Who here is an Uber/Lyft driver?

I have been tossing around the idea of driving for Uber/Lyft.  I like that I can get some extra money on the side on my schedule and as it allows. My wife and I have some lofty goals and this seems like a way to get things in overdrive.

I cannot get straight answers from anyone it seems so I figured I would come here.

Give me the down low here. (I own my car, do my own maintenance etc)

How many hours do you drive? Hows the pay? Worth the time? What can I expect to make? Ups downs?

Should I get rid of this idea and move on to something else?

When I looked into it, I decided that I’d have had to buy the cheapest Prius that they would allow to make it worth it. 

I did ubereats for awhile, it was a decent gig. 

And all I had to deal with was food, not people.....people suck

I deliver Uber Eats I'm not going to do Uber people moving I've yet to have a protein discharge from my deliveries and it will happen if you carry people. I'm doing  it because I need the flexibility it gives me to work when I want to there is no schedule to adhere to.

You should ensure you are properly insured talk to your agent the company may give good advice. I have maintained my delivery insurance and with a 40% discount still pay $4200 per year.

Can you make decent money at it? Quite likely if you remember the work comes when it's convenient for the rider not when it's convenient for the driver. 

If you do take it on remember your in business for yourself so keep all your receipts because any valid expense to make income is a reduction to your gross income saving taxes.

As stated above, make sure your insurance is going to cover you. just adding the insurance to cover ride sharing might dissuade you. 

you need to know down to the tenth of a cent what your per mile operating costs are. you'll be able to tell quickly if it's actually going to be worthwhile and profitable if you do. fuel, oil, depreciation if your car is at all newer.. which for many ridesharing services.. it has to be, or at least it had to be in the past. 

i'm not saying you can't make money at it. but it seems like most people do not,that may only be perception. 

 

There seem to be two approaches for traditional people hauling Uber.

1) The original "ride sharing" format, where you might offer to give people rides along the path you're already traveling. This works well if you commute past the airport or something. It's basically carpooling, so it's not going to be a major money maker, but expenses and inconvenience would be low as you wouldn't be traveling much out of your way, and you're pretty much traveling when/where you'd normally be anyway, so it's basically free money to have some company along for the ride. Kind of like finding some money in the couch cushions or pocket of a jacket you haven't worn in a long time.

2) The "Gypsy cab" approach, where you go out specifically looking to cart people around and try to get as many fares as you can. You absolutely have to keep cost/mile as low as possible to have any chance at making money.

Option 2 definitely has the potential for more income, but it comes with much higher financial and time costs. The only anecdotes that I've heard where people consistently made money were working late nights in areas with a strong bar scene. They also take advantage of "surge pricing" during busy times/events. That means you get to work while other people do the fun things at fun times. Seems to me that if you're going to have to work nights/weekends and miss out on fun stuff/R&R to make money, you might as well just get a second job.

Also, it's typically much easier for an average person to reduce their spending than it is to increase income. Spending $1 less is the same as earning $1 more, and possibly better as that $1 earned might be taxed. So you might have to earn $1.35 or something to get the same benefit as cutting spending by $1.

My company processed claims for Lyft. They insure you while working but the deductible is something like $2500.

I had a friend who tryed it. We live in a fairly rural area and after the insurance he struggled to break even. I think a lot of it will depend on how often you can have a customer. He was doing it to try and pay off a car he purchased that put him in debt further then he could manage. His insurance went up over 2k a year.

I've seen anywhere from $9/hr to $21/hr as estimates for actual income from driving for uber. My understanding is that the $21/hr doesn't account for gas while the $9/hr deducts for some "benefits" which seems silly. So the actual net is probably between those. Even $21/hr is not that much for the risks and work involved and even that is unrealistic it seems.

Nutherjrfan on here drives for Lyft in DC I believe. 

STM317 said:

Also, it's typically much easier for an average person to reduce their spending than it is to increase income. Spending $1 less is the same as earning $1 more, and possibly better as that $1 earned might be taxed. So you might have to earn $1.35 or something to get the same benefit as cutting spending by $1.

Aside from that, if you do it right and make it a permanent habit, it decreases the amount you need. So the net swing is really double that. 

In case that didn't make sense... Lets use the ubiquitous Starbucks example. Lets say that you spend $2 on a coffee, 250 days a year. $500 a year in coffee. For a 25 year old planning to retire at 67, that means that they need to save $54.20 a year to be in coffee for the rest of their life after retirement. So their annual cost for coffee is $554.20. 

Now lets say that they kick the Starbucks habit, and brew it at home using Folgers. That cup of coffee is going to cost, at most, about $0.40. Annual cost is about $100, and they'll need to save about $10.84 annually to be in coffee for the rest of their life. So their annual cost is $110.84. 

Seems pretty simple that the savings is $433.36 a year, right? Well, yeah... But the point here that is missed is that you aren't spending that this year, and you aren't spending it EVER. So not only are you spending less, you NEED less. So you have more, but need less. If you invest that $433.36 every year from 25 to 67, when you retire you have an extra $100k, and an extra $4,000 a year to buy... Well, coffee, I guess. But you don't need that coffee, so why not a couple of challenge cars, every year of your retirement? Just from switching from Starbucks to Folgers.

Happy to share the math behind this if anyone wants to see it. 

I can't drive for either because the newest car I own is a 96, but I use them frequently for rides.

Around here, overwhelmingly, it seems like there are a large proportion of people who have decided to make it their career... not that they actively chose that, but because they kind of painted themselves into a corner.  Young adult working a low-paying job, they're financing a 2010 Subaru and upside down on the loan.  They start driving and to stay competitive they buy little things to make their car "special."  A DVD player on the headrest, bottles of water for guests, scent pods for the air vents, SiriusXM, etc.  Then suddenly the year changes and your car is no longer valid for their rolling 10-year rule and instead of losing their driving job they go take their upside-down loan Suby and buy something at least as flashy if not more flashy so they can keep driving.

One guy that I has picked me up several times always complains about bills and finances.  He had a nice 2008 Nissan Maxima.  When Uber required him to either get a newer car or stop driving, he went and bought a 2019 Cadillac somethingorother.  Nice car, and I'm sure he gets good ratings, but he's so far upside down that he works his 40-hour job and then drives from 5pm until 3am to make money from the bar crowd.

There is an appeal process if your car falls out of the 10-year rolling rule, but he said it is useless.  You basically fill out an online form that asks for the mileage and some pictures of the car, but his comment was something like "they ask you for all of that so they can deny it."

The overwhelming feeling I get is this:  If you have a car that fits the criteria and want to drive, do it, but the prospect of income compared to the reality seem to be far from comparable.  Some people like me don't care what the car is like.  Others treat it like AirBnB where they won't ride with anyone over a certain rating, which makes it competitive.

In all the times I have used Uber, my go-to question to strike up a conversation is "do you like driving for Uber?"  The overwhelming answer is usually "it pays the car loan," or "I have to do this to support my son."

It just feels to me that most drivers start driving because they have to buy a car and can't afford it and end up being forced to keep doing it so they can pay the loan.  Seems counterintuitive to me to buy a car so that you can use it to work to pay for the car.

this guy has a blog  and talks about ride share drivers problems and solutions , 

https://therideshareguy.com/

He has been on the local NPR radio show in LosAngeles

As others have said make sure you are properly insured.  My buddy works for a major insurance company handling claims. He tells me they catch people all the time doing Uber and deny their claim.

OHHHH and  check out the sign-up bonus program , but read when you really get the $$$$$

and if you know another driver you like ,  he can get a bonus for the referral when you sign up.

you really need to know the games Uber and Lyft play and use them to your advantage .

My wife delivers groceries for Instacart and Shipt. She can bring home around $200 a weekend (including tips) by working 11a-5p on the weekends. 

I drive for Lyft part time. I have a 26 mile commute going home from work so im already driving that way. If I get a passenger great, if not, I'm,still driving home. Ill go out on a friday/saturday night or sunday morning once in a blue moon for a couple hours. Around Thanksgiving, Christmas, St. Patrick's Day are good as well. I just do this for some extra spending cash. The gypsy taxi method can get costly if you are just driving around. I think lyft and uber work best as side supplemental gigs. I'm not signed up for it but I know of some people who do pretty well with Door Dash. That might be more for some people if they don't like the idea of random people in their car.

Amazon fulfilment center pays $16/hr or so right now.  If I needed more cash and wanted the idea of a part time job I know where I would go.

I was at Taco Bell around xmas & there was an Impala with a couple guys in it. It had Uber, Lyft, Door Dash & Uber Eats signs in/on it, and they each had 2 smart phones in holders on the dash. They certainly had a system, but I question whether they could bring in enough $$ to support two people?

Seriously, look at ubereats. You don't need special insurance, you don't need a car newer than 10 years, you don't deal with people in your car.

16-25$ an hour for me after gas

Interesting discussion here for sure. Certainly more than I thought initially. The insurance bit could be a deal breaker and I am checking with my agent to run a quick set of numbers.

The UberEats might be an option but I would have to look into it a bit more.

Honestly, learned a lot here and I appreciate the input here

My wife tried Doordash a few months back but it was pretty difficult for her to make any money at it.  Like with the regular gypsy cab operation, you've got to be willing to be out working during the conventional "fun time" and you've got to be willing/able to be where the concentration of people are.  She didn't really want to spend Friday and Saturday nights hauling food to drunks and finding parking to deliver to downtown addresses at lunchtime was too expensive/time-consuming.  I see a lot of team operations out there with the food delivery services - one person driving, the other doing the "dashing".  That cuts out the time and expense to park since they just drop the dasher off at the door and either wait or pull around the block. 

For all of those, I really question the basic economics of it.  The company that you're contracting with is incentivized to have as many drivers on the street as possible at any given time to reduce customer wait times and increase visibility and marketshare.  They might not be able to charge as much for a single ride or delivery but volume is the name of the game for them.  As a driver, you want as little competition as possible because you have a fairly hard ceiling on the amount of volume that you can process.  And that's with no opportunity to increase your capability beyond getting lucky and having two deliveries from the same restaurant going to the same general area.  With traditional employment or even traditional supply chain relationships the success of the employer or customer translates directly into benefits for the employee or the supplier.  Sometimes its directly financial and sometimes it's less tangible like job security or advancement opportunity.  But in these relationships, success for Uber or Lyft or whatever has a negative impact on the supply chain (the drivers).  I'm not sure you'd want to be engaged in that type of a relationship.

wae said:

For all of those, I really question the basic economics of it.  The company that you're contracting with is incentivized to have as many drivers on the street as possible at any given time to reduce customer wait times and increase visibility and marketshare.  They might not be able to charge as much for a single ride or delivery but volume is the name of the game for them.  As a driver, you want as little competition as possible because you have a fairly hard ceiling on the amount of volume that you can process.  And that's with no opportunity to increase your capability beyond getting lucky and having two deliveries from the same restaurant going to the same general area.  With traditional employment or even traditional supply chain relationships the success of the employer or customer translates directly into benefits for the employee or the supplier.  Sometimes its directly financial and sometimes it's less tangible like job security or advancement opportunity.  But in these relationships, success for Uber or Lyft or whatever has a negative impact on the supply chain (the drivers).  I'm not sure you'd want to be engaged in that type of a relationship.

Thats a very good point.  Seems a lot of the draw is "I already have the equipment" or "I can work on my schedule"  but to make it make money you give up all your me time.  If it was decision time for me and I needed more money, I would do a few things besides rideshare

• Real part time job - auto parts or similar.  Something I would at least find enjoyable and entertaining and there is an Advance, OReillys, and Zone within walking distance of my house.  Plus I can pass a piss test and I am reliable.
• Bartending/service gig.  See above about a piss test and reliable.  You can always get put on call and pick the days and times you want to work.  Best of all its a predictable paycheck and the skills translate to other jobs.  
• Seaonsal snow removal or lawn maintenance.  Also see above regarding piss test and reliable.  And the skills translate to other jobs.  Do it well enough and you can actually make some real money.  

Look more into jobs where you need to have some qualifications other than "has access to a car" and you will be better off for it.

In reply to wae :

Me and my wife did it together too, it works well.

The thing about these jobs is you cant look at it as a real job....it's a gig. And making decent money sitting in the car listening to music is great.

But don't make it a career

I think its important to do something with the down time , 

learn a language , sewing , knitting , rebuild carbs ,  drum solos , something you like :)

spending  hours  for 10-15 minutes of work an hour  would really be boring !