Whether it comes out of your pocket or it comes out of the 60% is pure semantics. If the carrier advances you a portion of your money that you use for fuel, it's still coming out of the 60% and thus out of your pocket.
If you don't get an advance and need to buy fuel, you pay for it out of your pocket.
If you do get an advance and need to buy fuel, you pay for it out of your pocket.
There's no such thing as a fuel advance. It's an advance, period. You can do with it whatever you want - it's your money. You can even put it in your pocket and then remove it and use it to pay for fuel.
So, when I tell someone new to the industry that the driver pays the fuel on a 60/40 split, they absolutely should assume it will come out if their pocket, because that's where it comes from. How that money gets into their pocket is up to them, whether it's from last week's settlement of from a load advance.
If they are just starting out and have no money, and they need that advance money for operating expenses in order to, you know, operate, then as Chef noted, they are getting into this business underfunded, and that's no way to run a business.
