£1.35 what a joke ,there’s more out of a ■■■■■■ van ,and a profit too ,and that’s after wages .
I do traction only, and I’ve always said the same, I earn a reasonable living at it, not a fortune. As a driver, I work as an employee of my own limited company, and over the last three months my nett pay has been £3,251.68, £2,565.68 and £3,143.62. Considering that I don’t work very hard, rarely reduce my rest below 11 hours and can come and go as I choose I consider that to be reasonable. If I didn’t there would be nothing stopping me from packing up and going off to drive a supermarket trolley.
Dan Punchard:
£1.35 what a joke ,there’s more out of a ■■■■■■ van ,and a profit too ,and that’s after wages .
Please elaborate…do you work every day on regular work or on specialist last minute courier work. There are so many variables that it is silly to try and compare different scenarios.
It doesn’t matter what sort of work ,working with a artic for £1.35 a mile is silly.
matamoros:
What would the critics of traction work accept as a profit, I have not seen any figures to justify claims that all us subbies on traction are charity cases.By profit I mean revenue minus total operating costs not including a wage because as an OD my profit is my wage.
I know exactly what my operating costs are and I know what I make and am getting a little bit p*****d off with people who will not justify their claims saying that I am a charity case.
If someone will do me the courtesy of backing their statements up with some figures I will again post some figures to show what is possible at £1.35/mile.
You really need someone to point it out to you? Aren’t the other posts enough evidence for you? Look at Harry Monk’s post in this thread. He’s charging significantly more per mile and yet on what he calls a “good week” he’s only making a grand profit so on a normal week it would be a lot less than that. At £1.35/mile even with your running costs cut right down to the bone you’re never going to make more than a few hundred quid a week profit, maybe £500 if luck is on your side all week without any catastrophes, breakdowns, blow outs or delays anywhere.
I do a grand a week driving someone else’s 18 tonner and when I walk out of the office it’s no longer my problem unlike being an owner operator. The difference is I go to work for the money, not the grandeur of having my name on the truck doors and nor the illusion of being my own boss.
Left hand down!:
I do a grand a week driving someone else’s 18 tonner and when I walk out of the office it’s no longer my problem unlike being an owner operator. The difference is I go to work for the money, not the grandeur of having my name on the truck doors and nor the illusion of being my own boss.
If you are earning a grand a week working as an employee then my advice would be to stick with that, I personally don’t know anybody who earns that much driving a truck as an employee or anywhere near it, so you can’t really compare your wages with the wages more typically on offer to an employed driver. I consider what I earn to be a reasonable return on my time and investment, as I’m sure the other OOs who have posted here do.
Seems to me that there is a bit of bitterness aimed at owner drivers that are feeding at the shallow end, if you are doing better good luck to you but why the need to slag off those doing what they do.
I pull containers and have seen some oar holders talked about on here about rates.
Not every one wants to be a company man, some of us enjoy the work and the whole trucking thing and if that is the choice made can’t see the problem.
Seems some don’t understand what a profit is. Net profit is what is left in the kitty at the end of the year after all expenses (fixed & variable) are paid AND a wage is drawn.
No profit = either a bad (exceptional) year or a poor business model.
IF I remember correctly in the haulage industry net profit would be expected to be in the region of 5% of turnover?
I have been in business for over thirty years as a sole trader and in a partnership. I understand exactly what a profit is.
As an OD what is left after fixed and variable costs are deducted is what it is , call it profit, wages what you want but it is what you have made.
If you want to take a ‘wage’ out, though this term is irrelevent to any sole trader, and call what is left profit then that is merely semantics.
If as a sole trader you take out more in ‘wages’ than you are earning then you will fairly soon go out of business.
bazstan009:
Seems to me that there is a bit of bitterness aimed at owner drivers that are feeding at the shallow end, if you are doing better good luck to you but why the need to slag off those doing what they do.
Bitterness? No. Annoyance? Yes, because these people dragging trailers around for peanuts because “it’s a way of life/there’s more to life than money” can be found posting in other threads about how drivers should go on strike for better pay rates and conditions, completely missing the irony of what they’re saying. Working for such abysmal rates indirectly affects everyone else further down the food chain but so long as they have their 2 kelsa bars, some frillies and their name on the door then none of that matters. 
Left hand down!:
bazstan009:
Seems to me that there is a bit of bitterness aimed at owner drivers that are feeding at the shallow end, if you are doing better good luck to you but why the need to slag off those doing what they do.Bitterness? No. Annoyance? Yes, because these people dragging trailers around for peanuts because “it’s a way of life/there’s more to life than money” can be found posting in other threads about how drivers should go on strike for better pay rates and conditions, completely missing the irony of what they’re saying. Working for such abysmal rates indirectly affects everyone else further down the food chain but so long as they have their 2 kelsa bars, some frillies and their name on the door then none of that matters.
Whats a kelsa bar? No frillies on my truck or name on door! 
As an OD I took £3500 out in my first year, I could have took more but then I wouldn’t have been able to buy 2 more trucks. I’ll probably take more money this year as I haven’t got a clue of what truck I could buy next so until then the money is mine
i suppose i,m somewhere in the middle in this argument as i dont work for fantastic rates but i also dont work for £1.20 a mile, the reason i stay as an O/D though is the flexibility of work suits me, i dont go out to make a huge yearly profit, i run a 9yr old truck that could do with a lick of paint but it earns enough to show a profit,I draw a decent wage, drive a new van, have a couple of holidays a year, if its a bit quiet and theres enough in the bank i,ll take another week or 2 off, i have absolutely no intention of expanding or spending 80k+ on a new truck,
I might be one of those O/D,s a bit lower down the chain compared to the high earners but it suits me
chaversdad:
i suppose i,m somewhere in the middle in this argument as i dont work for fantastic rates but i also dont work for £1.20 a mile, the reason i stay as an O/D though is the flexibility of work suits me, i dont go out to make a huge yearly profit
Make money = Good.
Show any kind of profit = Bad.
At least, that’s what my accountant tells me and he seems to know what he’s talking about. 
But, although it’s important to earn enough running a truck to make it worthwhile, there are other advantages too. For example, I’m going on holiday in August. If I was an employee, I would have to ask for the time off, and might well be told “Sorry, August is all booked up, you can have a week in November or February”. As it is, I just say “I’m not available first week of August” and that’s that.
My laptop has been living on borrowed time and gave up the ghost two weeks ago. The company bought me a new one. The company buys me lots of nice things.
I don’t have my name on the doors, and I don’t have any frilly curtains (in fact I don’t have any type of curtains at all) but I will 'fess up to a Hella bar which was on the truck when I bought it. It doesn’t really figure in the equation though. I can’t see any reason to spend time taking it off.
If LHD is earning £1,000 a week as an employee, then I would certainly not recommend him operating his own truck, where I live an employed artic driver doing similar work to me will take home £500-£550 per week including night-out money, but the advice I always give is “If you have a good job, with a good boss and are earning a fair wage then don’t even think about running your own truck”.
It suits me, that’s all I can say.
Left hand down!:
matamoros:
What would the critics of traction work accept as a profit, I have not seen any figures to justify claims that all us subbies on traction are charity cases.By profit I mean revenue minus total operating costs not including a wage because as an OD my profit is my wage.
I know exactly what my operating costs are and I know what I make and am getting a little bit p*****d off with people who will not justify their claims saying that I am a charity case.
If someone will do me the courtesy of backing their statements up with some figures I will again post some figures to show what is possible at £1.35/mile.
You really need someone to point it out to you? Aren’t the other posts enough evidence for you? Look at Harry Monk’s post in this thread. He’s charging significantly more per mile and yet on what he calls a “good week” he’s only making a grand profit so on a normal week it would be a lot less than that. At £1.35/mile even with your running costs cut right down to the bone you’re never going to make more than a few hundred quid a week profit, maybe £500 if luck is on your side all week without any catastrophes, breakdowns, blow outs or delays anywhere.
I do a grand a week driving someone else’s 18 tonner and when I walk out of the office it’s no longer my problem unlike being an owner operator. The difference is I go to work for the money, not the grandeur of having my name on the truck doors and nor the illusion of being my own boss.
I do not need anything pointing out to me, it all boils down to expectations. If you expect to be able to earn £1000 a week wherever you work then you are living in cloud cuckoo land, you say you are earning that now then you are very lucky and as Harry says, stick with it.
My expectations are not so high and running at £1.35 a week I could make around £600 a week on 1500 miles running a new vehicle on contract hire so no shocks. If I did 2000 miles a week could make £1000 but do not usually, somewhere in between.
Few nights out, not tramping, as I said it’s all down to expectations, yours are obviously higher than mine.
Dan Punchard:
It doesn’t matter what sort of work ,working with a artic for £1.35 a mile is silly.
Really, the ppm rate is irrelevant, if I could find work running say one tonne of foam rubber to Madrid and backloading three tonnes of tortilla chips from the factory next door every week and it paid £1.35 a mile tolls and ferries paid, doing it on Spanish diesel, then I’d put a dozen trucks on the road tomorrow to do it.
Regardless of whether the books are showing a profit, a loss or break even, everyone still has to keep a roof over their head, run their home, pay council taxes etc and eat. Having subtracted those essential weekly/monthly drawings from the business and from some of the figures, there doesn’t seem to be an awful lot left for reinvestment in the business.
Harry Monk:
Left hand down!:
I do a grand a week driving someone else’s 18 tonner and when I walk out of the office it’s no longer my problem unlike being an owner operator. The difference is I go to work for the money, not the grandeur of having my name on the truck doors and nor the illusion of being my own boss.If you are earning a grand a week working as an employee then my advice would be to stick with that, I personally don’t know anybody who earns that much driving a truck as an employee or anywhere near it, so you can’t really compare your wages with the wages more typically on offer to an employed driver
Who said anything about it needing to be an employed driver? I’m a one man ltd co., same as you but without a truck. The money is there, it’s simply a matter of making contacts, adopting a ‘can do’ attitude and keeping your nose clean and the rest falls into place. No reason why any other driver couldn’t do the same. Happy to post proof of earnings (again) if anyone doubts my claims. 
I often drive for someone who is happy to be charged £150 for a easy day and £250 for a big run which would mean having a night out and running in the next morning .
Left hand down!:
Who said anything about it needing to be an employed driver? I’m a one man ltd co., same as you but without a truck. The money is there, it’s simply a matter of making contacts, adopting a ‘can do’ attitude and keeping your nose clean and the rest falls into place. No reason why any other driver couldn’t do the same. Happy to post proof of earnings (again) if anyone doubts my claims.
Nobody is doubting you. You have a good deal there, stick with it. You don’t need to post proof of earnings.
We do what we do and most of us seem to be able to get on with it and find the earnings satisfactory. There’s certainly nothing “trapping” me into running my own truck, I could walk away tomorrow.
At the risk of repeating myself. 