# Checking for profit -- is there none?



## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

I'm trying to figure out what Uber's realistic hourly driver pay really is. 

Someone in a thread here mentioned that drivers are basically trading car equity for cash. That comment seems like it may be very accurate.

For UBER X
$0.15 per minute = $9. hour (does Uber then take 25% of that??) 
Figure 30% downtime and that's $6.30/hour.
Figure 30% downtime and Uber cutting 25% and that's $4.725/hour

For the spread on the $1/mile fee...
So if the pay is $1.00 / mile. Then Uber takes 25%.
$0.75/mile, minus what the IRS suggests for depreciation/gas/whatnot, currently $0.575/mile

That equals $0.175 per mile "profit". Figure 40 miles driven in an hour and that's $7 hour extra

For a total of $13 .30 an hour, maybe, in a really good hour with 40 miles of driving?? 

Plus tips -- if you get tips. 

Is this in the ballpark of what you understand, Uber drivers??
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For Uber XL

$0.32 / minute = $19.20 / hour (Uber takes 28% of that?? -- $13.82/hour)
With 30% downtime and Uber taking 28% that is $9.67/hour

For the spread on the $1.95 mile fee.
Uber takes 28% = $1.40 / mile
minus IRS estimated expenses of $0.575 = $0.829 / mile "profit"

Figure 40 miles per hour driven = $33.16

For a total of $42.83/hour if you are getting a lot of paid miles per hour. Plus tips if you get them.

I am trying to understand what driver time is worth and what a driver is paid beyond the car expenses.

Since I am new, this is probably not 100% right. Would you help me check against your experiences??

KBecks


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

Now let's figure 50% downtime and 15 miles in an hour..

Uber X
$ 3.375 hour / time
$ 2.262 miles
---------
$5.637 / hour

Uber XL
$6.91 / time
$12.43 /miles
--------
$19.34 /hour

Would anyone mind checking these estimates? Thank you so much!!

Is it possible as an XL driver to only accept XL rides?


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## Just for fun Detroit (Oct 12, 2014)

DEAD MILES!!!!! Now your losing! Lol


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

OK, good point! So dead miles are the drives to your pick-ups, between pick-ups and drives home. 

How would you break down how an hour of time is spent driving for Uber and how many dead miles per hour you might get?? Thanks.


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

Hi KBecks, welcome to the forum.

First, please read your Partnership Agreement. New Drivers have 30 Days to Opt-out of *Binding Arbitration.
*
Second, I noticed that you used 25% commission in your calculations. Are you paying 25% in Milwaukee?

*UberX Commission For New Drivers Is Now 25% In These Markets*


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## Just for fun Detroit (Oct 12, 2014)

Dead miles are at least 50% of loaded miles. Usually much more.


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

Perhaps this can aid you in your calculations:

_*THREE SEPTEMBERS OF UBERX IN NEW YORK CITY*_

Driver Idle Time 21Min/Hr for NYC UberX in Sept. 2014


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## TimFromMA (Mar 4, 2015)

Every car and driver is different but I figure $0.60 per mile is a good approximation for expenses.

It’s also a good approximation that for every 2 “live” miles you drive, you drive 1 “dead” mile.

I’ll use your figures of 50% downtime and 15 miles in an hour. Ill also use Boston rates. $0.20 per minute $1.20 per mile

15 live miles plus 7 dead miles for a total of 22 miles

30 miles x $0.60 per mile = $13.20 in expenses.

15 miles x $1.20 = $18

30 minutes x $0.20 per minute = $6

Total fares for the hour = $24

$24 – 20% Uber cut = $19.20

$19.20 - $13.20 in expenses = $6 per hour in GROSS earnings


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## Just for fun Detroit (Oct 12, 2014)

Now try that for the cities like Detroit! $.75 a mile. Lol. And the app is FULL of drivers. I just don't get it.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

A smart businessman can easily beat the 57.5-cent mileage deduction. And the 60 cents mentioned earlier is utterly absurd. Whoever is paying that per mile of driving should rethink not only their ride-share driving, but also the fact that they own and operate a motor vehicle.


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## TimFromMA (Mar 4, 2015)

renbutler said:


> A smart businessman can easily beat the 57.5-cent mileage deduction. And the 60 cents mentioned earlier is utterly absurd. Whoever is paying that per mile of driving should rethink not only their ride-share driving, but also the fact that they own and operate a motor vehicle.


http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/r...ansportation_statistics/html/table_03_17.html


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

TimFromMA said:


> http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/r...ansportation_statistics/html/table_03_17.html


Thanks, but that doesn't contradict anything I said.

The standard mileage deduction is based on similar averages. Average means that about half of people beat that number -- probably more than half now that gas prices are significantly lower than they were when the deduction was determined for this year. Those would be the smarter drivers I was talking about.

If you're trying to make money with mileage expenses like that, obviously you should expect little to no profit. But many of us can beat it by a pretty large margin.


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## zombieguy (May 22, 2015)

First thing you need to understand is that when you drive for Uber, YOU ARE NOT AN HOURLY EMPLOYEE, YOU DO NOT GET PAID BY THE HOUR. So it doesn't matter what the hourly wage comes out to be. This is like any piece meal or commission job. You get paid for the work you do whether it takes 1 hour or 5 hours. If you can't grasp that concept and put such a value on your time then you are in the wrong business. Some days will come out to $10 an hour some $30 an hour, that's the nature of the business. Uber sucks people in with the "make $30 an hour" bullshit because they know most people think like an hourly employee and will fail to initially realize that working on commission is not consistent. You can do all the math you want to figure out the hourly wage but in the end it means nothing. All that matters is the amount deposited into your bank account.


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

zombieguy said:


> it doesn't matter what the hourly wage comes out to be.





zombieguy said:


> Some days will come out to $10 an hour some $30 an hour





zombieguy said:


> You can do all the math you want to figure out the hourly wage but in the end it means nothing. All that matters is the amount deposited into your bank account.


You mean well, but clearly don't understand that a Driver's time is a finite resource. 
Avg. Earnings/Hour is THE most important metric for any Driver to calculate.

{(Amounts deposited in Bank Acc) - (Actual Costs of Driving)} ÷ (Total Hours Worked) = Avg Earnings/Hour.


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

chi1cabby said:


> Hi KBecks, welcome to the forum.
> 
> First, please read your Partnership Agreement.


Hi, I did send an email to opt-out of binding arbitration, but received no reply. I don't even know if my email "counts". Should I plan to send a return-receipt letter?

Right now I am figuring whether to drive or not! I will probably test it out and see how things go.

I think my agreement says 25% / 28% XL but I am having a hard time finding where my driver rates are.

KBecks


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

zombieguy said:


> First thing you need to understand is that when you drive for Uber, YOU ARE NOT AN HOURLY EMPLOYEE, YOU DO NOT GET PAID BY THE HOUR. So it doesn't matter what the hourly wage comes out to be. This is like any piece meal or commission job. You get paid for the work you do whether it takes 1 hour or 5 hours. If you can't grasp that concept and put such a value on your time then you are in the wrong business. Some days will come out to $10 an hour some $30 an hour, that's the nature of the business. Uber sucks people in with the "make $30 an hour" bullshit because they know most people think like an hourly employee and will fail to initially realize that working on commission is not consistent. You can do all the math you want to figure out the hourly wage but in the end it means nothing. All that matters is the amount deposited into your bank account.


Right, I know it's not an hourly employee gig. But -- I want to understand roughly what I will be taking home vs. the time put in, and I want to get a sense of the worst case scenarios, and I want to make sure I'm not going to lose money or basically work for free when I start driving.


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

renbutler said:


> If you're trying to make money with mileage expenses like that, obviously you should expect little to no profit. But many of us can beat it by a pretty large margin.


What steps are you taking to minimize driving expenses? Thanks!


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

TimFromMA said:


> Every car and driver is different but I figure $0.60 per mile is a good approximation for expenses.
> 
> It's also a good approximation that for every 2 "live" miles you drive, you drive 1 "dead" mile.


Call me cautious but I wonder if the live to dead mile ratio is closer to 1:1 or 1:1.5. If I drive to someone's house, take them to the airport, then come home, I'm putting more miles in than the paid miles. This is the kind of driving I may do -- would I get a ride to somewhere else at the airport? Maybe. I only plan to work 3 - 4 hours at a time, and I'm really not sure how the pings will go for me starting out.


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## Uberest (Jul 29, 2015)

KBecks said:


> Call me cautious but I wonder if the live to dead mile ratio is closer to 1:1 or 1:1.5. If I drive to someone's house, take them to the airport, then come home, I'm putting more miles in than the paid miles. This is the kind of driving I may do -- would I get a ride to somewhere else at the airport? Maybe. I only plan to work 3 - 4 hours at a time, and I'm really not sure how the pings will go for me starting out.


For what its worth, I have found that the ratio of live-to-dead miles varies each day. Each day is different. Depends on how busy uber is (how many pings), whether you wait in an area for a ping or drive around waiting for pings, and the length of whatever trips are requested in relationship to your home or where you need to be. Just do it for a month or two, keep careful records and the numbers are what they are.


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## zombieguy (May 22, 2015)

chi1cabby said:


> You mean well, but clearly don't understand that a Driver's time is a finite resource.
> Avg. Earnings/Hour is THE most important metric for any Driver to calculate.
> 
> {(Amounts deposited in Bank Acc) - (Actual Costs of Driving)} ÷ (Total Hours Worked) = Avg Earnings/Hour.


It doesn't matter. Some guys set a daily goal and when they hit that goal they stop. Some guys a lot 8 hours to work and will work those 8 hours to make as much as possible. So the guy that hits a goal of $200 in 5 hours made $40 an hour. A guy that hits the goal of $200 in 8 hours made $25 an hour. At the end of the day its the same $200. If the guy who made the $200 in 5 hours worked the other 3 he may have made another $120 or maybe only $50 or maybe another $200 that would have raised or lowered his hourly. So what is the difference if I sat around for 5 hours and made zero and then the next 3 hours I made $50? At the end of the day I still made $50. The next day I can be on the go all day, its different every day. This is a commission job and its never the same day to day, hour to hour. If you can't handle that and want a guarantee that you will make $30 an hour every day you work and you value your time so much, then you are in the wrong business.


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

KBecks said:


> I did send an email to opt-out of binding arbitration, but received no reply.


You won't receive a confirmation email to your email to [email protected]. Your email itself is the confirmation that you've opted out.


KBecks said:


> I think my agreement says 25% / 28% XL but I am having a hard time finding where my driver rates are.


Okay thanx, then Milwaukee is now at 25% commission for New Drivers too.

You can see Milwaukee rates by clicking resources tab on the forum, or at 
https://www.uber.com/cities/milwaukee


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

zombieguy said:


> It doesn't matter.


Actually it does matter. 
Time is a finite resource. But you don't get that. 


zombieguy said:


> This is a commission job and its never the same day to day, hour to hour.


If a Driver has calculated his/her Avg. Earnings/Hr, they'd know how much they should be be bringing on average. Of course some days are better and some weeks are better. But it's important to know your averages.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

chi1cabby said:


> You mean well, but clearly don't understand that a Driver's time is a finite resource.
> Avg. Earnings/Hour is THE most important metric for any Driver to calculate.
> 
> {(Amounts deposited in Bank Acc) - (Actual Costs of Driving)} ÷ (Total Hours Worked) = Avg Earnings/Hour.


I worked on salary for 16 years, so hourly earnings are meaningless to me.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

KBecks said:


> What steps are you taking to minimize driving expenses? Thanks!


I live in a location with a low cost of living, low taxes, low insurance rates, low gas prices, I drive a paid-off vehicle that is nearly ten years old, I use an inexpensive phone and plan, etc.

Unfortunately for some, a few of those factors will be unattainable for people with poor credit or a rough driving history, or those who live in high-cost areas.

But there are many universal tips for keeping expenses low that I'm sure you've seen in numerous other threads. Minimize dead miles when possible, for example.


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## TimFromMA (Mar 4, 2015)

renbutler said:


> Thanks, but that doesn't contradict anything I said.
> 
> The standard mileage deduction is based on similar averages. Average means that about half of people beat that number -- probably more than half now that gas prices are significantly lower than they were when the deduction was determined for this year. Those would be the smarter drivers I was talking about.
> 
> If you're trying to make money with mileage expenses like that, obviously you should expect little to no profit. But many of us can beat it by a pretty large margin.


That's why its called an average. Yes, half of people will do less but half will do more as well. The AVERAGE driver will have expenses around $0.60 per mile. If you find yourself on the lower end of the bell curve, congratulations.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

KBecks said:


> Call me cautious but I wonder if the live to dead mile ratio is closer to 1:1 or 1:1.5. If I drive to someone's house, take them to the airport, then come home, I'm putting more miles in than the paid miles. This is the kind of driving I may do -- would I get a ride to somewhere else at the airport? Maybe. I only plan to work 3 - 4 hours at a time, and I'm really not sure how the pings will go for me starting out.


My dead miles represent just short of 60% of my total miles. I live in the suburbs, so pickups are usually 3-5 miles away.

So my ratio is about 3:2.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

TimFromMA said:


> That's why its called an average. Yes, half of people will do less but half will do more as well. The AVERAGE driver will have expenses around $0.60 per mile. If you find yourself on the lower end of the bell curve, congratulations.


Thanks, I already showed that I know how averages work.

And my point is that if you are above 55 cents per mile to operate your vehicle, Uber/Lyft is probably not going to be profitable. If you are below that, you can make it work. So when people say that there's no way to make a profit in Uber, they are incorrect. It all depends on your business model.


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

So I went out to do errands and no pings in about an hour online. The map is showing an area to the north as yellow. Does über want me to go there? I could try as an experiment. I was just out at Best Buy and I am not sure I want to work with the general public anymore.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

No, do NOT chase heat or surges, unless they are a very, very short distance out of your way (one or two miles tops), you have time to kill, and you know a busy shopping/college/etc. area where you can park for free and wait.


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

Is this app going to be chewing up the data on my cell phone plan? I'm at home now on wifi. I will let the app run but it may be that my area does not have riders.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

The app and your preferred navigation app will use a fair data when you're away from home. I'm able to get by on 2GB of data per month, but I don't drive as much as some people.

If you insist on parking where the riders are, you could always get a beverage somewhere with free wifi.


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

renbutler said:


> I worked on salary for 16 years, so hourly earnings are meaningless to me.


Fine have it your way.

Imo, anyone who thinks that Avg. Earnings/Hour are meaningless is doing their part in furthering UberMATH.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

And IMO, you are mired in an the mentality of the menial hourly worker.

The self-employed and the salaried normally don't speak in terms of the hourly worker. Ask a guy who builds up a successful small business how much he made per hour, and he would laugh at you. That's not what it's about. It's about creating a profitable businesses and supporting himself.

I don't get paid per hour. I get paid per passenger and per mile. That's just how it is. And that's how the modern economy works -- you get paid for service, not for time. We might always have a small segment of society that is paid hourly, but that's not the kind of mindset to allow yourself to be stuck in the rest of your life.


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## BurgerTiime (Jun 22, 2015)

New article out states drivers are not making any money: 
http://america.aljazeera.com/articl...full-time-with-uber-but-running-on-fumes.html


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

renbutler said:


> Ask a guy who builds up a successful small business how much he made per hour,


UberX Driving is not small business entrepreneurship, in the sense that you're not building a business. Drivers are swapping the resources of their time & car for income. It is either part timers driving for additional income or full timers grinding it out to keep the bills paid. 

It's upto smart, non self-delusional drivers to figure out how much return are they generating on investment of their time & car while driving for Uber.

Tell Rachel Galindo that she was building a small business as an UberX Driver in LA.

The Earnings Statement for Rachel Galindo for the period ending at September 29, 2014 at 4am










https://uberpeople.net/threads/who-will-win-the-ridesharing-war-probably-not-consumers.4513/


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## TimFromMA (Mar 4, 2015)

Anyone who proclaims that they make more than minimum wage with Uber is either a liar or doesn't understand basic math.


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

I did my first ride! OK, I am not sure this is my new part-time gig. It is weird picking up strangers!!!

The details:
I was at home, and got the ping. It was for a place near apartments about 1 mile from my house. I stop what I'm doing and jump in the car, and take a little bit of time to figure how to navigate to the place (using Waze, needed to update Waze agreement, blah blah blah)
Man was standing in front of apartment. I ask name.
My minivan door is very sticky but has auto open. My minivan seat he sat in has a stain! I should have checked but this seat was in storage and I don't know what it's from or when. Blah! I hope he didn't notice. He did not wear his seatbelt.

I had to switch over from the getting there directions to start trip. Mild delay for first-timer.
I had the radio off. Very little conversation. Awkward, long ride.

11:40 minutes ride
6.28 miles

$10.03 total fare.

OK, minus $1.00? (does that come off the top first?) $9.03
Minus 25% - $6.77
Minus wear and tear on car?? ($3.61) == $3.16 wage.

But wait! Dead miles -- about 7 or 8!!! (I had to get home!) Net pay like zero??

No tip. I didn't expect one and it was so akward!! It might have made it even weirder.
Nothing wrong with the passenger, he wore cologne but seemed fine, no heebie-jeebies. It was just weird to do the Uber.

KBecks

P.S. Who goes from one set of apartments to another set of apartments in the late morning?? Wait, wait, don't tell me!


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

renbutler said:


> And that's how the *modern economy *works -- you get paid for service, not for time. We might always have a small segment of society that is paid hourly, but that's not the kind of mindset to allow yourself to be stuck in the rest of your life.


Another name for "*modern economy" *UberX Driving is *Sharing Economy:
The Sharing Economy Is A Lie: Uber, Ayn Rand And The Truth About Tech And Ubertarians

And 1099 Economy:
Welcome to the 1099 Economy
*


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

KBecks said:


> 11:40 minutes ride
> 6.28 miles
> 
> $10.03 total fare.
> ...


I'll await your confirmation that Milwaukee is indeed at 25% commission for New Drivers before I add Milwaukee to this list:

*UberX Commission For New Drivers Is Now 25% In These Markets*


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

Hi Chi1, yes, after September 10 or 11, 2015, it's 25% for both UberX and UberXL. 

What do you think of the first trip I did?


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

KBecks said:


> What do you think of the first trip I did?


Your payout calculations are sound. 
Signup for UberXL, if you haven't already.
Get that stain out from the seat.
Be yourself, after all it's Your car. But also give consideration to the Riders, time of day etc. in deciding if more or less conversation is appropriate.
Play something on the radio that you like to listen.


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## UberMensch2015 (Jan 29, 2015)

KBecks said:


> Hi Chi1, yes, after September 10 or 11, 2015, it's 25% for both UberX and UberXL.
> 
> What do you think of the first trip I did?


You math is right. There is no profit to be had driving UberX, its just not mathematically possible. The only way it is possible to profit is to lie to yourself. People on here do it all the time. They lie and say that they have a 3-1 paid to deadhead mile rate or they say "my car doesn't cost $.0575 a mile to operate its actually closer to $0.15" Then they work the numbers to show that they are making money. They aren't, they are lying to themselves.

The only rational approach to Uber is never ever to drive UberX on a non-surge. You can't make money. You can't profit. You have to get right with that statement. If you want cash, drive UberX, but realize you are just converting your car into a cash stream. You aren't actually creating wealth. You can have the same result if you sell the car, take some cash, and use the remainder to buy a cheaper, older car with more miles. Its the same thing.

Focus on UberXL, Select (if you qualify) and surges. Be OK with not driving more than one ride a week just to stay active. If the situation isn't profitable (surge of 1.7X or whatever the math is for your city/rate), don't drive. You don't need to lose money (which you did in your first ride) if you don't want to.


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

OK, great feedback, thank you. I might try driving again once more, probably a Thursday or Friday early evening, after the kids are in bed -- like 9 p.m. - 12 a.m. and I might drive down to an area of town that seems to have more activity as a place to work. We'll see. I wasn't that into the first trip.

Question: Do I have to apply for XL? Uber knows I have a minivan. How would I be able to tell an UberX from UberXL request? When I took this one I didn't really look at the details for # of pax. 

Thanks for the help!


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## UberMensch2015 (Jan 29, 2015)

email your city partner's email for XL help. You'll be able to tell X from XL when the ping comes in.

Go ahead and drive again and see how you feel about it but remember, there is no UberX ride that is profitable. Its not the location, or the time, or the distance. The system cannot generate profit for you if you drive UberX with no surge. Even under optimal lucky circumstances with very few deadhead miles you are at best going to break even. I haven't taken an UberX request without a surge in months and I'm happier for it. I drive very little but when I drive I actually make money. If more drivers understood the economics Uber would have to respond by raising rates. It will never happen because there is always another driver willing to drive for ever lower fares but a guy can dream.


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

That's very helpful. Thanks. I only saw one surge today on the map, it was a 1.3x surge in an area of town that is far away from me, but that area seems to have a more regular demand (more young people and hipsters, I'm guessing.) Is 1.3 any good? If I try a Thursday or Friday night I might just log in and observe a bit to see if surges are happening. Driving infrequently is fine with me -- so maybe I can do that.

I'm working on cleaning the van a little more now, it's improving little by by little bit.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

chi1cabby said:


> UberX Driving is not small business entrepreneurship, in the sense that you're not building a business.


I didn't say it was, guy. I'm talking about how only a small portion of the nation's workforce truly works an hourly job. And if you work with that mentality, you will probably never be able to escape it.

Hourly earnings are absolutely not THE WAY that everybody should look at their jobs.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

TimFromMA said:


> Anyone who proclaims that they make more than minimum wage with Uber is either a liar or doesn't understand basic math.


If you're interested, I can show you my math privately.

I got straight As in math too.

What YOU fail is Econ 101. You need to understand the variables between, say, Taxachusetts and places that are actually business- and people-friendly.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

UberMensch2015 said:


> but remember, there is no UberX ride that is profitable.


That is not factual.

I have some unprofitable rides, but they are the minority.

Again, you guys MUST resist the urge to apply your crappy situations to the world at large. Your corner of the world and your choices do not necessarily represent everyone else's.


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

renbutler said:


> Hourly earnings are absolutely not THE WAY that everybody should look at their jobs.


So what metrics are "THE WAY" that Drivers should look at this job? 


renbutler said:


> If you're interested, I can show you my math privately.


Is there something proprietary about your math that you can't share it openly?


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## zombieguy (May 22, 2015)

renbutler said:


> And IMO, you are mired in an the mentality of the menial hourly worker.
> 
> The self-employed and the salaried normally don't speak in terms of the hourly worker. Ask a guy who builds up a successful small business how much he made per hour, and he would laugh at you. That's not what it's about. It's about creating a profitable businesses and supporting himself.
> 
> I don't get paid per hour. I get paid per passenger and per mile. That's just how it is. And that's how the modern economy works -- you get paid for service, not for time. We might always have a small segment of society that is paid hourly, but that's not the kind of mindset to allow yourself to be stuck in the rest of your life.


Exactly....


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## TimFromMA (Mar 4, 2015)

renbutler said:


> If you're interested, I can show you my math privately.
> 
> I got straight As in math too.
> 
> What YOU fail is Econ 101. You need to understand the variables between, say, Taxachusetts and places that are actually business- and people-friendly.


Ok. It's quite clear that you are delusional but hey, your fooling noone but yourself so have fun.


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## The_One (Sep 9, 2015)

chi1cabby said:


> Perhaps this can aid you in your calculations:
> 
> _*THREE SEPTEMBERS OF UBERX IN NEW YORK CITY*_
> 
> ...


The chart is backwards, more uber lies.


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

I'll tell you that after that first ride, I don't know if I will try a 2nd ride or not. 

Speaking about the new economy, it is a strange thing. One of my friends just signed up to do piecework type email support for a company and she's going to make something like less than a dollar per support chat and they're paying her not all in cash but cash plus some merchandise or even maybe coupons. She's going to try it out and see how it goes.

In my mind there is a big difference between a business that can sustain employees of its own vs hiring out yourself to do service work. When you can bring in employees and make profit on their labor, then you are really in business and you are making jobs for people, hopefully good jobs that can feed families and provide some health insurance. Like an electrician can start out as a one person biz, but then they can hire more electricians to do the jobs and the owner does more management. I have always felt it might be weird or using people to have people work for you, but it can and should be a win-win, where both people are happy with the situation. I am going to hire a fitness instructor to teach a class at a church where I teach, and the last time I did it, I gave the instructor everything -- this time I am planing to take a small profit off the instructor's work. I think that is fair, since this instructor will work with a client base I have built up. And I will be happy making a little bit of money while not having to put in all the time. 

There is no doubt that Uber is making a lot of money on its drivers labor. This $1 off the top is the most annoying thing. I think they should make a share of pay for their work of running the biz and making and promoting the app, that is a lot of work! But it seems a little unbalanced. 

The other career I have been thinking of doing is getting a real estate license. That is another very competitive business. In theory there is a lot more money in it, but it's hard. Many people give-up. There are start up costs. Right now I teach fitness classes, one paid hour at a time, and the wear and tear is on me. I try to use my time wisely but every hour is not a paid hour, my prep time and music costs and insurance costs and shoes are out of my pay. But I do that because I love it, (and I can hustle to find the better paying jobs and better working environments out there.) I don't think I will love driving people.

I don't know if I want strangers in my car again!! I can see why tips would make a big difference for drivers, and I also see why cashless is appealing for riders. I may try Lyft.

It looks like I only have to drive once every 30 days to stay active on Uber. I cannot find any way to contact them to ask a question about XL!

Thanks for chatting with me about all this.


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

Hey, how does everyone figure out their actual per-mile costs to run their vehicles? Thanks!


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## JimS (Aug 18, 2015)

KBecks said:


> I cannot find any way to contact them to ask a question about XL!


Try registering your car again. If you have 6 seatbelts plus yours, it should automatically set you up for XL. If not, your car may not qualify for some reason or another. Otherwise, try the dreaded [email protected].


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## The_One (Sep 9, 2015)

OTE="KBecks, post: 471517, member: 27550"]I'll tell you that after that first ride, I don't know if I will try a 2nd ride or not.

Speaking about the new economy, it is a strange thing. One of my friends just signed up to do piecework type email support for a company and she's going to make something like less than a dollar per support chat and they're paying her not all in cash but cash plus some merchandise or even maybe coupons. She's going to try it out and see how it goes.

In my mind there is a big difference between a business that can sustain employees of its own vs hiring out yourself to do service work. When you can bring in employees and make profit on their labor, then you are really in business and you are making jobs for people, hopefully good jobs that can feed families and provide some health insurance. Like an electrician can start out as a one person biz, but then they can hire more electricians to do the jobs and the owner does more management. I have always felt it might be weird or using people to have people work for you, but it can and should be a win-win, where both people are happy with the situation. I am going to hire a fitness instructor to teach a class at a church where I teach, and the last time I did it, I gave the instructor everything -- this time I am planing to take a small profit off the instructor's work. I think that is fair, since this instructor will work with a client base I have built up. And I will be happy making a little bit of money while not having to put in all the time.

There is no doubt that Uber is making a lot of money on its drivers labor. This $1 off the top is the most annoying thing. I think they should make a share of pay for their work of running the biz and making and promoting the app, that is a lot of work! But it seems a little unbalanced.

The other career I have been thinking of doing is getting a real estate license. That is another very competitive business. In theory there is a lot more money in it, but it's hard. Many people give-up. There are start up costs. Right now I teach fitness classes, one paid hour at a time, and the wear and tear is on me. I try to use my time wisely but every hour is not a paid hour, my prep time and music costs and insurance costs and shoes are out of my pay. But I do that because I love it, (and I can hustle to find the better paying jobs and better working environments out there.) I don't think I will love driving people.

I don't know if I want strangers in my car again!! I can see why tips would make a big difference for drivers, and I also see why cashless is appealing for riders. I may try Lyft.

It looks like I only have to drive once every 30 days to stay active on Uber. I cannot find any way to contact them to ask a question about XL!

Thanks for chatting with me about all this.[/QUOTE]
Don't waste your time with the real estate license, it's many times worse than Uber.


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

KBecks said:


> Hey, how does everyone figure out their actual per-mile costs to run their vehicles? Thanks!


Couple of good links here:

*A Forum Wiki For New Members*


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## DieselkW (Jul 21, 2015)

KBecks said:


> Hey, how does everyone figure out their actual per-mile costs to run their vehicles? Thanks!


Lots of numbers to input. Let's say you have a two year old car, intend to keep it until it is ten years old and you just started driving.
OK, the "life of the car" is 8 more years. What do you have left to pay until it is yours? Divide that number by the number of months until the car will be retired from service. (8*12)

Add in registration costs for your state, divided by the number of months your registration is good for. (Indiana is 24 months)

Cost of insurance, monthly.

These are your fixed monthly costs for the car and insurance and state taxes.

Then:

Cost of a gallon of fuel in pennies divided by miles per gallon - that's your cost per mile in fuel. (Mine is 6 cents mixed highway/city)

Cost of oil change (in pennies) divided by the number of miles per oil change, that's your cost per mile for oil

Cost of new tires (in pennies) divided by the number of miles the tires are rated for

Once you know your maintenance costs for fuel, oil, tires per mile you can multiply that by the average number of miles monthly you drive for Uber. (I do about 150 per shift)

Now add your fixed costs and your maintenance costs to get your monthly costs. Subtract that number from your monthly Uber earnings.

Contrary to the gloom and doom of some members that have nothing else to do but their best to diminish the number of drivers they compete with, I MAKE MONEY.

I also get tipped.
I also have a 4.85 rating
I have, I think, the best UberX car possible. Roomiest back seat in its class, 40mpg, black, tinted windows, kick ass sound system, quiet and comfortable leather seats.

You might be tempted, but be honest in your calculations and don't include personal miles. I drive for 17 cents a mile and take the IRS deduction of 57 cents.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

chi1cabby said:


> So what metrics are "THE WAY" that Drivers should look at this job?


However they want. You can look at it in your obsolete hourly way. But you can't tell others that it's the ONLY way to look at it.



chi1cabby said:


> Is there something proprietary about your math that you can't share it openly?


That's a dumb question. The specific numbers are private, not the simple math.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

TimFromMA said:


> Ok. It's quite clear that you are delusional but hey, your fooling noone but yourself so have fun.


Exactly as I expected. When somebody is willing to hold your hand through a perfectly valid explanation, you stick your fingers in your ears and go home.

I mean, you are actually resisting the notion that things are different in each market. There's no way you could ever succeed with that obvious non-starter of an argument.


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## zombieguy (May 22, 2015)

chi1cabby said:


> Fine have it your way.
> 
> Imo, anyone who thinks that Avg. Earnings/Hour are meaningless is doing their part in furthering UberMATH.


Actually, figuring out your hourly earnings is furthering UberMATH. You guys want to have it both ways. You want to act like a business owner in figuring out expenses of taxes, depreciation, dead miles, gas, tolls, food and everything else a business owner would do and then act like an hourly employee by subtracting that and dividing it by the hours worked to figure out your hourly wage. A business owner in any business looks at the profit at the end of the day/week/month/year and doesn't worry about the hourly wage especially in a commission business. You keep saying that time is a finite resource which is true in the sense that there are only so many hours in the day to work but still has no bearing to figure out your hourly wage in a commission business, and I'll tell you why. Lets say I work for 3 hours and its slow as can be and I make nothing, I make $0. If I stop right there I made $0 an hour. I don't stop and in the next 3 hours I do 3 runs that pay $50 each, that's $150. It doesn't change the fact that at the end of the day I made $150. It doesn't change the fact that I made $0 for the first 3 hours. Tell me how it makes a difference if I figure that 6 hours of work to be $25 an hour. If I decided to work only 4 hours that day ($0 for the first 3 hours, then $50, the 4th hour) then my hourly would have been $12.50. Still $50 on the day. Again, this is a commission business. Anyone who has ever worked on commission will tell you that the more time you put in, the better chance you have at getting more business. So what you make by the hour doesn't mean anything. What matters is the time you put in, in total. Now lets say I work an hourly job where I get paid $25 an hour guaranteed. It doesn't matter if its slow, busy, I sit there all day or not, I will still make $25 an hour. So the first 3 hours I make $75 and then I go home. I made $75 for 3 hours, I got $75 in my pocket, $25 an hour. I work another 3 hours and make another $75. 6 hours of work, $150, still the same $25 an hour. So yea, now it matters what the hourly wage is, now it matters that time is finite, because I am being paid by the hour.


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

renbutler said:


> You can look at it in your *obsolete hourly way*.


*Time *is a Finite Resource.* 

Hypothetical Example (4 Weeks):*

Total Payouts from Uber - $3,000.
Associated cost of driving - $1,000.
Income - $2,000.

*Time Driving: *

100 Hours - $20/Hour
200 Hours - $10/Hour
300 Hours - $6.66/Hour
*Real Example
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-uber-driver-picks-you-up-in-a-tesla-model-s-2015-09-11*









_So far, Zhang said he's completed 102 trips and made $1,022.59, before Uber took its cut and without accounting for his own expenses. After the Uber fee - which can range from 20% to 28% depending on the city and when the driver signed up - Zhang calculates that he has collected 76 cents per mile. This is cut down to 70 cents when factoring in his Tesla's cost of six cents per mile to drive.

This may not be enough of a profit to keep driving for the service, Zhang said, and he's pausing his driving while deciding whether to keep going.

*"I cannot spend money and my time [when] I'm not making a return," Zhang said.*_

What is so *"Obsolete"* about figuring out *Earnings/Hour?* Is there a more contemporary or cutting edge metric that a Driver can calculate in order to figure out if Driving for Uber is worth their *Time?

*


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## Uber-Doober (Dec 16, 2014)

renbutler said:


> Average means that about half of people beat that number


^^^
Not really and that's where people don't actually understand the figures in averaging. 
If you take 100 people and one is making a million dollars per year and 99 are all working 40 hours @ $10.00 per hour, half are not beating anything but the million dollar per year guy is bringing up the average. 
Sorta like the unemployment averages that the govt uses to say that unemployment is only 5% when it's actually about 17.


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## Uber-Doober (Dec 16, 2014)

chi1cabby said:


> *Time *is a Finite Resource.*
> 
> Hypothetical Example (4 Weeks):*
> 
> ...


^^^
So in other words, that $35.00 Tesla optional equipment license plate frame has put him in the hole about 70 Grand. lol


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## DieselkW (Jul 21, 2015)

Your hourly wage is important if it's how YOU want to gauge your efficiency and whether or not Uber is slaving you.

If I spend 12 hours with the app on, I'm not working 12 hours. *IF* that's how *I CHOOSE* to look at it. I'm just waiting to go to work between pings. No associated costs of Ubering while I wait. I know several dozen free wifi spots to wait where I can sit comfortably with a beverage of my choice.

So, if the time I spend going to Pax, delivering Pax, and getting back to a WiFi is "working hours" I am making a fantastic hourly wage.

But calculating an hourly wage *for me* is irrelevant. I take my monthly costs and subtract that from my monthly earnings. Then I decide if the time I spend away from my wife and dog (not in that order, necessarily) is worth it *TO ME.*

I enjoy my time with passengers. Not to be too cute, but your mileage may vary. I like talking to people, I like telling stories, I like coming home to my wife and dog with stories to tell of my Uber adventures.

I get tipped, I get surges, I get $2.87 rides and I get $88 rides. Every single one of them has been a positive experience for me, because even when it sucks, I'm glad to get rid of that a-hole pax and move along to the next one. People going to the airport have their stories and people coming home from the airport have stories to tell. I enjoy my time in my car and since it does not cost me what the nice folks at the IRS think it costs me I'm happy to deduct the difference as even more profit to my annual bottom line.

Real world. No one tell me what it costs me to drive. I got that figured out with REAL WORLD experience, not some government functionary Runzheimer idiotic formula.

Real costs in the real world is how I calculate my earnings.


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## Uber-Doober (Dec 16, 2014)

DieselkW said:


> Your hourly wage is important if it's how YOU want to gauge your efficiency and whether or not Uber is slaving you.
> 
> If I spend 12 hours with the app on, I'm not working 12 hours. *IF* that's how *I CHOOSE* to look at it. I'm just waiting to go to work between pings. No associated costs of Ubering while I wait. I know several dozen free wifi spots to wait where I can sit comfortably with a beverage of my choice.
> 
> ...


^^^
So, what you're saying is that your beating heart in between pings doesn't matter squat. 
On second thought.... you could use that time to talk to your hedge fund manager.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

Uber-Doober said:


> ^^^
> Not really and that's where people don't actually understand the figures in averaging.
> If you take 100 people and one is making a million dollars per year and 99 are all working 40 hours @ $10.00 per hour, half are not beating anything but the million dollar per year guy is bringing up the average.
> Sorta like the unemployment averages that the govt uses to say that unemployment is only 5% when it's actually about 17.


I said "about" because I understand that average is not the same as the median.

But your examples aren't applicable to what we were talking about. We were talking about cost per mile, not income. And there aren't people paying a million dollars per mile of driving who skew the numbers drastically.


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## Uber-Doober (Dec 16, 2014)

renbutler said:


> I said "about" because I understand that average is not the same as the median.
> 
> But your examples aren't applicable to what we were talking about. We were talking about cost per mile, not income. And there aren't people paying a million dollars per mile of driving who skew the numbers drastically.


^^^
I wouldn't have brought up such an extreme analogy if someone else hadn't used bogus stats. 
Even you could see that.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

Uber-Doober said:


> ^^^
> I wouldn't have brought up such an extreme analogy if someone else hadn't used bogus stats.
> Even you could see that.


Not sure a.) what you're talking about or b.) why you are so testy about it.


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## TwoFiddyMile (Mar 13, 2015)

DieselkW said:


> Your hourly wage is important if it's how YOU want to gauge your efficiency and whether or not Uber is slaving you.
> 
> If I spend 12 hours with the app on, I'm not working 12 hours. *IF* that's how *I CHOOSE* to look at it. I'm just waiting to go to work between pings. No associated costs of Ubering while I wait. I know several dozen free wifi spots to wait where I can sit comfortably with a beverage of my choice.
> 
> ...


Perfect UberThink.
I'm TK, and I approve of this message.


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## The_One (Sep 9, 2015)

This thread just goes to show how misinformed and clueless most uber drivers are, it's like beating a dead horse, no matter what anyone with a brain will tell them, it falls on deaf ears, I just read and laugh.


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

DieselkW said:


> Your hourly wage is important if it's how YOU want to gauge your efficiency and whether or not Uber is slaving you.
> 
> If I spend 12 hours with the app on, I'm not working 12 hours. *IF* that's how *I CHOOSE* to look at it. I'm just waiting to go to work between pings. No associated costs of Ubering while I wait. I know several dozen free wifi spots to wait where I can sit comfortably with a beverage of my choice.
> 
> ...


Thanks everybody for the input. I appreciate it! I'm going to try another few runs. 
I like to try to figure the hourly, but then I can also ask myself -- is this worth it on a general feeling level?
I do want to cover my vehicle expenses *and then some*.... if I cannot cover expenses, I'm out! 
I appreciate all the perspectives from experienced drivers. Thanks!


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## JimS (Aug 18, 2015)

chi1cabby said:


> *Real Example
> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-uber-driver-picks-you-up-in-a-tesla-model-s-2015-09-11*


WHO THE **** would buy a TESLA for UBER?!?


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

JimS said:


> WHO THE **** would buy a TESLA for UBER?!?


Go here for that discussion:

*This guy turned his Tesla into an Uber, but it didn't go well*


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## Gemgirlla (Oct 16, 2014)

chi1cabby said:


> Go here for that discussion:
> 
> *This guy turned his Tesla into an Uber, but it didn't go well*


I don't understand why this guy wasn't driving LUX.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

The_One said:


> This thread just goes to show how misinformed and clueless most uber drivers are, it's like beating a dead horse, no matter what anyone with a brain will tell them, it falls on deaf ears, I just read and laugh.


I'm not a grammar Nazi or anything. But if you're going to call people clueless and brainless, maybe you should learn how to correctly type a paragraph.


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## John Deer (Feb 12, 2015)

renbutler said:


> Thanks, but that doesn't contradict anything I said.
> 
> The standard mileage deduction is based on similar averages. Average means that about half of people beat that number -- probably more than half now that gas prices are significantly lower than they were when the deduction was determined for this year. Those would be the smarter drivers I was talking about.
> 
> If you're trying to make money with mileage expenses like that, obviously you should expect little to no profit. But many of us can beat it by a pretty large margin.


You can try the Kelly Blue Book cost-of-ownership calculator.
Here's a 2014 Camry: http://www.kbb.com/toyota/camry/201...rshipcosts/?vehicleid=391726&ctomileage=40000
(if you put 75,000 miles/year you'd get $0.23/mile. Assuming you'd still have a car after 375,000 miles...)


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## John Deer (Feb 12, 2015)

zombieguy said:


> First thing you need to understand is that when you drive for Uber, YOU ARE NOT AN HOURLY EMPLOYEE, YOU DO NOT GET PAID BY THE HOUR. So it doesn't matter what the hourly wage comes out to be. This is like any piece meal or commission job. You get paid for the work you do whether it takes 1 hour or 5 hours. If you can't grasp that concept and put such a value on your time then you are in the wrong business. Some days will come out to $10 an hour some $30 an hour, that's the nature of the business. Uber sucks people in with the "make $30 an hour" bullshit because they know most people think like an hourly employee and will fail to initially realize that working on commission is not consistent. You can do all the math you want to figure out the hourly wage but in the end it means nothing. All that matters is the amount deposited into your bank account.


This is partially true, but the important thing is how much you make _on average_. If your average _profit_ is below minimum wage (soon to be $15/hr?) - check if McDonalds is hiring


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## The_One (Sep 9, 2015)

renbutler said:


> I'm not a grammar Nazi or anything. But if you're going to call people clueless and brainless, maybe you should learn how to correctly type a paragraph.


Someone's feelings are hurt, please. If you are trying to get a rise out of me, you are sorely mistaken, and I stand by what I said, why so upset, if you don't fall under that category why do you care what I said.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

The_One said:


> Someone's feelings are hurt, please.


That hurt your feelings? I doubt it.


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## The_One (Sep 9, 2015)

renbutler said:


> That hurt your feelings? I doubt it.


Take it easy old man, you were not mentioned in my post, but like to think you where, why is that.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

I never said I took it personally. I just find it amusing to see people call out the intelligence of others using a train wreck of a run-on sentence. I think it's worth calling out, regardless of who your target is.

And, old man? Is this a new meme? I'm under 40. It wouldn't really bother me much if a teenager called me old man, but I'm just wondering if this is what passes for banter these days.


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## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

DieselkW said:


> Lots of numbers to input. Let's say you have a two year old car, intend to keep it until it is ten years old and you just started driving.
> OK, the "life of the car" is 8 more years. What do you have left to pay until it is yours? Divide that number by the number of months until the car will be retired from service. (8*12)
> 
> Add in registration costs for your state, divided by the number of months your registration is good for. (Indiana is 24 months)
> ...


Where in your calculations are unexpected expenses, like the piece of plywood in the middle of the road that flies up and dents your hood and breaks your windshield (luckily NOT going through the window). Every extra mile you drive is an added chance of something like that happening. Not to mention the NON maintenance mechanical issues like a starter going out unexpectedly.

If you don't have cash for these better add in the interest rate expenses of whatever card you put them on.

And your maintenance hasn't mentioned things like shocks, cabin filters....etc. it's not just gas and oil changes.

What is the cost if you total the car after ubering for a year? It's fine to assume you'll keep it longer but figuring out that cost and what the cost per mile would be in that case may be a real eye opener. Especially if you have a fairly new vehicle.

Forget the vehicle: driving is bad for your body too. Too many hours and your back goes out? Add in a doctors visit and chiropractic visits. Weight gain, high blood pressure. ...

Yes a lot of jobs have physical issues but if this is a change in lifestyle for someone they should look at those costs too.

BTW I also deliver pizza and uber > s much worse for my back and general health. I have to make a concerted effort to get out and move around. Not all driving jobs are the same.

Don't get me started on stress...psychiatrists are so expensive. Hopefully I'll stop Ubering before I need one.

My point is there are many vehicle costs I didn't see in your analysis. 17 cents per mile is too low. I don't care what you drive.

And there are other costs you may or may not be able to quantify, but you should make some effort to when deciding whether to do this.


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## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

zombieguy said:


> Actually, figuring out your hourly earnings is furthering UberMATH. You guys want to have it both ways. You want to act like a business owner in figuring out expenses of taxes, depreciation, dead miles, gas, tolls, food and everything else a business owner would do and then act like an hourly employee by subtracting that and dividing it by the hours worked to figure out your hourly wage. A business owner in any business looks at the profit at the end of the day/week/month/year and doesn't worry about the hourly wage especially in a commission business. You keep saying that time is a finite resource which is true in the sense that there are only so many hours in the day to work but still has no bearing to figure out your hourly wage in a commission business, and I'll tell you why. Lets say I work for 3 hours and its slow as can be and I make nothing, I make $0. If I stop right there I made $0 an hour. I don't stop and in the next 3 hours I do 3 runs that pay $50 each, that's $150. It doesn't change the fact that at the end of the day I made $150. It doesn't change the fact that I made $0 for the first 3 hours. Tell me how it makes a difference if I figure that 6 hours of work to be $25 an hour. If I decided to work only 4 hours that day ($0 for the first 3 hours, then $50, the 4th hour) then my hourly would have been $12.50. Still $50 on the day. Again, this is a commission business. Anyone who has ever worked on commission will tell you that the more time you put in, the better chance you have at getting more business. So what you make by the hour doesn't mean anything. What matters is the time you put in, in total. Now lets say I work an hourly job where I get paid $25 an hour guaranteed. It doesn't matter if its slow, busy, I sit there all day or not, I will still make $25 an hour. So the first 3 hours I make $75 and then I go home. I made $75 for 3 hours, I got $75 in my pocket, $25 an hour. I work another 3 hours and make another $75. 6 hours of work, $150, still the same $25 an hour. So yea, now it matters what the hourly wage is, now it matters that time is finite, because I am being paid by the hour.


What you make in any ONE hour does not matter so much. What you make on average over time does.

If you are running a business and putting in one day a week and making $200 many folks would be ok with that. They might not care if one week they work 5 hours and the next 10. They made their $200 and feel ok about it.

That same person, if they expand the business to a less busy period and start working 5 or 6 days might be ok that now they're making 500 per week. Their "per hour" is less but hey, they're building up the business and expecting it to increase.

But if they continue working 6 days a week and making less than $100 a day at some point it becomes obvious that the amount of effort put in to make that extra $300 is not worth it. They may look at it as days having to work or hours but the point is that eventually money made per block of time MATTERS. Maybe not immediately when starting or expanding a business, but eventually it has to.

You can tell yourself that all that matters is that you were making $200 and now it's $500 but if you're putting in 5 or 6 times as much TIME to get that extra $300 then you will likely want to reconsider doing it. And you measure that in what you're getting per hour as an average. I may not care that on Tuesday from 2-3 pm I only made $5 but if I worked every day 10 hours a day for a week and made $350 total, regardless of exactly which hours I made it I'm probably not going to be happy.

This is all assuming you have things you'd rather do than drive. If not, then it doesn't matter. Which is why if you're independently wealthy and like meeting assholes this gig is perfect.


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## Sacto Burbs (Dec 28, 2014)

Opportunity cost. chi1cabby, can you please integrate this economic principal into your argument in why $/hr is the be all and end all number?

Thanks.


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## Jamesh (Sep 5, 2015)

Another issue that is not mentioned is there is no cap on drivers! If you have 80 drivers in a small city and 40 Uber riders a day, excluding taxis' base, no one is making any money! This whole Uber scheme is nothing more than a pyramid scheme, in the end, and the real money flows to the top. Those who got in early made decent money when there were fewer drivers. Those that came later are scrambling for one fare. Lately, I have seen Uber drivers with magnetic signs on there doors or Uber sign in window trying to hide in unauthorized areas in an Airport! Homeland security be damned so that they might get a fare. ENOUGH ALREADY! There is no regulatory board to address this, rider fees, or tipping. A taxi company pays fees to a city and state. The company regulates how many cars and drivers they can put on the road by demand including employee pay.


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## TwoFiddyMile (Mar 13, 2015)

Jamesh said:


> Another issue that is not mentioned is there is no cap on drivers! If you have 80 drivers in a small city and 40 Uber riders a day, excluding taxis' base, no one is making any money! This whole Uber scheme is nothing more than a pyramid scheme, in the end, and the real money flows to the top. Those who got in early made decent money when there were fewer drivers. Those that came later are scrambling for one fare. Lately, I have seen Uber drivers with magnetic signs on there doors or Uber sign in window trying to hide in unauthorized areas in an Airport! Homeland security be damned so that they might get a fare. ENOUGH ALREADY! There is no regulatory board to address this, rider fees, or tipping. A taxi company pays fees to a city and state. The company regulates how many cars and drivers they can put on the road by demand including employee pay.


Actually, this is the biggest issue of all.
Very few municipalities are even considering uber caps. NYC is the one that comes to mind
There's a reason 25% of the Uber fleet has been activated in the past 30 days.
Saturation is the name of the game.


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## William1964 (Jul 28, 2015)

I got 2 things going on.

Uber I made $121.29 on 16 trips in 3.5 drive time not including the drive home.
I average $7.58 per trip this week and $7.4 per trip for the year.

I also made $94.00 on 7 trips in 4 hours delivering Chicken and Waffles.
It is an all cash system and I get $25.00 if I work 0 hours. (no deliveries)

I've driven 242.7 miles this week and average 27.5 mpg.
Car has average speed of 18.7 miles per hour.

My expenses are zero. I haven't bought anything.
On my last 2.40 trip of the year on the 31st, I will deduct everything.
That one trip and that one trip alone will cost me, $8325.21.


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

TwoFiddyMile said:


> Actually, this is the biggest issue of all.
> Very few municipalities are even considering uber caps. NYC is the one that comes to mind
> There's a reason 25% of the Uber fleet has been activated in the past 30 days.
> Saturation is the name of the game.


As a new driver with two trips so far, I wonder what the average tenure of an Uber driver is. I notice in the People area of the board, there are many new people posting (and this is a tiny fraction of the peeps who are getting started).

Uber has been advertising / partnering with Dave Ramsey's 3 hour radio show. I am sure that is bringing in many new people. Haven't heard Uber promos in the last week or so, I am wondering if the campaign is off-cycle or if Dave Ramsey might have reconsidered his approval of Uber for his listeners. I believe Uber is looking for the people who will work for cheap --- Ramsey calls some behavior, "broke, desperate and stupid". I'm not broke or desperate, (not so sure about stupid, LOL!!) and I'm not sure if my Uber venture will stick. I'm guessing if I continue it's only going to be a few afternoon rides per week and maybe one early evening per week after the kids are in bed, 9 - 11 p.m, to avoid bar close and get some sleep myself.


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## TwoFiddyMile (Mar 13, 2015)

KBecks said:


> As a new driver with two trips so far, I wonder what the average tenure of an Uber driver is. I notice in the People area of the board, there are many new people posting (and this is a tiny fraction of the peeps who are getting started).
> 
> Uber has been advertising / partnering with Dave Ramsey's 3 hour radio show. I am sure that is bringing in many new people. Haven't heard Uber promos in the last week or so, I am wondering if the campaign is off-cycle or if Dave Ramsey might have reconsidered his approval of Uber for his listeners. I believe Uber is looking for the people who will work for cheap --- Ramsey calls some behavior, "broke, desperate and stupid". I'm not broke or desperate, (not so sure about stupid, LOL!!) and I'm not sure if my Uber venture will stick. I'm guessing if I continue it's only going to be a few afternoon rides per week and maybe one early evening per week after the kids are in bed, 9 - 11 p.m, to avoid bar close and get some sleep myself.


25% of the entire Uber fleet has currently been activated in the last 30 days.
Tenure?
We don't need no stinkin tenure!


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## KBecks (Sep 13, 2015)

LOL!


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## The_One (Sep 9, 2015)

Fuzzyelvis said:


> Where in your calculations are unexpected expenses, like the piece of plywood in the middle of the road that flies up and dents your hood and breaks your windshield (luckily NOT going through the window). Every extra mile you drive is an added chance of something like that happening. Not to mention the NON maintenance mechanical issues like a starter going out unexpectedly.
> 
> If you don't have cash for these better add in the interest rate expenses of whatever card you put them on.
> 
> ...


Didn't you know that the only expense Uber drivers have is gas, LOL.


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## TimFromMA (Mar 4, 2015)

I've jumped the fence from driver to the occasional passenger and I can't tell you how much I appreciate every Uber driver who will risk their car, physical well being for next to no money for people like me who are too cheap to use a real taxi and are too lazy to take the subway or walk.

From this side of the fence, Uber is AWESOME.


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## Jamesh (Sep 5, 2015)

Jamesh said:


> Another issue that is not mentioned is there is no cap on drivers! If you have 80 drivers in a small city and 40 Uber riders a day, excluding taxis' base, no one is making any money! This whole Uber scheme is nothing more than a pyramid scheme, in the end, and the real money flows to the top. Those who got in early made decent money when there were fewer drivers. Those that came later are scrambling for one fare. Lately, I have seen Uber drivers with magnetic signs on there doors or Uber sign in window trying to hide in unauthorized areas in an Airport! Homeland security be damned so that they might get a fare. ENOUGH ALREADY! There is no regulatory board to address this, rider fees, or tipping. A taxi company pays fees to a city and state. The company regulates how many cars and drivers they can put on the road by demand including employee pay.


Taxis, at an airport wait in queue for riders. You will see them lined up in thàt fair queue. NOT SO for uber drivers. There is no queue or fairness.


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## TimFromMA (Mar 4, 2015)

Jamesh said:


> Taxis, at an airport wait in queue for riders. You will see them lined up in thàt fair queue. NOT SO for uber drivers. There is no queue or fairness.


Whichever available Uber driver is physically closest to the passenger at the time gets the ping. Sounds fair to me.


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## The_One (Sep 9, 2015)

TimFromMA said:


> Whichever available Uber driver is physically closest to the passenger at the time gets the ping. Sounds fair to me.


That's not how it works after you drop off at the airport, you have to wait in line, the problem is you don't know what number you are, all black car FHV bases let their drivers know what number they are, Uber does not, I have talked to guys who have waited for hours after dropping off, which is insane.


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## Jamesh (Sep 5, 2015)

TimFromMA said:


> Whichever available Uber driver is physically closest to the passenger at the time gets the ping. Sounds fair to me.


As an obvious techie and not a driver, you would believe what the company told you. The fact is the app for rider can be hundreds of feet off. That is why a real driver might show up at a Condo to pick up a rider only to find out that the rider is at the Condo next door....hundreds of feet away. Seems you miss the point of the post! The rider app and our app is not military grade GPS. Ex Navy Pilot Instructor.


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## K-Grif (Jun 6, 2015)

The fact that other posters are still engaging renbutler is incredible.


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## DieselkW (Jul 21, 2015)

Fuzzyelvis said:


> Where in your calculations are unexpected expenses, like the piece of plywood in the middle of the road that flies up and dents your hood and breaks your windshield (luckily NOT going through the window). Every extra mile you drive is an added chance of something like that happening. Not to mention the NON maintenance mechanical issues like a starter going out unexpectedly.
> 
> If you don't have cash for these better add in the interest rate expenses of whatever card you put them on.
> 
> ...


Do you know what a logical fallacy is? Can you translate "Reductio ad Absurdum"?

"there are many vehicle costs I didn't see in your analysis".
OK, should be easy for you to name some that I missed. I realized I forgot to tell the guy that asked the cost of a 2Mb phone plan. There's another half cent per mile. Cabin filter should be another one tenth of one cent *PER YEAR* since those get changed every 20k miles and cost $20. So, thanks for pointing that out. 
How many Uber drivers you figure are going to damage their vehicles by road hazard kicked up in front of them? You want to figure in the the cost of that repair divided by the number of Uber drivers? Because that cost has no business being in the "plan" unless you "plan" to tailgate vehicles big enough to throw plywood 4 feet in the air by running over it. 
You are promoting an absurd made up never gonna happen straw man argument. In my opinion, that is.

Dude asked a question, I gave an answer. You don't like the math, help a brother out and give us all *your* math, *YOUR* costs per mile. Show us how much it costs to drive your car so we can laugh and point at the Uber driver that lives on 10 cents per mile reimbursement. Even if you add in "shocks" in your absurd example of what I missed, you're talking about a replacement part that works until it doesn't. There's no maintenance periodicity for shocks, struts, wheel bearings, rack and pinion, rings, valves, water pump, etc.... although there is a timing belt or chain to worry about with older cars. 
I have a permanent timing chain. Never needs replacement. If you want to add in the cost of *your* timing belt, it's once every 120,000 miles so do your own math. And don't forget the water pump replacement cost. And radiators, they've been known to leak after a quarter million miles or so. And when you come back with a cost per mile that approaches what Uber pays you, you can show yourself to be one of those "I don't drive, I just hang out on the forum here and naysay what everyone else writes until it surges."

And if you think you can be your own boss, work when and if you want, and still have someone else cover your chiropractic costs, you are severely delusional. At the end of the month, I've made considerably more than I've spent, but then again.... I managed to make it through another month without having to repair my windshield and only spent 17 cents a mile. Oh, wait, ... I forgot the cabin air filter. 17.01 cents per mile.


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## TwoFiddyMile (Mar 13, 2015)

It's all good, it's easy money.

Just don't come crying in 2 years when your car is toast and you didn't make and or save enough to replace it


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## SECOTIME (Sep 18, 2015)

I did 8 trips and pocketed $193 after ubers slice on a Thursday. All in all I'm pretty happy with that. I spent $25 in fuel and about 6 hours of my time.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

K-Grif said:


> The fact that other posters are still engaging renbutler is incredible.


Right, it is SHOCKING to know that people actually interact with those with whom they disagree.


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## Wil_Iam_Fuber'd (Aug 17, 2015)

Sacto Burbs said:


> Opportunity cost. chi1cabby, can you please integrate this economic principal into your argument in why $/hr is the be all and end all number?
> 
> Thanks.


OMFG, Sacto please retract this statement immedately or heads will spin off into infinite coniptions. We will NOT be having reality enter into this convo. This is GUberWurld for heyzeus sake and mass delusions are great fun!

Besides, the UD Trolls will not have a logical response and their machinez will short circuit into an endless "do loop" and then prolly f#@%ing explode, causing a fire and massive destruction. Do you really want this mayhem on your karma scale??


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## DieselkW (Jul 21, 2015)

Robert Estuar said:


> I did my first run today.. started late in the afternoon and just got home about an hour ago. I did 8 trips and pocketed $193 after ubers slice. All in all I'm pretty happy with that. I spent $25 in fuel and about 6 hours of my time.
> 
> I'm on uberX but a few of my trips were categorized as uber select and the rider fee was much larger. But I don't know what uber select is, looking it up now.


Uber Select means your car qualifies for leather seats, newer, luxury model car. Riders that want a better than average ride can pay about twice as much and order an Uber Select car. 
Select really helps the bottom line. $193 - fuel over a six hour shift is admirable. I'm jealous.


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## JaxBeachDriver (Nov 27, 2014)

renbutler said:


> A smart businessman can easily beat the 57.5-cent mileage deduction. And the 60 cents mentioned earlier is utterly absurd. Whoever is paying that per mile of driving should rethink not only their ride-share driving, but also the fact that they own and operate a motor vehicle.


Ren Butler, "smart businessman." He includes this term (or a similar one) in every post. I think of him as the Donald Trump of UP.NET.


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## DieselkW (Jul 21, 2015)

JaxBeachDriver said:


> Ren Butler, "smart businessman." He includes this term (or a similar one) in every post. I think of him as the Donald Trump of UP.NET.


Low blow, comparing someone to Trump, I hope you never insult me that thoroughly.


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## TimFromMA (Mar 4, 2015)

The term "smart" or "businessman" have no place when describing anyone who drives for Uber. If you are truly smart or a businessman, you wouldn't be working here.


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## Desert Driver (Nov 9, 2014)

zombieguy said:


> First thing you need to understand is that when you drive for Uber, YOU ARE NOT AN HOURLY EMPLOYEE, YOU DO NOT GET PAID BY THE HOUR. So it doesn't matter what the hourly wage comes out to be. This is like any piece meal or commission job. You get paid for the work you do whether it takes 1 hour or 5 hours. If you can't grasp that concept and put such a value on your time then you are in the wrong business. Some days will come out to $10 an hour some $30 an hour, that's the nature of the business. Uber sucks people in with the "make $30 an hour" bullshit because they know most people think like an hourly employee and will fail to initially realize that working on commission is not consistent. You can do all the math you want to figure out the hourly wage but in the end it means nothing. All that matters is the amount deposited into your bank account.


Except that when a driver spends six hours away from his family and friends so that he can transport drunks, he wants a relative measure of whether or not his time away was worth it. And when he divides his net earnings of $42 by the six hours he spent out there and he does some simple math, he clearly understands that he was earning $7 per hour. That is the relative measure by which he will determine if it was worth his while being away from his family and friends. And the approach is very valid.


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## Desert Driver (Nov 9, 2014)

Robert Estuar said:


> I did my first run today.. started late in the afternoon and just got home about an hour ago. I did 8 trips and pocketed $193 after ubers slice. All in all I'm pretty happy with that. I spent $25 in fuel and about 6 hours of my time.
> 
> I'm on uberX but a few of my trips were categorized as uber select and the rider fee was much larger. But I don't know what uber select is, looking it up now.


And by the time you factor in your other costs of operating your automobile, you pocketed about $12 per hour. That hourly rate is not sustainable in any market, so you had a very good shift. A more typical and sustainable hourly rate is $7 to $9 per hour.

Uber on!


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

JaxBeachDriver said:


> Ren Butler, "smart businessman." He includes this term (or a similar one) in every post. I think of him as the Donald Trump of UP.NET.


I wish.

I know the term (smart business) scares a lot of people. They just thought they could drive a car and rake in the money.

This isn't a traditional small business by any means, but the same principles apply. And just like with other small businesses, 90% of us will fail at this.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

TimFromMA said:


> The term "smart" or "businessman" have no place when describing anyone who drives for Uber. If you are truly smart or a businessman, you wouldn't be working here.


And that is why so many of you are failing at it.


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## Desert Driver (Nov 9, 2014)

renbutler said:


> And that is why so many of you are failing at it.


No one makes money at Uber until s/he figures out how to game the system. Sad but true.


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## JaxBeachDriver (Nov 27, 2014)

renbutler said:


> I wish.
> 
> I know the term (smart business) scares a lot of people. They just thought they could drive a car and rake in the money.
> 
> This isn't a traditional small business by any means, but the same principles apply. And just like with other small businesses, 90% of us will fail at this.


You rake in the money alright, just to fork it right back out.


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## renbutler (Jul 25, 2015)

JaxBeachDriver said:


> You rake in the money alright, just to fork it right back out.


But that's the key: figuring out how to increase the former and reduce the latter.

And, in reality, none of us should ever be satisfied that either has been fully accomplished. There are always ways to do better.

That said, the solution for many seems to be "Uber and passengers should give me more money."

Not everybody, of course. I agree with some of the other ideas about how Uber could improve the situation for drivers, beyond simply raising rates.


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## Desert Driver (Nov 9, 2014)

renbutler said:


> But that's the key: figuring out how to increase the former and reduce the latter.
> 
> And, in reality, none of us should ever be satisfied that either has been fully accomplished. There are always ways to do better.
> 
> ...


But keep in mind that Uber has disdain and contempt for the drivers and will not take steps to improve the lot of drivers. And it is for that reason that successful drivers have figured how and where to game the system. But instead of using the ugly term "gaming the system." let's think in terms of "driver resourcefulness."


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## tb1984 (Jul 24, 2015)

Desert Driver said:


> But keep in mind that Uber has disdain and contempt for the drivers and will not take steps to improve the lot of drivers. And it is for that reason that *successful drivers* have figured how and where to game the system. But instead of using the ugly term "gaming the system." let's think in terms of "driver resourcefulness."


I don't mean you, but someone on this forum usually uses the "successful drivers" to talk down to new drivers(as they're idiots, don't know how to do math to figure out profit). Please define "successful drivers" in context of driving for Uber?


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## Desert Driver (Nov 9, 2014)

tb1984 said:


> I don't mean you, but someone on this forum usually uses the "successful drivers" to talk down to new drivers(as they're idiots, don't know how to do math to figure out profit). Please define "successful drivers" in context of driving for Uber?


All I mean by "successful driver" is a driver who has figured out how to make more that four or five dollars an hour net profit. If a driver follows all Uber's rules and suggestions, the driver will typically net less that six dollars per hour. A "successful" driver has figured out how and where to game the system to maximize profits and personal safety. I make it a point not to condescend to new drivers. I remember well what those first couple weeks were like - strange, wonderful, uncertain, and oddly exciting! But I have seen other contributor's here treat new drivers pretty harshly, which I fail to understand. This is a forum and we members have a shared experience. Ergo, we should be helping one another, not belittling and berating one another.


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## Desert Driver (Nov 9, 2014)

DieselkW said:


> Uber Select means your car qualifies for leather seats, newer, luxury model car. Riders that want a better than average ride can pay about twice as much and order an Uber Select car.
> Select really helps the bottom line. $193 - fuel over a six hour shift is admirable. I'm jealous.


But keep in mind that after ALL expenses have been accounted for, that this person earned about $12 per hour for six hours. And $12 is a great hourly rate on Uber, but it's not sustainable. Realistically, a person nets $7 to $9 per hour driving Uber.


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## TimFromMA (Mar 4, 2015)

Any perceived negative remarks I make are me attempting to drive home the point that it is VERY difficult to net more that minimum wage driving for Uber. All it would take is one accident or mishap in your car to be ruined financially. If I can keep even one person from running themselves, it will all be worth it.


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## tb1984 (Jul 24, 2015)

Desert Driver said:


> All I mean by "successful driver" is a driver who has figured out how to make more that four or five dollars an hour net profit. If a driver follows all Uber's rules and suggestions, the driver will typically net less that six dollars per hour. A "successful" driver has figured out how and where to game the system to maximize profits and personal safety. I make it a point not to condescend to new drivers. I remember well what those first couple weeks were like - strange, wonderful, uncertain, and oddly exciting! But I have seen other contributor's here treat new drivers pretty harshly, which I fail to understand. This is a forum and we members have a shared experience. Ergo, we should be helping one another, not belittling and berating one another.


Sure, fair enough.


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## JaxBeachDriver (Nov 27, 2014)

Check out this screen grab from Randy "UberMan" Shear's video. He was not intentionally sharing his week's earnings, but rather demonstrating the new earnings feature. I think it shows that the way to make money off uber is to find other ways to monetize it, such as by creating videos and e-commerce sites and charging dumbasses for rideshare courses.

(Side note: he said he usually makes more than that, but who knows the truth. It also seems he's on a new pain killers, according to one of his posts.)


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## Sacto Burbs (Dec 28, 2014)

tb1984 said:


> Please define "successful drivers" in context of driving for Uber?


$1,000 net Uber fee driving only 20 hours and 40% dead mile ratio.

Dog happy to see me when I get home.


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## Desert Driver (Nov 9, 2014)

JaxBeachDriver said:


> View attachment 13575
> 
> Check out this screen grab from Randy "UberMan" Shear's video. He was not intentionally sharing his week's earnings, but rather demonstrating the new earnings feature. I think it shows that the way to make money off uber is to find other ways to monetize it, such as by creating videos and e-commerce sites and charging dumbasses for rideshare courses.
> 
> (Side note: he said he usually makes more than that, but who knows the truth. It also seems he's on a new pain killers, according to one of his posts.)


Those numbers mean nothing, but the bloke does have an excellent manicure.


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## Old Rocker (Aug 20, 2015)

Having skipped the intervening six pages, I just wanted to mention that deadheading has been an issue in the transportation and logistics business since like forever. But back in the day, you'd have sail your empty ship across the ocean or caravan your unloaded camels across the Sahara.

It's a fact you have to accept, like gravity. All one can do is to be smart and try to minimize the dead miles. Don't forget, your miles driven to pick up your pax are also dead miles, strictly speaking. So you have to be smart about that, too.


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## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

DieselkW said:


> Do you know what a logical fallacy is? Can you translate "Reductio ad Absurdum"?
> 
> How many Uber drivers you figure are going to damage their vehicles by road hazard kicked up in front of them? You want to figure in the the cost of that repair divided by the number of Uber drivers? Because that cost has no business being in the "plan" unless you "plan" to tailgate vehicles big enough to throw plywood 4 feet in the air by running over it.
> You are promoting an absurd made up never gonna happen straw man argument. In my opinion, that is.
> ...


Yes. And yes. Logic and philosophy classes. 4 years of Latin.

Plywood happened to me on the freeway. Wasn't tailgating. Point is, these things happen. And likely the more you drive that eventually a road hazard or accident will get you. In fact its almost certain if you drive enough.

So if items are not regular maintenance they don't count even if we know they will eventually need replacing? Like shocks and so on? As far as unexpected repairs I've had a transmission go out on a car with 60,000 miles. Unusual yes. But do this for long there WILL be some big unexpected repair. BTW if you drive in many cities with crappy roads it is hell on your front end.

I was pointing out that there are aspects of certain jobs that are detrimental to health and in turn may cost more money than at another job. Driving is not that healthy. And you get no sick time so being off work is more cost on top of medical bills.

Didn't replace your windshield this month. Well that proves those things don't happen. I've been driving for money one way or another since 1990. I've had a few things happen. But I'm sure none will ever happen to you.


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## TwoFiddyMile (Mar 13, 2015)

Fuzzyelvis said:


> Yes. And yes. Logic and philosophy classes. 4 years of Latin.
> 
> Plywood happened to me on the freeway. Wasn't tailgating. Point is, these things happen. And likely the more you drive that eventually a road hazard or accident will get you. In fact its almost certain if you drive enough.
> 
> ...


It was around 2004. I was leasing a medallion in the Shitty Of Boston. 
Buddy needs to get bailed out at Malden police station. 
No problem!
Jumped up on the lower deck, cruising medium speed behind a Big Dig scrap metal dump truck.
All of a sudden, something comes flying out of the dump truck bed.
It hits the surface of I93, and bounces high.
With alarm and horror, I realize it's on a vector for my cab!
I glance to the left, I glance to the right- im boxed in by traffic!

When the missile struck, the sound was so loud I thought my cab had exploded.
Looking up, the missile was lodged in my windshield, which had completely spiderwebbed.
"How did this happen? Should have taken my arm off!".
Later at Malden Station I saw that the advertising toplight's aluminum frame had been hit first!.
When I saw the impact point, I knew I was right- without that aluminum base, the metal would have severely damaged or severed my right arm.
The culprit was ancient Tobin Bridge railing- 3/4 inch thick, 4 inches wide, 18 inches long.
Asshole truck driver hadn't secured his tarp.

So yeah, nothings ever gonna happen being on the road 50 to 90 hours per week.
Uber on!


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## 5hy (Sep 19, 2015)

zombieguy said:


> First thing you need to understand is that when you drive for Uber, YOU ARE NOT AN HOURLY EMPLOYEE, YOU DO NOT GET PAID BY THE HOUR. So it doesn't matter what the hourly wage comes out to be. This is like any piece meal or commission job. You get paid for the work you do whether it takes 1 hour or 5 hours. If you can't grasp that concept and put such a value on your time then you are in the wrong business. Some days will come out to $10 an hour some $30 an hour, that's the nature of the business. Uber sucks people in with the "make $30 an hour" bullshit because they know most people think like an hourly employee and will fail to initially realize that working on commission is not consistent. You can do all the math you want to figure out the hourly wage but in the end it means nothing. All that matters is the amount deposited into your bank account.





zombieguy said:


> First thing you need to understand is that when you drive for Uber, YOU ARE NOT AN HOURLY EMPLOYEE, YOU DO NOT GET PAID BY THE HOUR. So it doesn't matter what the hourly wage comes out to be. This is like any piece meal or commission job. You get paid for the work you do whether it takes 1 hour or 5 hours. If you can't grasp that concept and put such a value on your time then you are in the wrong business. Some days will come out to $10 an hour some $30 an hour, that's the nature of the business. Uber sucks people in with the "make $30 an hour" bullshit because they know most people think like an hourly employee and will fail to initially realize that working on commission is not consistent. You can do all the math you want to figure out the hourly wage but in the end it means nothing. All that matters is the amount deposited into your bank account.


So true dude... it's the nature of the beast


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## 5hy (Sep 19, 2015)

KBecks said:


> Right, I know it's not an hourly employee gig. But -- I want to understand roughly what I will be taking home vs. the time put in, and I want to get a sense of the worst case scenarios, and I want to make sure I'm not going to lose money or basically work for free when I start driving.


At that point it depends on what you drive bro


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## John Deer (Feb 12, 2015)

Sacto Burbs said:


> $1,000 net Uber fee driving only 20 hours and 40% dead mile ratio.
> 
> Dog happy to see me when I get home.


That's $50/hr net - or $66.6/hour in fares (assuming 25% Uber fare. If you are on 20%, it's $62.5/hr, and excluding the "safety" tax which depends on number of rides).
This is impressive.
Assuming dead miles ratio is about the same as dead minutes, you are paid for 36 minutes of every hour at a rate of $1.85/min.
As you are paid $0.16 for every minute, the rest is for miles (+ $1 base fare) - at $0.95/mile, this mean your _average _speed is around 1.5 miles/min or 90 mph.

Or are you driving an UberChopper?


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## Native Austinite (Apr 9, 2015)

I stand behind a monthly average of per hour wages. Meaning at the end of each month, I can compare whether or not I'd do better working at Walmart for an hourly wage. The missing variable that blows a big hole in all this... Federal Income Tax.

Fares - Uber cut - expenses - FIT= what you are really left with

Anyone who has never been a contractor before and does not know to withhold 15-17% of your Uber payouts in an account called "Uncle Sam" has a rude awakening coming in 2016.


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## Quintessence (Sep 8, 2014)

After 7 months of a lot of driving, Uber and Lyft, I made a spreadsheet with my miles and income, then figured it out similar to many here, and it's obvious we all approach the mean. After a dumb ass was interviewed (probably and Uber shill) our local paper that he was making $35 an hour driving a few hours on his way home after work (like you could "drive home" while working!), I had it and wrote a letter to the editor. Here's part of what I wrote: " .... there is no way Uber/Lyft drivers make $35 an hour after the company take of 20% (now 25% here for Uber) except on really busy days with price increases in effect. Here’s the math, and I’ve analyzed this after hundreds of rides given in the Bay Area: I earned $0.85 for every mile traveled, net of Uber/Lyft fees. The IRS allowance for auto business expense is $0.57. That leaves $0.28 per mile average profit. An average hour of driving is about 25 miles. That nets $7 per hour. Just ask your Uber or Lyft driver, and check Uberpeople.net, that’s what drivers report from across the country, if they count their expenses accurately. The myth of $35 per hour for drivers persists for two reasons. It enables Uber to attract new drivers, and it allows passengers to think drivers are well paid and don’t “require” tips. But tips are never “required”, by definition. Tip your driver, whether taxi or Uber, they provide a personal service for a low wage, just like a waiter. And, don’t quit your day job."


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

TwoFiddyMile said:


> Jumped up on the lower deck, cruising medium speed behind a Big Dig scrap metal dump truck.


Um, no one ever taught you to never follow a open backed truck? I thought this was smart driving 101.



Quintessence said:


> I earned $0.85 for every mile traveled, net of Uber/Lyft fees. The IRS allowance for auto business expense is $0.57.


Did you buy your car new, roll it off the lot, and turn on your Uber app? No? Then $.57 is wildly inaccurate. That is based on buying a new car and using it in it's first 5 years of life.


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## John Deer (Feb 12, 2015)

Quintessence said:


> I earned $0.85 for every mile traveled, net of Uber/Lyft fees. The IRS allowance for auto business expense is $0.57. That leaves $0.28 per mile average profit. An average hour of driving is about 25 miles. That nets $7 per hour. "


You seem to know what you're talking about - however, the IRS allowance is not necessarily what _your_ car costs to operate.
According to KBB, a Hyundai Sonata driving 50K miles a year for 5 years would cost $0.25/mile (after 5 years, you can drive the car for the last time to a junk yard). Note that if you assume 15K/year, the cost per mile is much closer to the IRS figure.

So, with $0.25/mile, you are in a somewhat better situation: $0.6/mile or $15/hr.
This is probably the best you can realistically get.


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## Old Rocker (Aug 20, 2015)

Yeah, technically, the IRS standard mileage is a tax deduction, not an expense, but I understand how the number can be used as a factor in calculating actual income per mile.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

John Deer said:


> You seem to know what you're talking about - however, the IRS allowance is not necessarily what _your_ car costs to operate.
> According to KBB, a Hyundai Sonata driving 50K miles a year for 5 years would cost $0.25/mile (after 5 years, you can drive the car for the last time to a junk yard). Note that if you assume 15K/year, the cost per mile is much closer to the IRS figure.
> 
> So, with $0.25/mile, you are in a somewhat better situation: $0.6/mile or $15/hr.
> This is probably the best you can realistically get.


Well, no, I disagree. That's also based on new car sticker prices. If do that you lose thousands of dollars signing paperwork, that's to each their own. If you let someone else eat the massive first years of depreciation, you can get well under those costs. You can get an Uber car like mine with 80,000 miles for $5,000. In that scenario, I just traded $22,000 for 80,000 miles.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Old Rocker said:


> Yeah, technically, the IRS standard mileage is a tax deduction, not an expense, but I understand how the number can be used as a factor in calculating actual income per mile.


All true but it needs to be understood to be used that way as an estimate. That's buying a new car and eating the initial depreciation.

Here in Missouri there is also sales tax which is based on sale price, so unnecessarily you eat that to. And annual property tax based on the cars value, so unnecessarily you eat that to.


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## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

TwoFiddyMile said:


> It was around 2004. I was leasing a medallion in the Shitty Of Boston.
> Buddy needs to get bailed out at Malden police station.
> No problem!
> Jumped up on the lower deck, cruising medium speed behind a Big Dig scrap metal dump truck.
> ...


The plywood that hit me was lying on the road. Somehow another vehicle hit it and it popped up. Guess the wind caught it.

Strange sh** happens. Most times you're lucky. Sometimes not. The more you're on the road the more likely you are to have something happen. I think this is especially true if you're in unfamiliar territory. After all I KNOW where the potholes and stop signs people like to run are in MY neighborhood.


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## ginseng41 (Nov 30, 2014)

If you all want a good calculator to determine the actual cost of operating your car per mile, go to edmunds.com. it calculates based on depreciation, insurance, maintenance, fuel, taxes and repairs. It bases it on 15,000 miles annually so it's not exact, but it does take all these things into account. It is significantly higher for insurance than what I'm paying with my hybrid policy and slightly higher for insurance, but for my 2013 toyota camry hybrid, it's coming up with about $0.50 a mile so that's what I use in determining my profit even though I deduct the irs allowed amount. There is no single number you can apply to every vehicle. Some really are lower than the irs and some, like giant , new suvs will be significantly worse. Do your own, thorough research to figure out what it's actually costing you. I know exactly how much I'm really making each week and you should too


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## negeorgia (Feb 1, 2015)

KBecks said:


> What steps are you taking to minimize driving expenses? Thanks!


No car note. 10,000 cash with an expectation of 100,000 business miles. If it makes it to that with no major repairs and no value at that point then that is 10 cents a mile 'depreciation'. 15 cents a mile for gas (high estimate, I was 11.2 cents/mile last week). 2 cents a mile for insurance, 2 cents a mile for maintence. 2 cents a mile for tires and brakes. That is 31 cents a mile for me.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

negeorgia said:


> No car note. 10,000 cash with an expectation of 100,000 business miles. If it makes it to that with no major repairs and no value at that point then that is 10 cents a mile 'depreciation'. 15 cents a mile for gas (high estimate, I was 11.2 cents/mile last week). 2 cents a mile for insurance, 2 cents a mile for maintence. 2 cents a mile for tires and brakes. That is 31 cents a mile for me.


Just wondering how you apply all $10,000 when you are looking at business miles and not personal?


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

ginseng41 said:


> If you all want a good calculator to determine the actual cost of operating your car per mile, go to edmunds.com. it calculates based on depreciation, insurance, maintenance, fuel, taxes and repairs. It bases it on 15,000 miles annually so it's not exact, but it does take all these things into account. It is significantly higher for insurance than what I'm paying with my hybrid policy and slightly higher for insurance, but for my 2013 toyota camry hybrid, it's coming up with about $0.50 a mile so that's what I use in determining my profit even though I deduct the irs allowed amount. There is no single number you can apply to every vehicle. Some really are lower than the irs and some, like giant , new suvs will be significantly worse. Do your own, thorough research to figure out what it's actually costing you. I know exactly how much I'm really making each week and you should too


For a used car where you set the cost? How is 15,000 mile even relevant when a full time Uber driver probably drives 50,000? Sounds like not a good calculator to me.

How do you know exactly what you're making using that?


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## ginseng41 (Nov 30, 2014)

RamzFanz said:


> For a used car where you set the cost? How is 15,000 mile even relevant when a full time Uber driver probably drives 50,000? Sounds like not a good calculator to me.
> 
> How do you know exactly what you're making using that?


Just go to the column with your car's starting year. I started mine on the 2nd year since it was a year old when I started driving for uber. Incremental changes due to mileage are insignificant as depreciation is mainly based on age,b insurance is fixed typically, gas remains constant per mile as does maintenance. Only thing that really changes is service which is, in part, balanced by the insurance. I only drive about 30k annually total so 15 isn't too far off for me. Yes I do it full time just tons of short trips


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

ginseng41 said:


> Just go to the column with your car's starting year. I started mine on the 2nd year since it was a year old when I started driving for uber. Incremental changes due to mileage are insignificant as depreciation is mainly based on age,b insurance is fixed typically, gas remains constant per mile as does maintenance. Only thing that really changes is service which is, in part, balanced by the insurance. I only drive about 30k annually total so 15 isn't too far off for me. Yes I do it full time just tons of short trips


Side topic, but I have only driven a week. I have red lined the areas that request mostly short trips. Saint Louis isn't tall though, it's wide.


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## ginseng41 (Nov 30, 2014)

I think the market will affect whether you want short or long trips. If you are likely to get requests near your drop off point, long ones can be good you'll just average less net per mile since that base fare is spread over more miles


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

ginseng41 said:


> I think the market will affect whether you want short or long trips. If you are likely to get requests near your drop off point, long ones can be good you'll just average less net per mile since that base fare is spread over more miles


Right now, after learning to avoid the college areas, I average about 15 miles a trip.


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## ginseng41 (Nov 30, 2014)

Is that including dead miles? What are your rates? I prefer college areas because they're the short trips


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

ginseng41 said:


> Is that including dead miles? What are your rates? I prefer college areas because they're the short trips


$1.5 a mile plus .25 a minute. No, my dead mile are not big because the common long trips are between two areas that are both busy.


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## ginseng41 (Nov 30, 2014)

Sounds like you've got a good area too and you're doing it correctly.


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## negeorgia (Feb 1, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> Just wondering how you apply all $10,000 when you are looking at business miles and not personal?


My estimate is 100,000 business and 20,000 personal. I have an old pick-up truck for my off days. We have taken my UberX car on 2 vacations so far, but personal miles are not the norm in my situation.


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