My nephew - a Millennial - drives for Uber up in Boston. He works full-time but does the Uber job on the side because it is such an easy way to make extra money. He rarely does long trips because he's just a few miles outside Boston. So many of his rides are people from the inner suburbs going into the city for concerts, sporting events or just bar-hopping. Also, a lot of airport trips. He clears well over $100 on Friday nights and even more on Saturdays which is not bad for a young man in his 20s already working another full-time job.
Millennials definitely get a bad rap here on Free Republic. My sons, also Millennials, are hard-workers and have been out on their own since they got out of school.
Never would have imagined ride-sharing being a billion dollar industry. Now they are getting into deliveries as well and I think that is the next big area of growth. Amazon wants to get to same day delivery for as much products as possible and they are going to need entrepreneurial-minded drivers to get them there. I know Uber/Lyft are doing food deliveries already for restaurants but I think they will soon be driving up to Amazon Fulfillment centers and taking on deliveries for Amazon.
Now may actually be the time to get in on final-mile and ridesharing professionally. I just haven’t figured out the angle to make a success yet.
I don’t know. I’ll keep my ears to the ground on that one. I love driving. I was always upset that driving professionally caps out at about $40k a year. And that’s in a good area.
Well, driving your own car anyway. Pizza and the like. Actually I made a ton of money delivering pizza when I was a kid.
Uber Eats is simply horrendous. Think about this. You get pinged to pick up some food for someone. You don’t start the meter until you pick up the food to deliver it. Most people don’t order food from outside of their neighborhood. So you get pinged, drive 17 to 30 minutes to a specific restaurant, the food is not ready when you arrive so you ave to wait another 5 minutes. Or if the food is ready, it’s cold by the time it gets to the customer. You drive maybe five minutes from the restaurant to the address. And you rarely get a tip. At night, this would entail a trip to McDonalds, where there is a line of cars and the slowest fast food workers in the city. You drive 17 minutes, wait 45 minutes in line to pickup the food, (all the while not getting paid) then you drive to the address all for a 3.50 payment and no tip.
Amazon flex is better for deliveries. You can work when you decide but there the blocks are between 1 to 4 hours and you know up front what you are making per hour. Except when you finish you may have to return the package to the station, You don’t get paid for this if your block finishes. They tell you to count on delivering 15 packages per hour. Sometimes they will go over that and sometimes you will go under. I have delivered one package in a 4-hour block and got paid for the full four hours. Unless it is a package delivery, where i pick up the packages then do my route, I don’t go the stores.
You can make 50K gross. However, that is reduced by expenses and is tax-deductible.