Does anyone here expedite 100 percent of the time without going home?
I know of no one who does that 100 percent of the time but Diane and I came close in our early years in expediting and it was our lifestyle choice to do so. After one year in a fleet-owner truck, and then knowing that we loved the business and life on the road, we sold or otherwise disposed of our house, cars and all possessions except keepsakes to live and work in the truck.
For the tax (per diem) reasons TeamCaffee stated above, we maintained a legal home residence by renting space and maintaining a legal address in a relative's home. That is where we parked the truck and stayed when we went "home" for our one planned trip home a year, which was for Christmas. We would stop in sometimes if the freight took us close, but not every time. We call it home and so does the IRS, but as a practical matter, our home is the truck.
Just go with the wind 24-7?
It is not so much going with the wind as it is going with the freight. When you can be out here without any need to go home at all, you are free to go where the freight wants to go. And when you get hung up someplace, it is easier to deal with because thoughts like "I could be sitting at home waiting for freight instead of being stuck out here" do not enter your mind. If you are in the truck, and like it, you are home.
That mindset worked both in fleet-owner, factory-sleeper trucks and in the really, really, really nice big-sleeper truck we have now, which provides many creature comforts, lots of space, and makes life on the road much easier. And of course, we have each other for companionship and no children or grandchildren. When we are together, there is no reason to be anywhere else.
This property-free, home-on-the-road lifestyle works great for us but we totally understand the emotional tug family has. People who have children and grandchildren want to see them every now and then. And for many, it is more than a want, it is a powerful, heartfelt need.
If so, how do you get your mail?
We do as much business online as possible. All mail is delivered to our established address in Minnesota and a trusted relative serves as our mail clerk. Every now and then we call to go through the items. The important things are packaged up and sent to us via FedEx Express when we knew a day or more in advance where we will next be.
We do not have our mail sent to the city to which we were inbound until the load that is taking us there is on the truck (loads may cancel or change). We use FedEx Express because they have lots of hold-for-pickup locations and if it happened that we got dispatched out on a great load before picking up the package, we could pay to have the package forwarded to the next city.
We would never trust a truck stop to hold our mail and prefer to keep it safe and sealed and tracked within the FedEx system until pick up. We have never had to have the mail forwarded to another city because a hot load put us back on the road too soon, but enjoyed having that option if the need ever rose. The service is not cheap but we only needed to have the mail sent to us a few times a year; maybe once every two or three months.
Does it effect your psyche?
Absolutely yes! We kept our house and stuff for the first year we were in the business as a safety net. If the business turned out to be not for us, we would have a place to go back to. But the house quickly became a pain. Our house sitter turned out to be a dud. It was wonderful getting rid of almost all of our stuff. We found that the only reason we were going home was to tend to our stuff and the more time we spent on the road, the less that stuff meant to us. "Property-free is the way to be," we said and it was fantastically liberating to get rid of most of it. After getting rid of it, we missed none of it, not even for a day.
What we kept was boxed up and filled about half of a small bedroom in the house where we rented space. We kept the canoe too, which is stored outside of the house. Everything else went. As time passed, we forgot what was in the boxes without looking at the labels. That told us that we hung on to too much. Someday we'll do another purge to trim that collection down. It's not been a priority because it sits out of sight, out of mind.
Absolutely yes. Except for the house, we were debt free when we entered the business. After the house was sold, we were completely debt free. There was no house payment, cable bill, property taxes, mortgage interest, firewood, lawn mower gas, car insurance, etc. to pay for. The money we made in expediting did not go to pay those expenses because we were free of them. The money went into the bank instead.
In expediting, we were debt-free after we sold the house and before we bought our truck. Being property-free except for the truck, and home-expense free, we were able to pay off a new, $251,000 truck in 22 months and get back to our preferred debt-free status. No money from the sale of our house went to pay for the truck. The truck was paid for with expediting earnings.
It costs a lot of money to maintain a house in the suburbs. The money builds up fast in the bank when you do not send it to other people (or give it away or lend it to your children, or fritter it away on toys and vacations and eating out and the thousand other little purchases that can drain you if you let them).
So, yes, it absolutely can be more profitable but that will not happen simply because you are living and working full-time on the road. It will happen only if you have a financial plan and the discipline to stick to it.
With some people, money and them are like oil and water. There seems to be no way to keep the two together. We have seen it time and time again among truckers (and other people from all walks of life and education levels) that if they earn or otherwise come into a nice sum of money, the money quickly disappears as it is given or spent away.
The psychology of money is a topic for a book, not a forum post, but if your goal is to build wealth, it is helpful if you are psychologically disposed to derive satisfaction from a growing bank balance and are driven to grow it more.
There are expediters who spend a great deal of time on the road and live a mostly-property free life, but they have little money to show for it. For them, money is not important. They are out here for different reasons and achieve exactly that. You are asking about profitability and I am answering yes, absolutely, it can be more profitable, but only if profitability is a goal and desire.
The other angle on profitability is the fewer trips home that you make if you do not have a home to go to.
The above addresses the savings side. On the revenue side, living full-time on the road keeps you in service more which translates into earning more. The directional flexibility helps too. You don't have to tell a dispatcher that you can't take that load because it is going in the wrong direction. If you do not need to be someplace, you can go anyplace. Expediters do not make money at home. They make it on the road. If you are at home on the road, your revenue potential is enhanced.
What are the pros and cons?
A home off the road provides a place where you can feel safe and truly drop your guard. You do not have that when you are on the road. At our Minnesota address, Diane and I were able to build a concrete pad on which we could park the truck when we were there. I love that pad. It provides a clean, hard surface on which to work on the truck. It has water available for truck washing and is wired for shore power.
One of the best parts is that when I am working on the truck and want to break for lunch, I can walk away from my tools without worrying about someone walking off with them. It is one of the few places on earth where I can park the truck, leave it for the day or a few days, and trust that it will still be there and undamaged when we return.
There are times on the road when you need a true break from the truck and the road. A home base provides that for people who have one. We never really get that out on the road. An extended stay in a hotel or RV park is an acceptable substitute but we are still with the truck. In our case, the good news is that we seldom feel that need. I think we have only done the extended break while out on the road thing three or four times in several years.
Another con is the lack of privacy when we are at our Minnesota home base. When you rent a couple of rooms in a relative's house, you are seldom home alone when you are home. Neither you or your relatives have the freedom to walk around in an inappropriate state of dress or leave a half-finished meal sit on the coffee table. The rooms are ours by virtue of our rental contract, but the common areas are shared and never private. And then there's that radio show that one may like but the other one does not .... etc.
Also, what is the best bank to bank with OTR? I see alot of Chase, PNC, USbanks?
There is no best bank. Any number of them can provide the services you need. We found no need to leave our local banks behind when we took up life on the road.
That answers your questions. Let me add that in our first months as expediters, we kept our suburban home, cars and all the toys, but as soon as it was determined that expediting was for us, we could not get rid of that crap soon enough. It took a year to do so.
Diane and I disagree on this, but if I had it to do over again, I would bring in a big dumpster and throw all of our crap away. The donations, garage sales, for-sale ads and give-aways were more trouble than they were worth. The money made was not enough to compensate for the time and trips home taken to get rid of the stuff. It has been said that one person's trash is another person's treasure. It works the other way around too. Your treasured items are worth only ten cents on the dollar to others. It's junk. Treat it as such and throw it in the dumpster. Be rid of it and be free.
Our expediting years 2-7 were "property-free" as described above, but then something happened. An emotional switch flipped in my head and I began to hate winter with a passion. Diane and I were both born and raised in winter states. Winter driving and living were nothing new to us but something changed inside and I just came to hate it.
One thing led to another and we ended up buying a vacation home in Florida. That gave me the power to turn winter off like a switch. When I hit my limit with winter, we could deadhead at will to Florida and walk around barefoot instead of bundled up. In very short order we were spending winter weeks or months at that house and loving every minute of it.
We paid cash for that house and it is located in a gated community where exterior maintenance is provided. Neighbors can look out the window and tell us the house is still there with no broken windows if we ever get to worrying about that. No goods were placed in the house that we cared about. If the place got blown or flooded away by a hurricane (six feet above sea level, 200 yards from the coast), so what? We'd probably have to pay for a dumpster and cleanup crew but that would be it.
We know how to live without the traditional home and goods. It would be easy to live without this Florida place if it was destroyed. But while we have it, it is fantastic, providing the cure for winter that I came to desperately want and need.
The house was not purchased because we needed a break from the road or needed a home base different from what we already had in Minnesota. It was purchased to provide a break from winter.
That's our story but note that yours will vary greatly if you take up full-time life and work on the road. Priorities differ. Psychology differs. No two people or no two teams will do this the same.
