Three illustrated guides for owner-operators: leased on or your own authority, the setup in order, insurance and getting paid; brokers, rates, hours of service and inspections; and the money, from your cost per mile to fuel tax, taxes and when to add a truck. One idea a page, each one drawn.
Real pages from all three guides. One idea a page, drawn.
The Trucking Business, Finding and Running Loads, and The Money. 104 pages, one idea each.
The idea, the picture, the costly mistake and one line to remember. Read it waiting at the dock.
Phone-sized PDFs to check at a truck stop or in the sleeper, yours to keep. Nothing to cancel.
You know how to drive. Nobody taught you the business.
Most of the money a new owner-operator loses goes quietly: a rate that covers the truck but not you, empty miles nobody pays for, a fee on every load. Every one of them has a page, and every page names the mistake.
Where owner-operators lose money:
A drawing is easier to take in at a truck stop than a paragraph. That's why every page in the kit has one, and one line to keep.
Every page has the same parts, so you always know where to look. Here is Book 1, page 1, You run a trucking business now, with its lines quoted from the guide.
Driving for a carrier, you were paid for miles. Owning the truck, you pay its bills first and keep what is left.
A $6,000 week feels like a raise. Then the fuel, the truck note and the insurance come out, and the raise is gone.
Calling the gross your pay. In the kit's example, $1.32 of every mile goes to the truck before you earn a cent.
The gross is the truck's. What's left is yours.
Quoted word for word from Book 1, page 1, You run a trucking business now. Every page carries these parts plus the drawing, and where a rule changes from state to state, a note that says so.
Set up, register, insure and get paid, one idea a page. Seven parts: Two roads, Your own authority, Taxes and permits on the truck, Insurance, Your driver file, The truck, and Getting paid. Start with where the gross really goes.
From the load board to the proof of delivery, and the rules that ride along, in the same layout.
The numbers that decide whether the truck pays you, worked on one example truck you can swap your own into.
Total value: $95
One-time payment. No subscription. Keep the files forever.
Digital guides (PDF), in English. We email your library link right after purchase, and you can download the files again anytime. Plus sales tax where applicable.
Trucking Made Simple is an independent guide for owner-operators running their own trucking business. It explains rules in plain words and is not legal, tax or accounting advice. It is not affiliated with any government agency.
You know the road; the paperwork is new. Book 1 lays out both roads, what a lease must say and what your settlement should show, then the setup for your own authority in the order you do it.
The truck is busy and the account is still thin. Your cost per mile, your floor rate, deadhead, fuel, IFTA and factoring each get a page, worked on one example truck you can check against your own.
Before you sign for a truck, see what it costs per mile, what a lease-purchase can hide, what the insurance will run and how the first year of filings goes, one page at a time.
No gimmicks. Public federal rules and published tax guidance, drawn clearly, with the source named on the page where it matters.
The authority, insurance, testing, hours and inspection pages follow FMCSA's rules in Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations; the tax pages follow IRS publications and the Form 2290 instructions; the fuel tax, plate and registration pages follow the IFTA, IRP and UCR agreements. Every page was checked against its named sources before release.
Plate fees, mileage taxes, permits and rules for trucks that stay in one state change from state to state. Those pages teach the shared pattern, label any state rule as an example, and point you to where your state's rule lives. No one state's numbers are passed off as the rule everywhere.
The money pages work one example truck all the way through: $5,000 a month in fixed costs, 10,000 miles a month, diesel at $3.90 and 6.5 miles per gallon. You can see where each number comes from and swap in your own. The examples are examples, not rates for your lanes.
Not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Transportation, FMCSA, the IRS, IFTA, Inc., the IRP, the UCR Plan, any state agency, any load board or any motor carrier. We answer to the owner-operator.
Use the kit for 7 days. If it isn't for you, email us and you get 100% of your money back. No fine print, no hassle.
Right after purchase we email you a link to your library, where you download all three guides as PDFs. You can come back and download them again anytime.
One-time payment of $27. No subscription, no recurring charges, and nothing to cancel. All three guides are yours to keep.
Owner-operators running one truck in their first few years, leased on to a carrier or under their own authority, and company drivers thinking about buying or leasing a truck of their own.
Every state. Most trucking rules are federal, and the guides teach them with their source named. Where a rule changes by state, like plate fees, mileage taxes or permits, the page says so and tells you where to look up yours.
No. The kit is about running the business once you drive your own truck: authority, insurance, loads, rates, logs, inspections and money. It doesn't teach you to drive or prepare you for a CDL test.
No. Trucking Made Simple is an independent guide for owner-operators running their own trucking business. It explains rules in plain words and is not legal, tax or accounting advice. It is not affiliated with any government agency. The guides explain the rules in plain words and drawings, so you know what to ask.
No. The kit is complete on its own.
At checkout there is one optional add-on, The Cost Per Mile Workbook: the kit's example truck worked line by line beside a column for your own numbers, four example trucks, load checks, and blank sheets to copy. It's $7.90, unticked, and you can skip it.
Both. The pages are portrait and phone-sized, so you can check one at a truck stop, and the PDFs print if you want a page in the cab.
We don't promise that, and we'd be wary of anyone who does. The guides show you how each piece works and the mistake that costs money, with the numbers worked on one example truck. Which loads you take and what you charge is still your call.
Email us within 7 days of purchase and we'll refund 100% of your money. Details on the refund policy page.
No. Trucking Made Simple is an independent guide built on public rules, which are named on the page where they are used. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the IRS, IFTA, Inc., the IRP, the Unified Carrier Registration (UCR) Plan, any state agency, any load board or any motor carrier.
Spotted an error, or a rule that works differently in your state? Email info@truckingbymadesimple.com. A real person reads every message, and fixes go into the next version.
Every year with your own truck teaches you something about the business side, and the expensive lessons come with a bill. You don't need another midnight forum thread or a rate someone swears by. You need the page for this decision, with the idea drawn and the mistake named.