I am stepping away from my normal topics today to talk about something a little different. About three years ago, I quit my job of 20 years to be a stay-at-home dad to my 2-, 5- and 6-year-old kids. To help bring in income, I did a few things, bought a rental property, started buying stocks, unfortunately crypto came later, and even sold a few of my paintings. I also drove for Uber two nights a week. I thought I would write about this as a decent way to make money, since I am planning on heading back out for them this weekend after not driving the last 12 months because of Covid.
I know you can find a thousand videos on this subject on YouTube, and some are pretty informative. Most, though, are either bashing the job or looking for referrals, so you have to take them with a grain of salt.
Full disclosure, I am a little biased as I started driving for Uber while I still had a decent paying job. I tried it out because I was transitioning to a position that managed contract work and I had no experience with it. I thought what better way to understand being a sub-contractor than to go out a drive for a rideshare company for a weekend. I turned out to really like it and continued to do it once or twice a month after the family went to sleep. I found it to be a great stress reliever just to drive around listening to music and talking to random people. Since I live in a tourist town, most people had a lot of questions and wanted to talk.
So, should you drive for Uber? I will simplify this some with a few basic questions to ask yourself, and what my suggestion would be.
Is your car worth more than 20,000? If yes, don’t do it. You will burn through your car in 3-5 years if you drive regularly. You need a basic care that is dependable.
Do you have trouble tracking expenses? If yes, don’t do it. If you can’t track your mileage and expenses, you will have a real issue at tax time. I know the app will give you an estimate of miles driven, but, you will be missing a lot write-offs if you go by the app.
Do you have trouble saving money? If yes, don’t do it. If you can’t put aside 30-40 percent of what you make for taxes and a new vehicle, you will just get yourself in trouble. If you don’t plan, you might as well go get a payday loan.
Do you want to work regular hours? If yes, then don’t do it. If you try to work 9-5 for a rideshare, you will lose money. You have to work the early and late hours. Even working rush hour can burn you if you sit in traffic for extended periods of time.
Do drunk people annoy you? If yes, then don’t do it. Driving drunk people around is half the job.
Do you hate small talk? If yes, then don’t do it. You will answer the same questions 20-30 times a day. To keep it interesting, I mix it up by added children to my family during the day. By my last ride, when someone ask me if I have kids, I tell them I have 8.
Do you have trouble with confrontation? If yes, then don’t do it. You will have to kick people out of your car at some point. You will have to deny rides to really drunk people, or else you will be cleaning your car out, if you get my drift.
Well, if you didn’t answer yes to any of the above questions, are you someone that should drive? If you can check these boxes, then it may be for you:
Are you willing to drive late at night on weekends? Since I started driving for Uber, they have made drastic changes to their pay. There are plenty of articles and videos saying that Uber made it impossible to drive for them and no one can make money anymore. This is just not the case. What they did do, is incentivize drivers to work the hours they need drivers the most. To get people to drive peak hours, most of the decent bonuses and additional income is earned at odd hours and weekends. Since I drive almost exclusively after 9:00PM on Friday and Saturday, my pay actually went up during this transition. Usually, the bonuses are for doing three rides in an hour during a peak time in a busy location or doing a total number of rides from Friday through Sunday. The only time I venture out of my normal times is if there is a really large bonus, and I know I need to drive some extra hours for the number of rides I need to obtain it. In this case, I will go out on Friday during the day. Now, like I said, this is just to get the total number of rides I need to bonus, as driving during the day usually isn’t much better than break even for me.
Do you have a dependable and inexpensive car that you don’t mind putting a lot of miles on and getting really dirty and beat up? People will wreck your car. You can kick people out, not allow food, and try everything, your car will still get dirty, very dirty.
Do you have a flexible job and long commute? One of the better ways to actually make money is by driving people where you were already going. You won’t make a lot doing this, but it is nice. For me, I would occasionally get ready for work twenty minutes early and see if anyone needed a ride that was going in my direction. You can use this special setting twice a day. For me, my schedule wasn’t two strict, so if I was a few minutes late to work it was not an issue. Another example, if you are going to the airport, just plan to leave a little early and see if anyone needs a ride.
Do you like people? If you like talking, this is a great job. I am an introvert, but, I do like talking one on one, and this is a great way to it. Make sure you are reading the room, though. It is pretty easy to gage people, usually if they blow off the first open ended question you ask, you can be sure that they don’t want to talk.
I won’t get into the money, if you have specific questions, feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer. If you are thinking about doing this, don’t let people talk you out of it, just make sure you know what you are getting in to.
(One final note, I am signed to drive with Lyft also. You can pretty much substitute all I said for them, since there is not much difference.)