Uber Blues

I did not make a profit in September in my Uber gig... 

Of course it was no help that I worked only half the month, due to another part-time job out-of-state involving farm work, from which driving for Uber is a major break. I just had very bad luck with my low profile Continental brand tires, which are not very tough, and I would highly not recommend for city driving. 

First, I dropped off a couple of gay guys, who flew in from the West Coast, in front of an apparently very popular gay bar here in Nashville, judging from the line to get in, composed of both boys and girls. So, in my attempt to drop them off as close as possible to the front door, I ran up on the curb a little bit and what happens? The frigging right front tire blows out through the sidewall and goes flat.

So I manage to drive the car to the empty lot across the street and ended up paying a homeless guy $25 to help me change it, providing entertainment for the night-clubbing crowd. This guy was actually a God-send, as he really knew cars and prevented me from jacking up the car in the wrong spot on the plastic trim. His name was "Terrel" if I recall correctly.

Luckily the tire was covered under warranty from Discount Tire, but of course I had to buy two tires to balance out the car, so that one new tire hit me for around $200 after sales tax.

Finally getting back to driving for Uber the next Thursday night and I run over something - I don't even know what - and the next morning I notice the right front tire has a deep slice in it.

Amazing it didn't go flat.......

Luckily this is part of the other two tires left, not the new pair on the rear of the car. Back to Discount Tire again and it's covered under warranty-awesome-and I have to buy another pair of tires, $200 for the one new one to make another pair, so I'm getting killed so far in the profits department.

The reality is, as appealing as it is to make my own schedule and get paid to drive around in the car, the income to expense ratio is just not going to allow me to continue working for Uber that much longer. Though my Uber career will probably be short-lived, I will definitely continue to use the service as a passenger. It's a great deal for riders. For the drivers, not so much.

Back out tonight to try again on the busiest and craziest night of the week.......

Update - Sunday, October 5....

Saturday was busy from my start at 2 p.m. through my quit time around 1 a.m., when an apparently very drunk teen girl barfed in my car, into a barf bag luckily. I managed a gross earnings of around $180, after slapping another 220 miles on my unfortunate vehicle, but I managed to earn almost one of my damaged tires back in one night, so a good night, for this business anyway. Met young people from all over the country, so the young-generation migration continues.....

Uber Update July 26

Again I had what I thought was a stellar night driving for Uber (Friday night), picking up a steady flow of riders, starting at the airport to pick up a handsome young couple, who brought me straight downtown, where the action was already in full swing around 7 p.m.

The best part of the job is definitely meeting all kinds of people, if only for a few minutes, including a few bachelorette party groups of gorgeous young college-age girls, never to be seen again, which ultimately serves strictly as an extraordinary type of torture for me in my middle age.

Looking at the hard numbers this morning, I was again struck by the disappointingly low net income, which means that the pressure is on to find something else, before my car blows up, from all this driving. Here are the numbers:

Mileage: 155.9 To be fair, I do have to drive 34 miles just to get to Uber territory, near the "big city", so that's 72 miles out the window from the start. If you're going to do this, make sure you live closer to town.

Including my 72 mile handicap, with gas at $3.26 this week, and my car that gets 23.5 mpg/city, that works out to 6.63 gallons to go 155.9 miles, or $21.62 in gas. Without the 72 miles, that would be 155.9-72=83.9 miles if I was already living in town. 83.9/23.5=3.57 gallons of gas, equals $11.63 in gas.

Ten trips at $98.19 in fares, less Uber's 20% equals $78.55 net earnings. Less $21.62 in gas equals $56.93 total net income for 7 hours in the car, which comes out to $8.13/hour, so welcome to minimum wage! It just makes me feel really good about all the time, energy and sacrifice I put into earning those two college degrees of mine. What a joke. I do know who's laughing all the way to the bank here and it begins with a big "U" and probably an "F" in there somewhere too.

To make things more depressing, I heard a rumor that the U is going to start charging drivers $10.00 a month to lease their Uber-phones, whether you drive or not, so deduct another $520/year in expenses.

Despite being quite depressed over these numbers, I managed to up my spirits enough to get back out there Saturday night, normally the best night of the week for Uber earnings, and banged out another 7pm to 2am shift in the city, shuttling young people around from bar to bar and from the bar and back home again. The numbers for Saturday night were as follows:

Mileage: 148.5
Gas: 6.32 Gallons @ 23.5 mpg x $3.34/gallon = $21.10
Trips: 12
Hours: 7
Gross Earnings: $137.49
Uber's Take: 20% x 137.49 = $27.50
My income: $109.99 - gas @ $21.10 = $88.89 = $12.70/hour
Average Income per-mile over the last four day period: $2.28/mile(before expenses)

I managed to up my average hourly net income from min. wage to $12.70/hour and that's the best night of the week. So, theoretically if every day was like Saturday and I drove for 7 hours a day 7 days a week and I put 54,020 miles on the car (148 miles x 365 days a year), the absolute best income I could manage over an entire year is just a hair over $32,000 dollars. So there it is.

More realistically, if I just stick with driving Friday and Saturday nights, most of the year, I can bring in an extra $110 + $57 = an extra $170/week multiplied by about 40 weeks a year comes to an extra $6,800/year in earnings, although you would add some major mileage on your vehicle.

In conclusion: Uber, a great part-time gig on your own schedule, one or two weekend nights a week. Not a full-time job, unless your car is invincible, runs on electricity and never needs maintenance.