out there and be an owner operator and make more money. Than you would be as a company driver.'cause there's some pretty good company jobs out here. It depends on where you're at in life. If you're still relatively low down on the totem pole, you probably can do better. But if you've got one of these really good jobs, that takes a lot to get. I'm not sure that you would do better as an owner operator. It's all about preference at that point. Are you looking for freedom? Are you looking for satisfaction in life? Achievements? There's a lot of people becomes an owner operator for multiple different reasons it's not always about money. It's about how you feel in life. Your accomplishments is your dream. Sometimes we chase dreams that we really don't make a lot of money at. For instance, look at us musicians, not everybody that plays music makes a lot of money. They really don't. And, kinda like, just basically do, you can walk through the motions, take a load that you're hauling, say, all right, this space, 2 25 a mile, pay attention at the fuel pump. When you put fuel in the truck, what did it cost? Okay, what was the bill? You see the bill, even though the company's paying it, you see the bill. Now you've got to put yourself in the company's situation here and say, Hey, what if I had to pay this bill? Have I made enough money over the past month or two months or three months to have had enough money put back to pay this bill? You can use that company truck as an owner operator simulator. I know that sounds a little crazy, but hey, it can be done and it would give you an idea of where you're going to be. It's better than just jumping into the deep end of the pool and not knowing that, that's what a lot of people do. They run out, they just go buy a truck. They marry a truck. I know a lot of people talk down about lease trucks. They are some really crappy leases out there. Don't get me wrong. There's some leases that's just not designed for you to ever make it. I can tell you that. But there are some good leases out there that you can make a fair living at. And the way I see that is, hey, find you a good lease. Do your homework. Jump into it, see what it's like, before you go out and marry a truck. You know when you marry that truck now, okay? You're upside down on it for the first probably three years. You own it. You're not gonna sell it for what you paid for it. Most generally, it's just not gonna work that way. So you can get yourself in a financial situation real fast, just running out and buying a truck so you could try leasing and then, if you're cut out to be an owner or operator at that point, you know what? Go on and buy what you want. Maybe even lease a truck for two or three years. Bank your money, refine your skills. Learn the ropes of maintenance. There's more than just sitting behind the wheel of that truck, looking out the window and saying, I'm an owner operator. Everybody wants to wear that title around their neck, but they have not really a clear vision of everything that goes into that. You gotta know mechanics, you gotta know maintenance. You've gotta know what's going on with your equipment, because the last thing you want to do is to step into a repair shop at three o'clock in the morning not knowing what you're doing and say, Hey, man, I have no idea what it's doing, because you just handed that guy an open checkbook. You don't want to go in and say, Hey, as long as it don't cost more than$10,000, we're good because you better bet your ass, the bill's gonna be They're going to make sure. If you're offering up the money they're going to get your money. They're gonna find the shit wrong with the truck and trust me. And when you're at their mercy, things can get ugly. They really can. So that's where it helps to understand about what you're doing, what's going on with my truck. You go into a shop, I refuse, I'm sorry. I refuse to pay a diagnosis. On a truck, I refuse to pay a diagnosis on a truck because 90% of the time I'm gonna walk in and say, Hey, I need this part changed.'cause I've already diagnosed it. I've already figured out what it is. I already know what my truck's doing. I know what needs to be done. I just ain't got the tools in my side box to do it, or I don't have the computer with me to fix it. I am paying you to change this part I don't need you to diagnose my truck. I've had many arguments with these shops out there, because they always want to hit you with that,$85, a hundred dollars or$200 diagnosis. Well, you didn't diagnose shit. I diagnosed this truck. I'm telling you, I need you to change this part. I'm not asking you to tell me nothing. I've already did your job. And some of them get mad. We've butted heads about that, if I can save myself money, why am I paying you to do something I've already done? They'll find every excuse in the world to flip around, oh, well, a mechanic. Well, okay, if he can't do it, I'll find somebody else. Don't ever put yourself in a position if you can help it to be at their mercy, because that's not a great place to be. Being an owner operator is a great thing. It's knowledge. Knowledge is power. You always wanna make sure you stay on top of your knowledge, learn research. We have a wealth of knowledge out here on the internet nowadays, but you still gotta pay attention'cause you got a lot of bullshit out there too. Pay attention to the guys and the people that really, truly does know what they're doing. There's a ton of YouTube videos that are very educational. There's a ton of them that'll lead you down a rabbit hole too, but, it all with a good dose of common sense really works out for the advantage there. You definitely live out here. You live out on the road and it is not an easy life. It ain't, so you try to make the best of it and you don't want to end up in a bad situation where you're paying for everything. If you want to try to get into a fuel. Like I used to feel predominantly TA petro because that's where with, Landstar, we used to get our biggest discount. I don't feel there as much anymore. I mean I tend to feel more with Pilot because I think we ended up with a little bit better deal at times with Pilot with all the paid parking started kinda. Let's just say I, I wasn't really pleased with a lot of the places just turning their whole lots into paid park and man, I don't wanna spend$25 everywhere I go to park at Ta Petro, I'll go somewhere else. So that's on them. But that's another thing I'm gonna do a deep dive on and. See if I can get some answers of why these truck stops charge two,$3 more for every item on the menu, just because it's a truck stop and they know that, we got to be able to eat and they know we have no choices. And I really, don't want to think they're doing this. I want to, feel like that there's a rhyme or reason for it. I really hope that for the better good of humanity. But I don't know. It's most definitely very obvious. They'll have sales pop up online. You go to the truck, say, Hey, I'm with the two for two for six, or this or that, and they look at you, well, we don't have. That. You don't have that just in the commercial. It's at all locations. Well, not at the truck stop. It's like we're automatically charged a full price, add a couple of dollars to it because he's a truck driver, and that's kind of what my hot buttons there. I'm sure there's, a lot of people out there with a lot of hotspots. About this topic, I'm gonna set up a, a called in line and we're going, we're going talk about the whole cost of living out on the road. And I agree with you and the healthiness too. The eating out here too. They wanna surpass these DOT physicals and, they wonder why these guys are only getting these six month cards or whatever. Well, look at the restaurants you're putting in here. Like you said, they're already expensive. But, then, you know what, it's just Wendy's. You could just name'em Wendy's, subway, McDonald's, Arby's, like where's the healthy stuff at? I think they need to start incorporating more healthier stuff in there too, I feel like the drivers are always getting the ones that get shafted, yeah, most definitely. And then it is a hard life. I get it, but there's no rhyme or reason. I, quite frankly, call it ask gouging. When you know someone is in a particular situation that they can't go anywhere else, and you're going to set there and raise that price up just simply because you can, and I'm going to end up buying that fuel there, so what all do you do far as trying to run a strategy on booking loads? Like what? Like strategy wise, right? Like what I just, I really. My truck's paid off now, and now I've, back when I first started, I had that big payment, and then once I, ever since I've got it paid off and I got all my stuff paid off my car and stuff, I, really just emphasize now on being a home more. But so now I just play, I just do short stuff. I get on there, I look at my load board. I'll see, okay, I might go to, Pittsburgh, pick up in Columbus. I do a lot of ODW logistics. I'll pick up there, might go to Pittsburgh or wherever. I'll just try to do something that's short and then sometimes, I'll get on there and I can't really find a back call. It might, it may pick up the next day. I'm like, I'm not gonna hang out, I'm not gonna hang out here. Sometimes it, I can get a really good paying load that pays me enough to where I'll just dead head back. I'll just dead head back home because it just makes more sense for me to do that instead of waiting out and, burning my clock the next day over just a back haul to get back or whatever. But that's pretty much what I do now. I just try to just book stuff, Indianapolis and back and you'd actually be really surprised. Well, you probably wouldn't, but some of the shorter stuff now is actually the way to go. Booking, these shorter runs instead of doing these longer ones. You go to Texas and you think, wow, that pays really good. Yeah, it really doesn't pay that well. So sometimes you can get a better rate just doing the shorter stuff. So I just emphasize a lot on, the shorter runs now I've tried to plan shorter stuff so I can get back home. I have days where I just want to get out and I want to go out west, so I'll book something out west. I would go up to Sydney, Ohio. I go to Cargill. I take a load that over to Cheyenne, Wyoming, which, there ain't much out that way. But then my broker would hook me back up with something else and I'd come right back yeah, it sounds like you got it going on there, bud. As long as you keep your truck running good and in good shape and everything and it sound to me like somebody's really took care of that truck. The shape it's in most definitely. That's a big thing. Being an owner operator is not jumping into something that's just a lemon. You want to get to something that's. Fairly easy to work on. I know the DD 15 is definitely not the easiest to work on, but in a lot of cases, like your pro stars, your lts, they definitely are a little easier to deal with than the admissions on the the internationals are the kenworths or the peterbilts, they definitely have their issues. You might wanna tell everybody to stay away from the Max Force engine? No, I think if people ain't heard about max Force, they deserve every bit of what they get. Yeah. It's most definitely a different animal. It definitely helps when you have some kind of mechanical knowledge on working on your own stuff. It saves you a lot of money in the long run you could just look on YouTube and there's guys on there, like you got a guy named Roz. He's just like a guru when it comes to Cummins engines. Try to do your best if you can while you're at home. When I'm at home it sucks'cause you're on your day off. You're like, that's the last thing you wanna do is run to a Volvo or Kenworth or wherever and grab parts. But hey, I'd rather do it while I'm at home than have somebody else do it out on the side of the road and charge me mileage to come to me and, bring the parts. They just really ask gal you on top of the restaurants, like you were saying earlier. You just get raped for everything out here. So. You can avoid that. You're better when you get home. To do all that, I like to do oil samples, to see where I'm at with that and just really looking over everything. There's a lot to do, but it saves you in the long run. Yeah, most definitely. It doesn't cost that much to pay attention. Get out and thump your tires and walk around was Sam, what what all did you like to pull when you go out west? Well., I like to do, I like to get the light freight. So I would do like the ball cans, like the ball company that makes the aluminum cans. Mm-hmm. So I would call that and just a variety of different things. I called all kinds of, odd things and there's been some situations where I was that guy that didn't look at the accessor charge stuff at the bottom of the thing too, but. Just you live and you learn, but there's been times that people's put some stuff in my trailer that like metal shavings and I had to spend all that time in the back of the trailer getting all that out because that's just dumb, learning, starting out, learning on my own stuff and my own trailer and stuff just happened to get back there and sweep all that out and take it to a wash out and stuff. Because a lot of the customers won't load you if there's obviously metal shavings or dirt or debris all in your trailer. But there's been some stuff that I've learned from just reading the fine print. Like I won't haul that again. I try to get the light loads because of the fuel and stuff, sometimes you can't always get'em light. You gotta take the heavy ones to get you where you need to go to get something that's paying more Yes, there's a, you're right, Sam. There are definitely a lot of customers. They really have a lot of retic soils. They like to be pampered. Especially your better paying clients, customers, they like to be pampered. They want things the way they want it, especially if they're paying a premium rate. Um, that, that's most debt. And you know what? You gotta respect that in the fact that they're willing to pay. A lot of times for things like that helps us make money. Those are money making assets. I call'em, and it is just all part of the job. When you're a company driver, you've gotta do a lot of the things as an extension of the company. When you are at the company, Hey, that's up to you. Ain't nobody gonna do it for you. Basically what you want to put into the industry. If you want to be just another guy riding down the road with no responsibility, hey, there's nothing wrong with that. That's what that guy chooses to do and that's great, but whenever you choose to step up and do something a little different that maybe you dreamed of doing, or something that's a little better. Fit for you and you want to try to manage your own expenses and everything and make a little extra money. I don't always try to anticipate people, tell people that they can anticipate to make more money because not everybody will. It all depends on how tight of a ship you run. As an owner operator, you can run a really tight ship and you can really milk some of them. The juice is out of this industry. But you gotta be, you gotta be responsible, you gotta be disciplined, and you gotta be educated. You gotta know what makes you money. You gotta know the dos and the don'ts. You can't fly up and down the road. That's probably one of the biggest things I see is the guy takes the cheap load and he's the guy that's driving the fastest down the highway. That's just, it is just crazy how people think. They take a cheap load. Well, I gotta hurry up and get it there because I ain't making any money on this load. It's just burning up my time. But okay, you're going to burn three quarters more fuel, trying to run 80 miles an hour to get a cheap load. You're just giving them, that's insult to injury. It really, it is. If people would slow down, and I'm not saying running 55 miles an hour, and I'm not saying running 58 miles an hour, you could take it 62, and that, that's not a bad speed limit and you can take your expenses of your overall truck down 30%. I am telling you, you're tire wear, your front end, your bushings, your everything, your brakes, you can tune your expenses down 30%. I did it. I've got guys out here doing it every day. They didn't believe me until they seen the numbers. I just told'em, Hey, give it a try. These are people that I work with every day. And the owner operator consulting into this that I do and I help people fine tune at the end of the day, which one's more important, going down the road, looking cool, or going down the road with a pocket full of money. That's up to you and either one's great if that's what you choose to do. Well, Sam, we're gonna wrap it up. I do appreciate you coming on the show. That's it for this episode of The Truckers Radio Podcast. Tune in. We got a lot of things coming down the pipe here, so you got anything you'd like to drop us a line, let us know anything you'd like to hear about, or if you want to write in, send us an email on a q and a. We're more than glad to put'em on the show. I do appreciate it. Thank you.“That wraps up today’s episode of The Trucker’s Radio Podcast on the real-world side of being an owner-operator. It’s not just about owning a truck it’s about knowing your numbers, managing your costs, and making smart decisions that keep you rolling strong. If you’ve got questions about trucking, business, or life on the road, send me an email at thetruckersradiopd@gmail.com or visit thetruckersradiopodcast.com. Until next time, reminding you to stay safe, stay sharp, and keep those wheels turning.”