Yesterday Poor Husband was laid off from his job.\u00c2\u00a0 Like many, he was victim to a business that follows the ‘move up or move out’ philosophy.\u00c2\u00a0 If you have been there for a while and you aren’t promoted to management, you get cut.\u00c2\u00a0 It was no surprise, since many coworkers who had been there as long as he had were vanishing daily.\u00c2\u00a0 He has been job hunting for the past few weeks.<\/p>\n
One of our methods for keeping up with things has been for me to drive for Uber.\u00c2\u00a0 Now Poor Husband will be doing it as well.\u00c2\u00a0 It won’t make us rich, but it will keep things together until he gets a regular job.\u00c2\u00a0 Since lots of websites that give suggestions for making extra money recommend Uber and its competitor, Lyft, I thought I’d point out some pros and cons.<\/p>\n
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First off, you are an independent contractor.\u00c2\u00a0 That means that Uber (all this also applies to Lyft) does not collect any taxes.\u00c2\u00a0 You are responsible for those all by yourself, and are considered self-employed by the IRS.\u00c2\u00a0 If your driving is more than a once in a while thing, you will need to file quarterly taxes.\u00c2\u00a0 Luckily, the mileage deduction helps trim back a large portion of your income from being taxable.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, you should save a portion of your earnings for possible taxes.\u00c2\u00a0 I try to hold back at least 15%.<\/p>\n
Now, some people will tell you that the mileage deduction and the higher mileage on your car means you are losing money.\u00c2\u00a0 My answer is that when I can buy groceries with the theoretical value of my car, that will be an issue.\u00c2\u00a0 If you are the sort of person who buys a car and drives it for a few years, then trades it in, you might be concerned with this.\u00c2\u00a0 For my family, we drive cars until they fall down and won’t get back up again.\u00c2\u00a0 Our current car has 88,000 miles on it and drives just fine.\u00c2\u00a0 We have an emergency repair fund for it and keep it well maintained, so its blue book value doesn’t mean a thing to us.<\/p>\n
Now, some more down to Earth facts.\u00c2\u00a0 Some of your riders will be assholes.\u00c2\u00a0 Not many, but some.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve been yelled at for not knowing that when the rider said he wanted to stop at a gas station on a particular street, that the convenience store we just passed (not on the named street, and no gas pumps) was what he meant.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve had a few riders get angry at me even though the problem was that they had entered the wrong address into the app.\u00c2\u00a0 I had one try to change the car’s radio station settings.\u00c2\u00a0 A couple of times I’ve had people from foreign countries grill me on my political attitudes towards their country.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve found trash in my back seat and floor.<\/p>\n
But on the flip side, I’ve had some great conversations with people. The overwhelming majority of your riders will be nice, or at the very least silent.\u00c2\u00a0 I usually take my cue from them.\u00c2\u00a0 If they want to talk, I’ll cheerfully talk, and if they’d rather look out the window or play with their phone, I’m happy to let them.\u00c2\u00a0 For myself, I have found that choosing your hunting ground makes a major difference in the quality of rider.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t mean only cruise high-income areas.\u00c2\u00a0 I used to drive near our local university, and got a higher percentage of unpleasant riders.\u00c2\u00a0 I switched to driving in the suburban area where I live, and have had much better luck.\u00c2\u00a0 Am I saying college students are jerks?\u00c2\u00a0 Not at all.\u00c2\u00a0 But that area of the city just seemed to be bad luck for me.\u00c2\u00a0 Since I made the change, I not only have less stress from my passengers, I make more money.<\/p>\n
Some helpful tips – I have found that after I drop someone off, if I hang around there for a few minutes, I might get a new fare.\u00c2\u00a0 It was not unusual for me to finish a drive, go on down the road, and five minutes later had to turn around and go back to the area I had just been in.\u00c2\u00a0 Now I give it a little time.\u00c2\u00a0 Also, sign up for every gas station rewards program you can find.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll be using them a lot!<\/p>\n
Some folks will ask Uber vs. Lyft.\u00c2\u00a0 My answer is whichever makes you money.\u00c2\u00a0 In my city, it seems that more people use Uber, so I stick with that.\u00c2\u00a0 Also, there seems to be an expectation here that Lyft drivers will give things away free, like candy or bottled water.\u00c2\u00a0 If I had the money to give things away, I wouldn’t be driving!<\/p>\n
So should you Uber for extra money?\u00c2\u00a0 If you like to drive and meet new people, and have a car in good shape, it’s not a bad way to earn some extra cash..<\/p>\n
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Yesterday Poor Husband was laid off from his job.\u00c2\u00a0 Like many, he was victim to a business that follows the ‘move up or move out’ philosophy.\u00c2\u00a0 If you have been there for a while and you aren’t promoted to management, you get cut.\u00c2\u00a0 It was no surprise, since many coworkers who had been there as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[24,23,22],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-poor-home","tag-earning-money","tag-lyft","tag-uber"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.middleclasspoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.middleclasspoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.middleclasspoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.middleclasspoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.middleclasspoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.middleclasspoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.middleclasspoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.middleclasspoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.middleclasspoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}