First thing you need to decide is whether you want to continue to expedite as a hobby, or if you want to change how you are doing things and do it professionally. You are running, after all, your own independent business. Fifty percent deadhead means you're working twice as hard as you should, and earning half as much money as you should. That's a hobby. Unless, of course, all of your loads are paying $2 a mile.
The second thing you need to do is realize you are in the trucking industry and you don't drive a car. It's a cargo van, so as to delineate it from a large truck, but all property carrying vehicles are trucks, by definition. You are a trucker, regardless of the vehicle you drive.
Third, figure out your Cost Per Mile (CPM). Your CPM is way more than what fuel costs. It's fuel, insurance, van payments, tires, maintenance, repair, meals, tolls, etc. Don't forget that, generally speaking, you're putting five years worth of mileage and wear and tear on your truck every year, and you'll have to do five years worth of maintenance every year. You need to know what those costs are, and plan for them. Otherwise, when it comes time to pay for them, you're screwed.
OOIDA has a good spreadsheet that will help you figure out your CPM.
Also keep in mind the
Rule of Thirds. Out of your gross revenue, one third goes to for operating expenses, like fuel, oil, tolls, whatever it takes to operate your business. One third goes to the truck, like maintenance and repair, truck payments, truck washes, etc. Finally, one third goes to the driver. If you run for a dollar a mile with 50 percent deadhead, then you're getting 10 MPG and your operating expenses third is way out of whack. That doesn't leave much at all for you or maintenance and repair.
One immutable truth in this business is that excessive deadhead will kill your business. And by excessive, I mean more than 30 percent unpaid miles out of your total miles driven on the odometer. 15-20 percent is better, with 10-15 being ideal. In a cargo van, at the absolute minimum, your effective rate for all-miles should be 70 cents per mile. Mine is better than 95 cents a mile all miles.
Using your numbers above, at 5512 loaded miles, the odometer readings over that same time period should be no more than 6890 and your gross revenue should be in the $5500 range. At this point you should have put in about 350 gallons of fuel at a cost of $1100 (20% of revenue). If all of your numbers don't match up closely with these numbers, there's a problem that needs to be addressed.
You don't want to take a load to a place from which you cannot get loaded back out, unless the load pays enough up front to cover the cost of deadheading back out.
As you describe it, what you are doing is following the tried and true method of guaranteed failure in this business. We see it all the time. There's a reason that a small percentage of people who get into expediting are still in it a year later. After that, those who are following the tried and true really start dropping like flies, because they can't afford wheel bearings or brakes or an alternator, not to mention a new rear end or a transmission. Proper planning and education about this business is the way to succeed. I do wish you the best. But it sure seems like one of your priorities needs to be to get with a carrier that can get you loads wherever you go, and then you go where the freight takes you.
