Wish I had seen this sooner. I am currently a bread man. It's honestly much the same as any investment or small business; due diligence is key. Fuel, depot rent, part-time employees to cover your store stocking on your non-delivery days, insurance, and equipment all cut into profits. So long as you really get down into the details before making a decision it doesn't have to end badly.
Bread routes are a dream job for MMM minded folks. You can have a lot of fun optimizing your income by finding ways to cut fuel,equipment,labor, rent, and shrink costs. If you're frugal and start at 20 you could be retired by 35 or 40... if you operate it like a McJob... you'll be miserable and broke. (In mind, body, and wallet)
That said, it's not a terrible path for someone who chooses to not attend college. I asked my dad for advice before doing so and he put it to me this way, "When you are done with the route, you can sell it and get your money back. You can't do that with a diploma."
I'll put down some hypothetical numbers that are pretty accurate for most of these routes.
Asking price: 15x weekly sales. Average sales $9000/wk x15= 135000.
Loan payment: Assuming 20% down and 8%apr = ~1300/month.
Depot rent: usually free or you are paid a touch more in commissions to compensate. Most guys run out of storage units for 300-500 a month.
Fuel: varies greatly based on route. I'll go with a 500/month figure here, but I pay over 1000/month due to being more rural.
Truck+trailer or box truck: Used... you can get by with 10-20k. New, you're looking at 75k+. I''ll go with 350/month as a middle ground.
Accountant, insurance, miscellaneous: 400/month.
Income: Usually about 18% of sales... 9k/wk*.18* 4.3wks/month= 6966 or ~7k/month.
7k-fuel,vehicle,insurance,misc = 5750/month gross.
70k a year is quite decent for little education. However, you have to take out your route loan payment from this (-1300/month) and since most of the guys insist on getting nice trucks, the vehicle expense goes up a bit too. On the plus side, the loan payment acts as a sort of forced savings account. The interest gets expensive, but it's the most optimistic way to look at it.
Downsides:
Early hours, no vacations, rarely a true day off. You almost always have to be at a store somewhere on the route to touch up your displays and make your shelf look pretty for the day, even if it's not a regular delivery day. Lots of stupid store employees... like REALLY stupid. Their minimum wage jobs are the peak of their careers;little intelligence and even less common sense.
Upsides:
Good money if you know how to manage money, early hours if you are into that, no boss breathing down your neck all day (not directly anyways; instead you have mini-bosses at every account who can really get under your skin. Alternatively, some of them are wonderful. You really need to have some people skills to enjoy this work)
My personal situation has gone from something similar to the generic Joe Route above to much more complicated. I have 2 huge routes with 4 employees (2FT+ 2PT). I work roughly 2am-6pm 2 days a week, 6am-6pm 2 days a week, and have 3 "days off" where I work about 2-4hrs each. I have paid off my 1st route and only have 1 year left to pay off the 2nd. It's long hard work, but my net worth has gone from 5k at age 20, to about 400k at 31. This is without being crazy frugal in my day-to-day life. My goal is to sell the routes in another year or 2 and freelance vacation relief while tending my nest egg until the 1M mark.
This brings me to the last perk of the routes. Once you know how to do these routes and people know you are capable of doing them, you can run other people's routes for them while they go on a much needed vacation. These guys are desperate for time off. $300 cash under the table/day is not unheard of if they know they can trust you to do a good job. Once word gets out, they'll be knocking down your door begging for you to cover for them. There are some potential headaches but ultimately when I sell my routes I plan on doing this as my main hustle. I will get to write my own schedule and not have to worry about the long-term logistics of the routes or the costs of equipment/overhead. The previous owner of my route did this after selling to me and did quite well for himself. He has since mostly stopped due to being nearly 70 years old and there's a gap waiting to be filled!
Long story short: If you're not afraid of work that consumes your everyday life for a decade or two, it CAN be decent. It's just not a job for the average person though. It's definitely one of those careers that requires "the right stuff". I view it as an athlete job for the common man. Get your money while you're young and time is on your side (compound interest). Do NOT try to take it on in a mid-life crisis.
PS: There are 2 other "optimal" endings I've seen for route owners. 1 guy has 3 big stores, and nothing else on his route. He sold off the rest. He can work less than 30 hours a week and make over 50k/year. The other bought a route in a growing city and kept splitting off territory as the city grew. His 150k route split 6 times at 150k/split. He finished and retired with over 1M in equity alone, not to mention all the checks along the way.