Got a lot of subbies on today; some are the " your lot pay crap rate, charge a fortune to use the tip" brigade so things must be desperate. The ones who happiliy plod on have old and paid for wagons yet as a lady od with a K reg Foden 8w put it “I get paid the same rate and I can afford to stand it”.
Mate of mine had his own 6 leg tipper but got rid last back end. Yeah its nice the thought of being your own boss but think, do you want to work every Saturday morning just for that extra bit, then spend every Sunday underneath the ■■■■ thing. Do you want to kiss your next 2 weeks profit goodbye when you get a puncture, or do you just want to chuck the keys in everyday and say boss this needs fixing, boss ive had a blow out get on to the tyre people, do you want to think where the hell the next tank of derv is coming from. Also do you want to get a payslip every Friday that shows nothing but profit for you.
If you can cope with the stress I would say do it, if you are married with young kids and a rather large mortgage etc I wouldn`t give it a second thought and let somebody else take the strain/stress.
In my 16 years of driving trucks I know of 5 CLOSE people who have gone into OD’ing. Of them 5 people (one of them myself) only 1 still has a business. The other 4 inclusive of myself has been bankrupt (Im out of it now). I earn the same profit now from agency driving than I did with my own truck. I will break it down for you if you want but if not then just trust me what I say. The 1 person who still has his company has had the most unbelievable luck, including similiar things happenening to him as the other guys. For EG. He has had 2 companies he has been working for go bus on him owing him 1000’s. Just like I did, just like my mates did… only he got paid back (TWICE !!!), the companies who bought the defunct businesses he was pulling for had absolutely no obligation to pay him, but they did. One of them I think was a setup and I think one of the owners (who lives in Spain) was paid to bankrupt so the bigger company (who were his friends) could pick the best bits of the failing company and also get a lot of cheap machinery !!! It goes on… In my opinion, I’d love to do it again to be my own boss but I just don’t see the point at all. Stobarts ad said it all the other week… Become an OD, have our truck, our service, our work etc… but we can’t afford to park them up over night so you will have to do that and take the hit.