I am always on the search for passive income ideas. Right now, I have a full-time job in the military, but one fantastic day in the future, I will be a free man. When that day arrives, I want to be bringing in as much income as possible while doing the least amount of work.
My friend brought up the idea of buying and renting an 18-wheeler truck and renting it for passive income. I admit I have never heard of something like this before, so my passive income receptors were tingling. I decided to look further into it for more information.
After searching Google, I found a great article on the topic, so great that it did my entire job for me. The article is titled “How to Start a Trucking Company: $1000/week Passive Income Cash Flow?” by SideHustle Nation. Please read over this article because it serves as the base on my analysis.
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The article does an amazing job of giving us the basics to start forming our own opinions and ideas. Remember, we read books and articles to critically think about the future of our business before we get started. That was the premise of my article “Become an Entrepreneur Before You Start a Business.”
Doing my critical thinking on the topic, I come up with a few areas that I think we should do a deep dive on—land, funding, automation or management, trailer side hustle, and driving academy.
Land. During the article, they talk about renting land to park vehicles. Well, that may be okay for some, but I already love the idea of buying homes with land. Land gives you options. As you move forward into real estate ventures, know that owning land will set you up for the best opportunities in the future. Read my Creative Financing in Real Estate series for more on obtaining funding for real estate.
Funding. Speaking of funding, we will need to buy our trucks. The price is between $32,000 to $40,000 for a used truck. That doesn’t seem too bad, but you will need cash on hand for maintenance and such.
I am usually a stickler for using OPM (other people’s money) or leverage, which equates to taking out a loan. Yes, you can get personal loans for $40,000, but the rate will be pretty high, probably 9-12%. In this particular case, I would try to avoid a loan, at least until I had a successful run with the first truck.
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I think going into this venture without debt service will allow you the time to position yourself correctly. There are a few ways to get the cash, the best of which would be close family. Especially if you had the money in your account, you could take a loan from the family with a 5% interest rate for a year. You can also buy a trailer first, rent it until you have enough to buy the truck. We will talk more about that later. Maybe you start with a rental car business to get your feet wet in the game to allow your family to see that you are serious and the money is good. Once you have a successful money-making machine, everyone will want to get involved, as passive investors, of course.
If you took a loan, I would use a retirement account or a loan against brokerage account assets. For example, M1 Finance lets you take a loan against 50% of your assets for about 2-3% interest. Their rates are much better than a personal loan from a bank.
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You can also go the business loan route, either by building up your business credit, as I discussed in “Establish Business Credit Now,” or by trying to get a Small Business Administration loan. So you have lots of options when it comes to funding, but make sure you don’t get in over your head with leverage. Having a debt burden forces you to make poor choices.
Automation or Management. Remember, we want to start businesses that can run themselves via automation, out-sourced, or managed by others. In the case of buying an 18-wheeler, I would say having a manager is the most appropriate.
The 18-wheeler business seems people-intensive; managing and handling drivers, maintenance persons, and insurance reps seem to be the case. I always recommend running the company for a year or two to put yourself in a position to hire competent personnel to assist.
Let’s say you did get to the point where you were making $1,000/week passive income. Obviously, the word passive is subjective. You could hire a manager, paying them $500/week but scale your operation to two or three trucks. And don’t forget about the trailers.
When we start our trucking business, we want to create a standard operating procedure from the start. An SOP includes points of contact, preventative maintenance schedules, and what to do in emergencies. Start your business with the intent of turning it over to someone else in the future.
This business also seems like a great one to turn over to adult children. I can envision a mature college student managing a couple of trucks and drivers in their free time. The key word being mature.
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Trailer side hustle. Towards the end of the article, they talk about buying and renting just the trailer for 18-wheelers. To be honest, this would probably be more up my alley because it seems much more passive because you can arrange everything through the website. The person renting the trailer would just come and pick it up. You can rent it on RentalYard.
Look at the price of a five-year lease. $875/month. I am sure some percentage goes to the website, but even if your take-home was $600/month, wow. That is the kind of business I want to be involved with in the future. They say a trailer can cost around $15,000. Doing my quick math at $600/month for 60 months is $36,000, doubling your money.
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I like the math on the trailers, and I can easily envision having 4-8 of these one day, especially at my house in Arizona, where I have 3 acres of land that is flat. I am sure you can have someone manage your trailers for an even more significant source of passive income.
Driving school or academy. I heard somewhere that creating a driving school is the way to go for the trucking industry. It seems like an excellent way to leverage the trucks and trailers you already have. You can either learn how to drive a truck or hire a driver.
The idea is that before someone can get a license, they need driving hours. Creating a driving academy can assist the driver to reach their hours in 18-wheelers and RVs. Remember when you had to pay someone to drive with you to get your license? Same thing here. It may be a little more active upfront, but you can outsource most of the work over time. The school is more of a long-term business idea.
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Closing thoughts. It is crazy that I found a ready-made article that let me do a second-level analysis of how to get the business started, funded, and predict the long-term viability. I think the industry has some chops and has a good business plan. There are some excellent ideas that the article had, such as giving the drivers incentives to continue driving. Apparently, driver turnover is exceptionally high.
What are your thoughts on buying and renting an 18-wheeler? The most critical aspect is getting a home with land; it will set you up to create a very comfortable business for your residence. Then, it is getting funding and finding drivers, and I am sure there is a learning curve. But, to make $2,000-$4,000/month while someone else is doing all the driving is not a bad idea at all. Tell me what you think below! Good Luck.
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Disclosure: I am not a financial advisor or money manager, and any knowledge is given as guidance and not direct actionable investment advice. I am an Amazon Affiliate. Please research any investment vehicles that are being considered. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
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