Should come as no surprise. Many wrote and knew this was coming several years ago. About the time we seen posts about "being a millionaire", I'm pre-dispatched all the time", and not to be left out, the long winded flowery tourist stories that went on and on. I also remember those posts of chastizement that said "oh your too negative". However, we are now at that point that was discussed then and a handful said could never happen.
Surprise.
That time has arrived.
Let's assume, DaveKC, that I am among those you refer to, since I have made posts about
becoming a millionaire expediter, and written "flowery tourist stories" (see my
Stories From the Road on my web site).
I have not said Diane and I are predispatched all the time. I have said we are frequently predispatched and that remains true today. In the last couple months we have run fewer loads than before. But when on loads, predispatched loads come at the same rate as in busier times. We have never tracked our actual percentage of predispatched loads to non-predispatched loads so I cannot provide specific numbers.
Still, if we are on a load, it is as likely as not that the next load will be predispatched. What has changed is that the predispatch may be for a pickup a day or two later instead of a pickup that is the same day or next.
Surprised I am, not by a recession, but by t
he staggering bailouts and spending the government is doing in response. I am not alone in that.
While we were taking in tourist attractions and writing stories about them, we were also making excellent money and using it to pay off the truck at an accelerated pace. The revenue reports were true. The tourist stories were true. Flowery perhaps, but also absolutely, positively, and factually true. They were also balanced with stories about setbacks and the negative aspects of the business.
I call them as I see them, Dave. In easy times, I spoke of the great money and great fun we enjoyed. Now that hard times have come, I am speaking about the current state of the economy and how it affects business. Ours is not a business plan based on good times only. It is a plan for all seasons and it is working.
We got into this business in 2003 with five stated goals. Nothing has happened that requires us to change our goals or lifestyle on the road. The current slowdown is changing the pace at which we are approaching the achievement of certain financial goals but that is to be expected as the economy ebbs and flows. About our ability to achieve the goals we set, there is no doubt (excepting death or disability, of course).
My blog has reduced the frequency at which I now write my Stories From the Road. But regular readers of my web site see we are still having fun out here, love the business as much as ever, and continue to do what it takes to prosper in this business.
Freight has slowed for us in the last couple of months, and revenue with it. It is not a problem because we are debt free, we are putting our spare time to productive use, and we expect things to pick up sooner or later. It will be sooner for us instead of later, we believe, because people leaving the industry will rebalance the ratio of freight to trucks.
But if we are wrong about that and the hard times persist, we have the ability to haul NO freight for a full year and remain solvent. That's because we made hay while the sun shined.
Put another way, we did the same thing the Pharoh (Genesis 41) did when he learned from Joseph that seven good years would be followed by seven years of famine. He used the seven good years to fill the storehouses.
We could easily haul more freight and run the wheels off this truck if we reduced our price. Some are doing so now. We are not among them. Doing that is the same thing as eating your seed corn. It gets you buy for a while but creates problems in the future.
Could we reconfigure the truck, carrier relationship or freight-finding ways? Sure we could. But that would take us off the lifestyle goals we set when we entered the business. Instead, we are making good use of the spare time slow freight gives us and running profitable loads as they come.
With fewer loads, our revenue has delcined, and so have our expenses. Fixed costs remain unchanged but variable costs decline when fewer miles are driven. Profits remain and we continue to put money in the bank, just not as much as before. No worries here. The storehouses are full.
