Six Money Saving Tips for Owner Operators
Posted on Aug 27, 2007 - 3:12pm by Wayne Weisser in Business
I don’t highlight all the bad news about trucking and the economy only to fill white space or to scare everyone. It’s about being prepared and running smarter than the guy next to you.
I’m not going to bore you with the same old tips everyone else has. Slow down, etc… You’re bombarded with those everywhere. These might be different than what you’ve heard before and hopefully you will start thinking outside the box when it comes to saving money.
- Know your cost per mile – OOIDA spreadsheet. How do you know how much you’re making if you don’t know how much it actually costs to run your truck?
- Be smart about fuel taxes. Know what your paying and why. Get to know the states where it’s best to fuel in and not to fuel in and why.
- Oil Changes – A lot of todays trucks are on extended oil change plans, yet some owners are still changing oil and spending $200 or more to change oil and filters every 10 or 15 thousand miles. An oil analysis tells you if your oil is still working and has more miles left on it. Getting an oil analysis is good to do anyway, but use it to extend your oil change interval and save money. Some things that will help extend your oil change interval is good fuel mileage and very little idling. Every truck is different and your lube, fuel filters and oil changes have different maintenance intervals on them. Getting everything changed at 10,000 miles is wasteful and expensive.
- Cell phones - Every truck driver has or should have a cell phone. Shop around and even within your own cell carrier for the best rates for your usage. There are always specials going on and keep an eye on your minutes and get the best plan for who and when you call.
- Keep your taxes current. The first impression is – that’s not saving money. But in the long run, one of the biggest things that bite owner operators is back taxes. You can file bankruptcy on almost everything except for taxes. Uncle Sam will catch up to you eventually and between interest, fees and late charges the bill can be much worse than the original amount. Pay what you can and if you need to work out a plan with them, do it as soon as possible.
- Stay out of truck stops. Do I need to say more? We have a miniature refrigerator in our truck. It’s DC for electric and has a little freezer and can make ice or ice a pop. It cost a lot, the main reason is it’s DC and those just cost more. I even did minor surgery on my truck in order to make it fit, it’s worth it. Here’s where I got mine (twice), great warranty and great service at truckfridge.com.
I can probably make another five posts on saving money only on food in the truck. If you have any more ideas to save money put them in the comments and I’ll put them together for another list.
Transportation Broker Survey Results
RSS feed for comments on this post | Trackback URI
We're on Twitter!
Thanks for the info Wayne. These simple things are sometimes forgotten, especially the food part.
[...] Click here you may find them useful [...]
Can anyone offer some helpful tips on maintenance for international vehicles? My predictament is occurring with a International service department that I feel is not honest in the repair of my husband’s international truck. His truck is currently in the shop for repairs. He took his truck to the shop exactly 1 week and 2 days (Tuesday 21 August-Friday 24 August 2007) ago for a check engine light. They repaired a Cam sensor malfunction. After driving the truck for a total of 4 hours (Monday, 27 Aug 07) his transmission light came on, so he immediately took the truck to a transmission (Monday, 27Aug07 to 29Aug07) shop to get it repaired. The transmission shop said it was not a transmission malfunction, but a sensor malfunction leading to the transmission. So my husband returned the truck to the International repair shop (29Aug07) where they have created a seperate invoice for this service. The service manager tells me this two separate functions, but they haven’t even looked at the truck, they basing this all on my husband telling them the transmission light is on. My husband is not a mechanic, he is a driver. The thing that gets me, The shop has repeatedly done this before, They know he is not mechanically aware of problems, so they treat him like a sucker. Whereas, he has taken his truck to this shop in good faith, only to have to return it to for the same repairs over again, and over again, and charged over again. He is not a mechanic, but he does do scheduled preventive trips to the service department. He only lets qualified International repair centers service his truck. Most times, I say nothing because he trusts them, so he keeps returning it until they finally get it right, but it is getting out of hand. I may not be a mechanic but, I smell a rat, some pretty big rats. I would also like to add that my career is in the Maintenance field and I have 13 years of experience with driving and doing basic operator PMs on deisel engines, 2-1/2 & 5 ton military vehicles. I am not a mechanic, but maintenance is my environment. Can anyone offer some advice?
Schedule a meeting with the General Manager and Service Manger together. Present your case and tell them exactly what you want. This is simply taking the problem up the chain of command.
Too many people do not do this, and just take what they get.