Here I am giving #WorkLife community a try for the first time. Today I will take you on a little drive as I do my side hussle, delivery driving. I'm buckled up and ready to get busy.
There are things you will need before you start. The biggest is transportation. This can be anything from a pedal bike to a vehicle. If you use a vehicle you want to utilize one that gets good gas mileage. Just drive safely and abide by the rules of the road. Speeding just waste more fuel and if you get caught there goes your earnings for the day.
Invest in a mileage book. Here is the States your gross income gets reduced at a rate per mileage when it comes tax time. Having this is written proof if you were ever questioned by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The last thing is you have to have is a smart phone. This is used for the driving App for various things which I will go into in a little bit. I would highly encourage a phone holder. Place it up as far as you can so its not much of a distraction. It will be needed to follow navigation and accepting or declining orders all while your driving.
Also on your cell phone, you can claim a percentage of your bill as a write off for taxes. Basically anything you need to complete your job with the exception of gas can be used as write offs on taxes. Car repairs are tricky because you have to decide between them or mileage. I've worked this job through three tax seasons and the mileage is always more.
Accepting or Declining orders
I'll tell you this upfront accepting everything you get offered will lead to quite a few disappointing days. You have to come up with some sort of system and try to stick to it. Logically speaking you want to look at each order and determine how much time it will take until it is delivered.
I won't accept anything thay pays less a $1.00 a mile. If I have to cross state borders or go into another delivery zone I up it to $2 a mile. So the last photo shows the delivery zones in my area. Going out of the delivery zone can sometimes mean driving in excess of 20 miles. For those long trips I look at them in terms of taking at least an hour. So I will accept them based on what I will make an hour. I'll take them if the pay is $25 or more. After all I try to make $25 - $30 an hour. I also will not accept single orders less than $5 in total and only if they are are a mile or two.
The important thing is just don't look at the amounts. Look at first picture above it does not meet my threshold so I declined it. Plus it's more work and time because they were two grocery orders. Just guessing that order would have probably take close to an hour. Do I want to make $11 an hour? Not a fat chance that's less than minimum wage here. I declined another order right after that one before I accepted the offer in the second photo. The two declines happened seconds apart. So you can kind of see why selection is important. BTW I made $24 and some change on that accepted order 😁
Driving Perks
There are a few perks to being a delivery driver for the application I use. I'm not a typical employee for the company that people order food through. We are considered contractors therefore no bosses or anyone checking up on us. Our contract is based on our customer service, completion and on time delivery ratings.
One perk I like is you can start and quit whenever you like. Setting your own hours is awesome. There's still somethings you have to consider if you want to earn well. You have to adjust what time you eat. It wouldn't be wise to eat lunch from 11:00 to 2:00 or dinner from 4:00 to 7:00. These are peak delivery times.
Some merchants offer delivery driver incentives for delivering so many of there orders. I can fill up some cards quickly to accumulate free foods. McDonalds is one of them. They offer any free sandwich for delivering five of there orders. I from time to time will get a free breakfast sandwich. The rest of the cards I give to my son. He likes to use them for himself and treats some of his friends as well. Now the Dairy Queen cards I hold dearly, haha. I'm a huge blizzard lover.
Driving around can be fun. Only can you engage in some choices of music while driving you see a lot. Also delivering you get to know all the crevices, hidden places, and some good places to eat. I have lots of stories to tell that are both hilarious or scary. I dont have any to tell today.
The nice thing about delivery driving for this company is you can get paid the same day if you choose. They provide you with a visa debit card that also gives cash back on qualifying purchases. The best thing about that is it qualifies for most fuel purchases. I have an Upside account to that gives cash back for fuel purchases. That's not it though, I also have a fuel saver card from a grocery store and a gas station. Depending on how much I spend on groceries and purchases at the gas station I get more off at the pump.
Typical Delivery
There really isn't a typical delivery. I deliver to all walks of lives. I've even delivered to a homeless man under a bridge one time. He used a house address close to his whereabouts and put delivery notes on his exact location. Definitely odd delivering to a shopping cart rather than a residence. I've made almost 3500 lifetime deliveries so I've seen a lot.
The two photos above are two residences I delivered to today. Getting good tips does not matter how nice or how beat up a residence looks like. I delivery to almost everywhere to include houses, apartments, hotels, work places, parks, truck stops, and others.
Things I Don't Like
My love and hate relationships with trains 🚃🚂. They can definitely make your driving experience turn foul. You either wait or bail out and take a detour which sometimes can add a few more miles to your trip. Once you delivery in an area for awhile you start to learn there patterns and know where the active tracks are located at. Some of the trains in my town are remotely controlled. Nothing worse seeing a train go forward four cars or so than reverts backwards the same or more. Some of these trains can be a mile long. There's a train near a cargo yard that has blocked a street for more than a day. So if it isn't moving don't wait, haha.
Of course delivering to individuals that don't tip is not desired. I don't get a lot of them because I decline low ball offers. Sometimes you may get an offer that includes two or three deliveries. Maybe the first or second delivery tips well but the third one stiffs you. When I first started delivering I thought maybe the low ball offers would provide cash tips. I sometimes get cash tips but they are extremely rare. I simply don't take chances anymore in hopes I might get a cash tip. Those who don't tip are usually the customers that are the most demanding. These customers also complain why there orders always take so long to deliver. I don't tell them why but you would think they would figure it out.
I'm not a big fan of delivering late at night. Usually late night food orders are from intoxicated individuals. After dark deliveries to me can be unsafe, I usually don't go past 9:00 p.m. Plus it's hardier to see addresses, you would be surprised how many forget to turn on their night lights.
Site Seeing
Delivering in perfect weather and seeing some cool things makes the experience all the better. I've delivered in some really cool neighborhoods and get to see some cool historic sites. Also sometimes I get out on the outskirts of town and get to see beautiful nature.
My Stats for the Day
I didn't delivery drive very long today because I'm still recovering from a cold I came down with. Typically I make about $25 to $30 an hour. Today I was close to $21 an hour. The good thing is I didn't rack up much mileage which is good because I don't have to donate to the fuel pump.
If you have come this far I hope you enjoyed my explanation of my side hussle job. I will return to this community in a few days. Next time I'll flex on my full-time job. You will have the opportunity to see what is involved to load cargo aboard two Military C-17 aircraft.
Take care, be safe and enjoy the week ahead!!