From the Alan Hargreaves channel · First edition 2026
What It Actually Pays
Forty-four years of working out where the money goes, set out so you can do the sums on your own job.
Around 2007 I sat down at a kitchen table and worked out, properly, on paper, what my time was actually earning me once everything was counted. Not the hourly rate. Not what the payslip said. What was left, per hour away from my house. It was not what I thought, and what shook me was that I had done the job for twenty-five years without once working it out. Nobody had taught me. Nobody teaches anybody. This book is that afternoon.
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52-page PDF · 44 chapters · 8 printable cards · on your screen in a minute · 30 days money back, you keep the file
There is not one rate printed in this book
Your figures. Not mine.
Pence per mile, agency day rates, what any named firm pays: all of it moves by region, by month and by customer. Any figure I printed would be wrong for nearly everybody reading it, and wrong in a way that let you tell yourself you were doing fine when you were not.
So every chapter that touches money gives you the sum with the blanks left in. Your fuel receipt. Your payslip. Your last twelve invoices. It takes longer than being handed a number and it is the only version that is any use to you. Where a figure genuinely is published and checkable, the book says where it came from and when.
What you get
The sums nobody taught you, and the cards to keep doing them.
- Your real hourly, door to door, including every unpaid minute (page 9)
- What a year of waiting on bays has actually cost you, as a number (page 11)
- Your own cost per mile, built in one afternoon, running and standing costs separated (page 17)
- Twelve payslips on a kitchen table, and what share of your year is actually guaranteed (page 21)
- Agency, employed and on your own, costed side by side in one table (page 23)
- The five questions to ask before you sign anything, and why the second half of question two is the half that matters (page 29)
- Everything one truck must pay for before it earns a penny, and the runway to survive it (page 37)
- What I would tell a twenty-two-year-old who asked me, which is the last chapter (page 45)
- Eight cards for the door pocket, including the waiting log and the cost-per-mile sheet
Contents
44 chapters. Nine parts. In the order the money leaves.
Four hours at a bay outside Warrington, why the first two hours are free and who has to claim the rest, and what a year of waiting has actually cost you.
The only number that matters and nobody can tell you it but you. Fuel, tyres, the fitter's hour, depreciation on a unit you paid cash for, and building your own figure in one afternoon.
The line that is not there, what night-out money actually replaces, holiday pay on a variable week, and twelve payslips laid out on a kitchen table.
The three ways to do this job costed side by side, why agency anchors everybody's rate, the employed man's hidden pay, and the question to ask before you buy anything.
What changes at three hundred vehicles, who the record is really for, the five questions to ask before you sign, and why swapping big firms gets you nothing.
Who actually sets your rate, the pallet and the unit of work, index-linking and what to look for, and the conversation that works.
One truck and everything it needs before it earns a penny, the first three customers, the thirty days that are really sixty, the month you will want to give up, and year three.
Knowing when the job has stopped paying you enough, what forty years costs to fix, selling a unit, the pension nobody set up, and what a Class 1 is worth outside a cab.
Cost per mile, the waiting log, the payslip check, the three ways, before you sign, the first truck, the invoice chase, and getting out.
Three of the chapters
Every one of them is a sum you can do this week.
What a year of waiting has cost you
One line a day, thirty seconds: the site, the booked time, when you got on the bay, when you pulled off. After three months you have something nobody can argue with, and a number instead of an annoyance.
Your own cost per mile, in one afternoon
Running costs in one bucket, standing costs in the other, divided by the miles you actually did. Do it once properly and you will know which of your customers are paying you and which are keeping you busy.
Twelve payslips on a kitchen table
One slip tells you about one week and one week is noise. Twelve tell you about your job: how much of your money is guaranteed, and how much depends on you being available.
The card pack
Eight cards. They live in the door pocket.
Running and standing costs, separated, filled in once a quarter.
One line a day. Minutes past the free window, totalled, and priced at your own hourly.
Nine things to check, including the two most people have never asked about.
Agency, employed and on your own in one table. Fill in all three even if you are sure.
Five questions, and space for the answers with the date and who said them.
Everything that must be paid before it earns a penny, and the runway underneath it.
Invoiced, paid, real days. Your actual payment term rather than the one on the paperwork.
Same month every year. The gap between what the job pays and what else would.
A note from Alan
I am not an accountant, and I say so on page one.
I passed my Class 1 in 1982 and I have been at it ever since. Twenty-eight years driving for other people. Since 2010, one unit of my own, three or four days a week, the work I choose. I still do it. I did a run last Thursday.
I am not here to tell you the job is terrible. It has fed my family for forty-four years and some of the best days of my life were in that cab. And I am not here to tell you to go and buy a truck. I did, and it suited me, and Part Seven is the honest version including the year I nearly handed the keys back.
What I want is for you to know your own numbers. After that, what you do about them is your business.
Questions
The ones I get asked first.
Straight away. The download link is on the screen the moment the payment goes through and it is in your email as well. Nothing to wait for and nothing to sign up to.
A PDF. It opens on a phone, a tablet or a computer and it prints on ordinary paper. The eight cards at the back are made to be printed and kept in the door pocket.
Yes. It is set large on purpose, because most of the people reading this are past fifty and so am I.
No, and I say so on page one. I am a driver. I passed my Class 1 in 1982, did twenty-eight years for other people and have run one unit of my own since 2010. Where something needs a qualified person, for your employment status, your O-licence or your pension, the book says so and tells you what to ask.
Because any figure I printed would be wrong for nearly everyone reading it. Pence per mile moves by region, by month and by customer. Instead every money chapter gives you the sum with the blanks left in and your own receipts and payslips go in them. It takes an afternoon and it is the only version that is any use to you.
Most of it, yes. Parts One, Three, Four and Five are written for a man on somebody else's payroll. Part Seven is the one about buying a truck, and it is there so you can decide against it with the figures in front of you.
No. One payment, one file, it is yours. Nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel.
Thirty days, your money back, and you keep the file. Read the nine free pages first if you would rather decide that way.
Wait — one thing
Start with the sum that costs nothing: your real hourly.
One week's earnings, divided by the hours you were away from your house. Not driving hours. Not paid hours. Door to door, including the sitting and the waiting and the night out. That is the number that describes your life, and it is not on any document you own. It is page 9, and the rest of the book is the same kind of thing.
Code HAUL40 · already applied · 30 days money back, you keep the file
Nothing in this book is financial, tax, legal or licensing advice. It does not replace an accountant, a transport consultant or a qualified adviser. For your employment status, your O-licence and your pension, get advice from somebody qualified. Figures published by third parties are named and dated where they appear; everything else is a template for your own numbers.