Hauling RV's for Money
For those of you who might be thinking of hauling RV's as a workcamping job I thought I'd share my experience. NOTE: I am purposely NOT putting this in the workcamping forum as this is not an adver...
Forum Discussion
valhalla360 wrote:
Seems like if you could pick up a used smaller semi-tractor with a sleeper, you could do OK. It would pull just about anything and no need for hotels (which I suspect is the big money loser if you have 5 nights at $100/night).
So if your example run grossed $1950:
- 3000miles at a 10mpg average (you should do better returning empty), that's going to be 300gal...lets say $900 in fuel.
- $50 towards insurance.
That's netting you about $1000/week working 5 days a week or about $50k/yr. Let's say you put $20k/yr aside for maintenance and buying a replacement truck that's $30k/yr or about $15/hr.
No you aren't going to get rich but it's some nice extra money and if you can find a few return loads, the hourly rate goes up substantially.
If you own the truck anyway to tow your RV, you can ignore most of the depreciation (or benefit from it tax wise) and reassign some of that $20k/yr to net profit raising your hourly rate.
As a part timer, can you pick and choose runs at all? If you aren't pressured to take every run that's available, you could take runs to destinations that interest you and expense all the travel cost and then you are there with your mini-RV for a week or two.
It all sounds good doesn't it? What about taxes and Insurance?
What about all of these HOOPS you need to jump through before you ever hook the first load up?
Supposedly all the transport companies have a hardfast rule where you can not sleep in / use the trailer. Tell that to the ones I see at a PA state park thats about 5 miles off the PA turnpike that roll in late in the day, and leave before dawn the next morning. Its more than an occasional thing. Most pull the mag signs off coming in, but they stand out. They're not sleeping in the tow vehicle so thats a savings I guess.
