Thinking of going it alone... Is it worth it?

[welshgooner]

It depends what contract you can get on ie containers or fridge work ?

You got to try to earn above £2300 + VAT a week, so you can pay the weekly bills below

i.e. diesel depending if your on distance work (£1000 + VAT) or local (£700 + VAT) Weekly
Ad-blue, (£35 + VAT) Weekly
Red Diesel for fridge trailers (£50 + VAT) Weekly
Wages, Weekly
Trailer hire, (£250 + VAT fridges - £100 +VAT skeletal) Weekly
VAT, every three months,
Truck Servicing every 6 weeks
Operator licence holder (unless you have your own T/Manger CPC) Monthly
Weekend parking, (£20 + VAT each night) Weekly
Tyres, (if you have a blow out on the Truck £350 + VAT each, a bit less on trailers £290 + VAT)
Overnight parking depend what load you have on, if on Containers (£30 per night) Daily
Insurances, 1 Public liability 2 Goods in transit 3 Truck fully comp, Monthly
Financial standing for a standard national licence, 1st vehicle £7,700 than each vehicle after £4,200 each,
All Road Tolls & Bridges, Weekly
Truck hire, (£300 + VAT) Weekly unless you are lucky enough to own a Truck
Bank Overdraft a must for emergency
Have a part-time driver for weekend work while you have your rest day ( Sat or Sun ) £100 a shift weekly

If you can afford the above, and still pay your mortgage, like doing long hours, then go for it,

It’s was a great experiences for me to work for myself, I did it for 5 years on Containers working Monday to Friday and did some Supermarket work on the weekend to top up on my earnings,

but then the rates dropped in 2009 and the work got harder to find, so when you start to pay out more than your earning its time to knock it on the head, which I did in December 2011,

But on the flip side I’m working as a Ltd driver now on the agency earning good money, no nights away, still me own boss, pick and choose what days I want to work and were I want to work, mid-day starts, no over heads and better home life.

[boredwivdrivin]

Plus , you will need about £8k in account to prove your financial standing , per vehicle when you apply for operators licence .
If you think a cafe is easier , remember will need planning permission for truck parking . so hope the neighbours support you !

[nsmith1180]

alder:
I looked at this last year and was willing to plough £70k into it. I was thinking along the lines of buying a decent tractor unit for £30k and two trailers, a skelly and a tautliner.

Wouldn’t you have been better off putting a bit of elbow grease in yourself? Instead of getting a Skelly, go for something like this:

trucks.autotrader.co.uk/used-tru … c7144772fc

get the paint stripper out, repaint, replace components as necessary, sand and varnish the floor boards, again replace as necessary and you have a flat bed with twist locks for either container or brick and block work as it comes up? Probably cost you less than 6k and be almost as new.

[conor]

Mate of mine was an owner driver. Started out with a 7.5 tonner doing furniture deliveries for TEPs in Hull. Upgraded to wagon and drag, then to artic and then to a small fleet of three artics doing work from Hull docks as well as subbying for another haulier out of Ideal Standard boilers in Hull.

He said he made more money out of that 7.5 tonner than he did out of the fleet. His company had gone bankrupt once with the wagon and drag and again with the fleet. Wasn’t lack of work but lack of being paid. VAT man shut down the company because of the outstanding VAT bill even though he had I believe £30k owed and due to be paid.

[big_aw]

peirre:
If you spend the money on whiskey and whores, you can at least say you got some satisfaction from the money invested

Two quality quotes that mate your on fire today

[big_aw]

peirre:
It’s a fantastic way of making a million pounds…

But first, start with two million pounds, that way you’ll have some money left over when you’ve lost your 1st million

[conor]

nsmith1180:

alder:
I looked at this last year and was willing to plough £70k into it. I was thinking along the lines of buying a decent tractor unit for £30k and two trailers, a skelly and a tautliner.

Wouldn’t you have been better off putting a bit of elbow grease in yourself? Instead of getting a Skelly, go for something like this:

trucks.autotrader.co.uk/used-tru … c7144772fc

get the paint stripper out, repaint, replace components as necessary, sand and varnish the floor boards, again replace as necessary and you have a flat bed with twist locks for either container or brick and block work as it comes up? Probably cost you less than 6k and be almost as new.

GTW 39000kg…it’ll need re-plating and probably work to get it upgraded.

[alder]

Possibly Conor but as I say that was last year and I am no longer planning to go that route. Good advice there though for people who are thinking about it

[carryfast]

.

[chaversdad]

Carryfast:

welshgooner:
It depends what contract you can get on ie containers or fridge work ?

You got to try to earn above £2300 + VAT a week, so you can pay the weekly bills below

i.e. diesel depending if your on distance work (£1000 + VAT)

The problem being that the rates quoted for sub contract owner drivers are usually ‘inclusive’ of any extra VAT component.Which effectively means that the the rate being offered will be ‘all in’ and therefore needs to be calculated based on the full pump price of the fuel.Which,together with a realistic 8 mpg calculation, v common worst case mileage based rate offers,often means a scary real world fuel costing of well over half of the max possible turnover figure.

Assuming anyone then tries to deal with that,by minimising mileage run.It then becomes an exercise in trying to cover the other fixed non mileage dependent overheads,by looking for what is effectively local work based on an hourly rate,not a mileage based one.

The result being the worst of all world situation.Of being lumbered with local agency zb type work,with all the added aggravation of not only having to find an hourly rate which pays a decent wage.But which also pays for all the overheads of running a vehicle and paying for somewhere to base it.

Serious question @ Carryfast, have you ever been an Owner driver ?

[robroy]

I’ d like to bet a weeks pay that he hasn’t. It’s just him again being an authority and an expert on something he has never experienced himself…yet again

[harry_monk]

Carryfast:
The problem being that the rates quoted for sub contract owner drivers are usually ‘inclusive’ of any extra VAT component.

I’ve never ever seen a rate quoted which included the VAT.

[carryfast]

chaversdad:

Carryfast:

welshgooner:
It depends what contract you can get on ie containers or fridge work ?

You got to try to earn above £2300 + VAT a week, so you can pay the weekly bills below

i.e. diesel depending if your on distance work (£1000 + VAT)

The problem being that the rates quoted for sub contract owner drivers are usually ‘inclusive’ of any extra VAT component.Which effectively means that the the rate being offered will be ‘all in’ and therefore needs to be calculated based on the full pump price of the fuel.Which,together with a realistic 8 mpg calculation, v common worst case mileage based rate offers,often means a scary real world fuel costing of well over half of the max possible turnover figure.

Assuming anyone then tries to deal with that,by minimising mileage run.It then becomes an exercise in trying to cover the other fixed non mileage dependent overheads,by looking for what is effectively local work based on an hourly rate,not a mileage based one.

The result being the worst of all world situation.Of being lumbered with local agency zb type work,with all the added aggravation of not only having to find an hourly rate which pays a decent wage.But which also pays for all the overheads of running a vehicle and paying for somewhere to base it.

Serious question @ Carryfast, have you ever been an Owner driver ?

I got stopped at the start up capital hurdle.However I got close enough to realise that the fuel costs v general rates being offered equation wasn’t going to be easy to make add up and was only going to get worse,‘if’ I’d have miraculously found the cash.Having said that feel free to correct me if those often well under £1.50 per mile rates being offered were based on plus VAT.

[the_maoster]

Carryfast:
The problem being that the rates quoted for sub contract owner drivers are usually ‘inclusive’ of any extra VAT component.

Despite what Wikepedia or Google may tell you nobody ever quotes rates inclusive of VAT. It’s a given that price X will be billed plus VAT. The only exception would be for cash in hand which is rarer than hens teeth. I tell you that as someone who has been an O/D.

[carryfast]

Harry Monk:

Carryfast:
The problem being that the rates quoted for sub contract owner drivers are usually ‘inclusive’ of any extra VAT component.

I’ve never ever seen a rate quoted which included the VAT.

I’m not referring to the rate ‘quoted’/‘charged’ by the main contractor.Or the type of job where the owner driver/subby has the luxury of dictating his rate to the main contractor.All of which is obviously passed down the line to the end customer.

I’m referring to the type of job where the main contractor subs it out and dictates the rate to the subby which to my knowledge was never based on the subby being able to add VAT to it.IE a rate offered/dictated ‘to the subby’ ‘inclusive’ of the VAT component not net of VAT.IE as I remember,at that time,at best around just over £1 per mile sometimes even less.Good luck with trying to add VAT to that rate in that case.While even in the case of the sub contractor dictating the rate it’s doubtful that the rate available would change significantly.

Unless I’ve missed something and when they said 90p or just over £1 per mile that was net of VAT. Which at least would have made the fuel cost calculation that I was going by look a lot better.The obvious question in that case being the same rate would obviously apply in the case of an owner driver working below the VAT registration threshold.So what happens then ?.

Having said that,as I said,regardless of the VAT argument.It is the fuel costs v revenues situation,which has for long been one of the largest reasons for financial unviability/lack of profitability in the industry.Even for many of the largest most established operations which can command the best rates.Let alone new start small owner driver operations who often have to take what they can get to keep the work.

[nsmith1180]

Carryfast:
Unless I’ve missed something and when they said 90p or just over £1 per mile that was net of VAT. Which at least would have made the fuel cost calculation that I was going by look a lot better.The obvious question in that case being the same rate would obviously apply in the case of an owner driver working below the VAT registration threshold.So what happens then ?.

The OD in that case would be better placed to go on the flat rate scheme. Earning 2.5k a week, it would work out based on a 50 week year at 125000, still withing scope of the scheme. Thats 25k a year in VAT but a transport company keeps half the Vat charged. So £137500 a year.

You are better off doing that than going full VAT and claiming back the VAT on your fuel for example about 10k. Don’t know how much VAT you would pay per year on servicing and other company purchases but you would need to spend 13.5k a year on VAT alone to make the full rate scheme a better option.

[harry_monk]

nsmith1180:
The OD in that case would be better placed to go on the flat rate scheme. Earning 2.5k a week, it would work out based on a 50 week year at 125000, still withing scope of the scheme. Thats 25k a year in VAT but a transport company keeps half the Vat charged. So £137500 a year.

You are better off doing that than going full VAT and claiming back the VAT on your fuel for example about 10k. Don’t know how much VAT you would pay per year on servicing and other company purchases but you would need to spend 13.5k a year on VAT alone to make the full rate scheme a better option.

All of us owner drivers have accountants, and there must be a reason why not one of us has an accountant who recommends doing what you suggest.

[chaversdad]

Harry Monk:

Carryfast:
The problem being that the rates quoted for sub contract owner drivers are usually ‘inclusive’ of any extra VAT component.

I’ve never ever seen a rate quoted which included the VAT.

In 15yrs neither have i

[carryfast]

chaversdad:

Harry Monk:

Carryfast:
The problem being that the rates quoted for sub contract owner drivers are usually ‘inclusive’ of any extra VAT component.

I’ve never ever seen a rate quoted which included the VAT.

In 15yrs neither have i

In which case the example of owner driver rates being stated in adverts as + or - £1 per mile were actually all stating + or - £1 per mile + VAT ?. Which would obviously make the fuel cost calculation at least look totally different compared to + or - £1 per mile inclusive of VAT charges.

[harry_monk]

Carryfast:
In which case the example of owner driver rates being stated in adverts as + or - £1 per mile were actually all stating + or - £1 per mile + VAT ?. Which would obviously make the fuel cost calculation at least look totally different compared to + or - £1 per mile inclusive of VAT charges.

All pence per mile rates that I have ever seen quoted have been ex-VAT.