A lot of the time when I'm driving, I am asked how much money I can make, if I drive full time or part time, and if I am able to make a sustainable living.
I am on month 8 of driving for most of my moneys and at this point, I average about 40-55 hours a week depending on my schedule and energy levels. A lot of people when describing what they do usually omit talking about what's "not so good", but honest Rebs is about to be honest. I have uncovered a variety of reasons why I'd like to throw stones at being a rideshare driver.
1. Driving between 10am and 2pm on a weekday (especially earlier in the week) is the worst time to drive. I feel like I get barely any rides during that time. An instance of such I'll share in another bullet, but yesterday (Monday, September 12, 2016), I made about 75 bucks from driving between 10am-5pm (had to stop at home because I finally sold a few things on craigslist). You don't always make that little money, I promise, but it happens sometimes.
2: Tuesdays are the worst day to drive, period, from my observations!
3: Now that there's no guaranteed fares, with this new "oh so lovely" formatting of "paying their drivers less money while still reaping 20-25% of your fares", if you don't get rides, you don't get paid. If you're picking up someone and it's a 10 minute venture to them, you don't get paid for that 10 minutes, as well as the time you wait for the passenger. As someone who likes sharing optimal customer service, I'm more generous than the average driver with waiting for someone in most situations. If you get canceled on, you don't get paid either.
4: I just had another episode of no rides for an extended time of 40 minutes this morning (Tuesday, September 13, 2016) before I said "fuck it" and went home. After about 25 of those minutes of waiting around with no rides incoming, I told myself if I can drive to Dunkin Donuts (about a 6 minute drive from where I was) and get coffee in the drive through and come back without receiving a ride, I'm calling it quits until after my doctor appointment. Surely enough, me and my "deeeenken deeeenets", as I'd call it in my made up lingo, parked my car next to my apartment, without a ride, turned my app off, and went inside. At least I'm not in money emergency mode right now!
5: Fact -- you can still make a living with Uber (and not live with parental units), depending on your situation and how many (outstanding) expenses you have. You have to be strategic though and go at ideal times (morning rush hour and weekends all day/night are the most lucrative times from what I've found). You also have to be willing to put in the time!
6: Other fact -- you have to be willing to accept there's going to be bad days where you make shit for money or "slave wages" as I'd call it (less than $15 dollars an hour, or even sometimes less than the legal minimum wage). I had a day last week where I ended up making equivalent to about $6.50-$7something an hour before overhead expenses. It was probably a Tuesday. I don't know how people said they've made $1000 dollars a week driving full time, because my biggest haul has been > $750 and I was probably out 40-55 hours. I have seen (real) screenshots of people who have made between $1600 and $1950 IN A WEEK driving for Uber full time. It may have been when there were the "guaranteed fares", because I'd want to see how much I would end up making if that policy was still in existence. I've never worked this many hours in my life, but I'm thankful to still be standing and affording rent!
Happy Driving, Y'all! Here is a picture of my distaste face with a pumpkin macchiato from Dunkin Donuts!
