Teaming With Wife.

Hello gentlemen! I have been reading alot of info. Maybe to much. Because as soon as I read one thing, I read something else saying different. Well the wife and I are thinking of teaming together, after getting our cdls. I read that teams get less cpm , but get more miles thus they make more. I just read a comment were someone mentioned they teamed for a while, yet they make about the same driving solo. Is it worthwhile for us to team generally. Or is the team thing all hogwash. We are looking at teaming at KLLM, or C.R. England, because they are close.

1 advantage for teaming with a spouse is you make money on all the miles. From what little I have researched (I am a new rookie solo driver) teams tend to get paid a higher cpm than solo. The miles are split evenly for the truck and paid to each driver. So, if you are teamed with your wife, she will get paid for half and you will get paid for half. It doesn't much matter who drove what miles. The total miles are split evenly.

I know there are several team drivers on here. I am sure they can be of more assistance than I can be.

Drive Safe

Let say new Driver makes 34 cpm can run average of 3000 miles that is $1020. Now say you start out teaming at .42cpm and you both run a total of 6000 miles Thats $2520 so you both gross $480 total more on the same miles . Meaning you both made $1260 instead of $1020.. Teaming is better money as long as you can do it without Divorcing. Its alot of time with one another

I read that teams get less cpm , but get more miles thus they make more.

This is typically the way it works, yes. Here at Swift, a new solo driver makes 36 cpm (at least that was the starting pay a year ago). A new team driver makes 26 cpm, but each driver is paid for all miles the truck goes (it's the same as getting paid 52 cpm for half the miles--people use that example just to compare to solo pay). So if you average 2500 miles a week as a solo driver, you wouldn't make as much as if your team averaged 5000 miles a week. So technically, teaming can be better money. Alot of times people don't really make more as team drivers because they keep teaming with people they don't know from their company, and that often has it's own set of problems obviously--hometime, personal differences, different work ethics, etc. Teaming with your spouse is a great way to bring home more dough though, if you can both get along. Since you already know each other and live together, you can really focus on running miles and enjoying the lifestyle and half of the logistics issues other teams are having go right out the window.

Ok, got it. But the scary part is will the miles stay consistent. I still excited tho.

Ok, got it. But the scary part is will the miles stay consistent. I still excited tho.

Honestly? Probably not at first. It'll take a good 3 or 4 months before you guys really start to get a handle on things and start getting good miles. There are always exceptions, of course, but in general that's how it seems to go.

Make sure you go to work for a team focused company. Covenent, CRST, Quest and Celadon come to mind for me. I team for a smaller solo focused company and it was inconsistent at first til they got us sorted out, but they keep us moving quite well and we are quite happy.

Look for a company that will pay at least .52 split.. Very good rate for newer drivers. After you get several years experience (my codriver is experienced-- I am still in Rookie year) there are companies who will pay teams .60 cpm and higher like Panther, Hobby Lobby, FEDEX Ground contractors, etc. Usually want 2 years exp and more.

I say its absolutely worth it. I team with my bf. If we chose to we could always go solo again, but honestly we are having too much fun. Weve talked about moving to one of those companies eventually, but neither are job hoppers and we really like our company a lot so i dont see that happening.

Ok, thx Sue! If you don't mind my asking what do you average a week in miles?

It varies anywhere from 4400 to 6000. However we get paid for so many things we do and a higher rate for very short runs.

My company focuses on regional short haul.. The average length of haul is only about 350 miles lol. We can run back to back short runs with much fewer over all weekly miles and still each easily gross $1300/week and up. West Side only has 2 teams total.. Out of 550 trucks, so my experience is unusual to say the least. Many team companies dispatch those drivers on longer runs. For us 1200 miles has been about the longest run. We dont go to the western 11.

If your curious about our wacky typical day, see my recent post on teaming at West Side. For solo regional drivers this company is nothing short of fantastic for those willing to work.

We team with C.R. England, and we like it here. Rough beginning financially until we got on a dedicated fleet, but now we're doing fairly well, though our miles are still inconsistent. I think this is because we are constantly dealing with crises at home though. It's been difficult to get into a routine when everything changes from week to week. So I don't fault England at all. We get .42cpm split, or .21 for all the miles the truck runs on the dedicated fleet. Miles are there no problem, when we can run them. OTR fleet was .28cpm split straight out of training. That was rough lol. Dedicated accepted us before phase 2 was finished, so that was a sweet deal for us. Most companies pay more, but I look at it this way... No tuition is taken out of our pay, and our contracts are 6 months (husband is a vet), and 9 months for mine. So take home is that little bit more.

Hope that helps!