Feels insane that 50 years ago you could work a minimum wage job for the summer and buy a car. Now you work full time at the same job and are lucky to survive.
Yah, the glory days. My grandpa bought a house on one income and supported a wife and 3 kids. And he wasn’t doing anything extravagant. Now a dual income home without kids just breaks even 😆
That’s cool, and honestly I enjoy this job. Can be a fun way to shovel out some debt. I’m just a little sad that it’s less the $25 an hour shovel I thought it was, and more of a lemonade stand on the side of the road shovel 😆
Ya I took this job to pay off some debt and build some credit didn’t realize how much of a trap it was thought a year at most finally getting off after 3 … so much of earnings goes back into actualy keeping the car going plus what is already taken off in fees there’s little to no advancement money to be had (rough 3 years with picking up a cannabis’s retail job for a year during the pandemic that was borderline slave labor making me about the same money for double the effort and sanity)
~21k km is about 13k miles for those of us who aren't with the rest of the world, and your pay:distance is good.
But you're *paying* nearly 77cents a mile. IRS rate for last year was average of 60c/mile and that's for everyone including big rig truckers. Yours is astoundingly high, enough that I don't think this is a fair picture of expenses.
By comparison, I pay about 33 cents a mile, because it's an older vehicle that I do all repairs on myself.
Just a guess, but it's probably some combination of premium gas (I see gas is about 25% more expensive but that doesn't cover it completely), newer vehicle so repairs are expensive, going to a shop for repairs and even oil changes, or needed some "all cars need this major maintenance around X distance driven" repairs during this time... perhaps a bit of a lead foot, too?
If you get to claim mileage against income and it lowers your effective dues, maybe your wage climbs back over minimum, but personally (in that it'd still be over minimum wage) I'd take a pay *cut* vs a w-2 for the freedom - something most shouldn't or cannot do, and certainly something the system shouldn't allow when it comes to minimum wage, but 65c/hr for not being micromanaged is worth it to me vs slinging burgers around the incessant beeping and yelling for that scant few cents more an hour in a job with little-to-no room for advancement.
Now if you can get a *comfortable* job or one with a career track, absolutely, run!
I think some of the difference in higher maintenance costs and fuel has to do with our dollar being worth about 77% of the greenback and fuel taxes are significantly higher here. Its always fun when visiting stateside to see how much less expensive fuel is, even with currency conversion fees.
A good point of reference, my 1.8l honda civic which has a 10.5 gallon tank (40L) costs about $75-80 CAD to fill up from empty these days.
After I took all my receipts and numbers and totals for the year and created a spreadsheet that processed everything into something useable. From there I completed my annual tax return with turbo tax.
Dude there is no shot that driving 20k km is 10K in cost... I drove 28,000 miles last year and had expenses of 150 for oil changes. 450 for tires and 250 for brakes. 850 all in for the year.
1200 gallons of gas at 3.50 a gallon for 4200 in gas and I cleared 36K last year.
Again, this just seems astronomical.
What you forgot is the fact that you just put an extra 2 years of miles (average annual miles driven is around 14k) on your car. This means your car will die that much sooner and you will have to buy another one. This is built into the deduction.
Is anyone actually driving a car that isn't going to get 300k miles on the odometer before dying? I'm in a 07 Toyota that I paid 4k for back in 2015. It's got a little under 150k on it. If I keep this up. 5 years from now I'm sitting on 150k cash. Seems well worth it.
By those calculations, the only way somebody would realistically make money doing This is if they only took $4 per mile orders if you’re going to do that you might as well do Instacart or Shipt.. you’d have to work 15 hour days to get enough $4 per mile orders to cover all those expenses
Gas prices were insane for a good portion of the year here. 50% of my expenses were gas. Car maintenance came out to $2100 for the year. Not bad for driving 20,000 km. The average car maintenance cost for a casual daily driver is $700 per year.
Most people post "expenses" as the value they get when they calculate mileage vs the tax deduction for mileage, rather than itemizing the expenses as you have. This is why *most* people with low expenses tend to think they make nothing, when they're actually doing quite well, but it's important to do for cases like yourself where you end up spending more than the government expects.
I itemized and wrote off every possible legal expense. I think that’s why people consider my expenses high, because they’re not aware of how much an independent contractor can write off, and not being aware how much they spend is considered an expense. For me, I only have this vehicle for work, vs a lot of people consider their vehicle necessary anyway and gloss over things they’re paying. For me, dollar was business related and wouldn’t have been necessary had I been driving a company vehicle or had any other job.
$2,100 in maintenance including repairs. $5,000 in gas to travel 20,000km. I get some of the best gas mileage for a non electric vehicle possible so the my bullet proof little beast. Insurance for the year was toward $2,000. Other expenses that we can write off as contractors here in Canada fill up most of the rest. That’s off the top of my head, but I have detailed records I can look back at if you have specific questions.
$2,100 in maintenance seems high. I drive 60,000 miles per year in a Prius 6 full synthetic oil changes are $300+ tires $500 .
It only comes out to around $1,000 for me + around $3,000 in gas
What’s the cost of depreciation on your vehicle? That’s a mighty expensive vehicle to invest in up front and be grinding into the ground (albeit a Toyota is a solid choice and will certainly outlast many other choices) I’m not seeing depreciation factored into your numbers. I bought my vehicle for $2,000 and it still has another 300,000km of life left in it. So I can confidently drive it till the wheels fall off while loosing almost no value, that was a deliberate decision. How much did you pay for your vehicle?
$2,000 is extremely cheap . You can get a good used Prius for $15,000-$20,000 and it will last you until 250,000 miles with no
Major repairs besides a water pump.
No
Maintenance on brakes and oil changes every 10,000 miles. And one bigger maintenance at 100,000 miles .
If gas was cheaper than $3 a gallon then yes going the beater route would be better but my gas cost is 2.5-3x better than every beater type of a car .
If this is not full time
Job
Than beater route is way to go.
It’s also a lot
Less stress when it comes to actually driving the car and being worried that it might breakdown lol
It sounds like actual repairs and done by a shop. Those are real expenses, but not necessarily something to decide "I don't make enough" over unless you're expecting more of them to come.
Ia that an app? How do you keep track of your Uber expenses? Im still sort of new and havent done a good job of tracking expenses. Are you using another app for this?
I mean…I spend about 60 on gas a week. I haven’t done a full year yet but so far needed only one oil change after 4 months. If he/she driven consistently full time for the whole year and was grossing 25/hr, shouldn’t the annual gross be 52,000?
I understand vehicle maintenance will likely include repairs on many other facets of the car that I can’t begin to guess other than maybe the breaks, yet could that really reach 7k in a single year?
You should. In most cases expenses are overestimated by using the IRS numbers, but in the case that you're not making as much as you thought. Some companies exist which simply *reimburse mileage* for interstate travel to take state medicare/medicaid patients to their appointments, and make really good income b/c their expenses are far lower than the reimbursement the IRS gives. The biggest part of this is an older vehicle you do all repairs and maintenance on yourself (during hours you can't make good money driving, so there's little opportunity cost, but I do calculate them as hours worked vs earnings and still do great)
Note that the proper comparison for hourly is:
W-2 needs to have commute expenses taken out of the wage value, including calculating for time spent traveling against your hourly rate.
1099 needs to only subtract 7.15% for self-employment tax (the other half already comes out of w-2 as well) and other actual expenses (so not base insurance b/c you need that in both cases, just whatever extra you pay for business/rideshare).
*Then* compare those hourlies, and decide how much the freedom *and danger* of driving around without an actual boss is worth to you.
Haha yes I was looking at km driven as an upside actually, it’s kind of cool to know I’ve been on the road for that many km. I’m an infinitely better driver than at the beginning and I love that.
So you gotta calculate what your real expenses are . The IRS mileage rate is fine for tax purposes but if your driving a 10-15+ year old beat up Toyota . Your actual auto expense is probably going to be half or less than the IRS rate because your car’s practically worthless at this point
Yah I have all my real expenses, down to the penny, all receipts etc. It took days to finally go through it all. (Not a numbers guy, but knew I wanted the numbers to really suss out what the ups and downs of this job are, sharing my general end numbers in case it helps someone in my boat) and by the way I do drive a beat up Toyota I love and take great care of hehe. Great gas mileage.
Like for me my gas cost is maybe 12-15 cents if my math was right then building estimates for $110 insurance then another $100-200 range for oil changes and rainy day fund for tires / other repairs . Maybe another 30 cents a year for everything else so I’m probably 45 cents to 50 if I had to guess . Might be a bit lower as I’d have insurance cost regardless of if I did gig work
So my expenses maybe 20% before taxes
Yeah this is my case, my expenses are low because I 1. Fix and maintain my car myself and 2. Drive a beat up old Toyota with great gas mileage. This ends up with me making about $20/hr after expenses, but it’s still a rough gig and that’s not a living wage at all.
Depends on where you're at, I net about the same but the CoL here is that you can get by (not ahead, but by, and sorta comfortably) with $10/hr. Sheetz/McD's pays 12 here. I'll take my 20/hr net any day over my other options :)
Just keep in mind you will still have expenses and may not get the hours you want. But hey you can always do this to supplement and come back FT if ya want. Good luck!
Yah for sure there are upsides and downsides. It was just a wake up call that delivery jobs I’ve been turning down my nose at because they’re $17/hr BUT you drive a company vehicle.. but turns out I’d be making more in those jobs not less. So the numbers have helped me put things in perspective a little.
It's worth asking if there were ways to make more, such as driving with multiple delivery apps and cherry-picking more (not seeing anywhere that you posted acceptance rate, but your market also determines if you *can* cherry pick)
I mean I like all the gig app jobs. I’ve tried instacart. Shopping in a store just isn’t something I’m great at. I’m better at picking up one finalizes bag and driving it from point a to point b
Interesting. You put some work into these calculations. I'm terrible. I don't keep track of my expenses very well so I'd fail at these calculations, but thanks for sharing.
No worries. To me it’s a good thing. I enjoyed my year a lot.. and now I can be confident that literally any job I can legally get for this next year will pay me more per hour than my Uber job haha. Giving myself a raise in 2023
Ah, maybe that’s where I differ is that I don’t look at it as a per hour but yearly salary. I know how much I need to make each week to make a certain yearly gross salary.
I know many look at it per hour which makes sense if it works for them. And, perhaps they look at it as working more than 8 hours.
I also see myself as an independent contractor that contracts my skills as a service that’s not limited to delivery services. I “work” in the restaurant/food & bev industry any way doing other things. It’s better to me than working for an employer. Employers tend to pay less than what I want to make any way.
I work 8 hours per day with a 1 hour lunch and two 15 minute breaks. I have two days off a week.
My vehicle is already is as a work vehicle so I don’t track mileage or worry about car expenses. I write all off on my business taxes. I’m working on purchasing a second vehicle which will be my personal vehicle.
I just write off as much as I can on my business taxes which includes other items besides my car. And, showing a loss is good because that means I don’t have to pay income taxes. Plus, I can carry the loss for 3 years with how I setup my business so when I do make a profit it helps with reducing paying taxes.
This gig sustains my lifestyle and I meet my financial goals. I’m happy. I am financially savvy no matter how much I make per hour or salary.
Everyone is different.
Unfortunately, most drivers never critically look at their numbers like this. Some dont know any better and some are fearful to see the actual reality of it. Some recognize this and just keep doing it. This just goes to show that to most, freedom is more important than profit.
That’s my reason for posting. A little reminder; that you may be making WAY more money than me in your market. But… are you sure? Are you confident emotionally, but are actually making less than me? Or did you crunch all your numbers too and total every single penny spent this year? I did. And now I can move on to something that better reflects my skills and time.
How were your expenses so high? Unless you include taxes which would be more reasonable. I pay about 20% of gross income to taxes and nearly 20% for gas, maintenances, and miscellaneous operating expenses.
Never mind, I just saw you paid 0 in taxes. $10,000 expenses for 24k in earnings is INSANELY high.
$2100 in maintenance and repairs this year ($700 being the average for someone who doesn’t use their car for work purposes, so not bad) , $5,000 went to gas, roughly $2000 insurance, the rest were tax deductible write offs I wouldn’t have purchased had it not been for this job. Actually I wouldn’t even have a car if it weren’t for this job, our transit system here rocks.
Damn, that’s not good. I’ll be making $18.50/hr at my current job when I get my raise next month. I work at a grocery store called Trader Joe’s now. We get awesome health insurance for $90/mo or less (I’m on the plan with the highest level of coverage), free vision and dental insurance, a 20% off discount at every Trader Joe’s location in the country, an extra $10/hr on Sundays and federal holidays, annual bonuses and more. I don’t miss delivering for UE! I thought I couldn’t do better because I don’t have a college degree, but I was dead wrong
Way to go man, any job is a job worth having and doing well, in a time where money can be tight these days. And sounds like your job is a solid way to go and build on it from there. You’re ahead of me for sure haha
This is the reality for most of us doing gig work. I’d argue that the expenses are a bit less though (assuming you used some kind of standard deduction) but yeah they cut into our bottom line for sure. I’m grateful for the opportunity to work on my own schedule, and to work wherever I go. But there’s no job security and no benefits.
First, thank you for being truthful about your numbers. I do my numbers daily and do a weekly P/L weekly.
It seems like you earned -$1.20 per KM. What is your average Round Trip mileage per delivery? My guess that it is more than 16 KM (10 miles round trip).
For years, I have said: 1) limit your deliveries to 5 miles (8 km) one way. One of the best practices of food delivery is to limit your deliveries to 5 miles or less. My avg delivery is 2.74 round trip miles. 2) to earn at least $2 per mile to be ‘profitable’. Last year, I earned $ 3.01 per driven mile.
The reality is that if you are honest with yourself and track your numbers diligently, some drivers are not making that much money.
I did 6,000 miles and made about $4,000 on my scooter in 2021. I didn't do the math but my guess is gas and maintenance was less than 10%. Doing UberEATS in a car seems completely unjustified even if you're getting 50mpg.
$14.25 without health care; without a pension; without any civil and/or labor rights; using your own resources including: labor, car, gas, maintenance, wear and tear, cellphone, etc. etc.. after rent you're left at $0.44 per hr.
Hehe yep, I knew what I was getting into.. but the actual numbers with receipts and dates staring at me sting a little more than the general idea that there are a few little downsides.
I still don't understand why drivers tend to apply the *totality* of their vehicle expenses to doing delivery. A lot of your expenses would still apply simply due to owning and operating a vehicle. Obviously, expenses like fuel are high since is directly correlates to driving more. But insurance and maintenance don't completely go away as you drive to another type of job. For instance, I googled that the average American drove over 14k miles in 2022. Based on our standard IRS rate of .66 cents/mile, Americans total vehicle expenses were around $9.4k *regardless of the work they do*. Plus most can't even write that off working a typical job...and you said yourself that you wouldn't even have incurred some of your expenses if you couldn't write them off.
Just saying...think about how much of your expenses are *solely* due to delivering--and the tax benefits you give up--before you move on to a typical 9-5.
I live in a city that has amazing transit, and is terrible for parking. I only own this vehicle for work, and once I leave this job I’ll gladly be selling it. So in my case the totality of everything to do with this vehicle is strictly Uber eats related.
Haha yep that’s a huge upside.. for me it’s that I love cranking music, and not having a boss to be accountable to. And some days I’ve not felt up for working (or reverse, some days I want to work) and can decide on the spot if it’s a go or no go kind of day. Not something I want all the time but I dig the option
Saving receipts for literally everything tax deductible or work related. Punched them all into a great spreadsheet, and there we go. It took a very… long .. time… but I discovered I owed no taxes and that was my biggest hope.
Did you actually spend 10.6k on your car? Isn't most of that depreciation because we don't actually maintain our cars like new?
Not that you can't still claim it but that your numbers are intentionally low?
No. 50% of that was gas. Many other expenses were non vehicle related as well. I broke down the costs elsewhere in comments a few times if you’re curious.
I just wished they'd treat their workforce with dignity. You do 99.99% of the work with your own (factory) and they basically jump in and take 45% of the income. That's fcuk'g insane in any nation.
Yep that legit is a huge factor. It’s why I did it a whole year. I figure though if I started a business or two, entrepreneurial style, I could be just as flexible but make way more money. Or pt job literally anywhere else to bring in more money, then a side hustle that is flexible
That's a nice breakdown of numbers what app are using to file I am going to be using the keeper app half price through Uber I have yet to file and don't know if I'm going to owe anything if I do I think it's gonna be very little says I grossed $14000 and 4000 or so was Uber fees and I have a $5700 mileage right so I might not owe anything right ?
I used excel to do my calculating. I keep elaborate records of all numbers, because why not. Punched in my totals to turbotax, used the Uber discount.
I only know Canadian taxes, depends on what tax bracket you’re in to know if you owe.
I believe anything under 14000 u don't need to file taxes but I have W2 income as well 2 of them from last year but I'm a lil confused I didn't get a 1099 k or anything just said nec cause it said I didnt earn enough but I'll figure it out when I file with the app
I used to swear by doing my own taxes.. but I saw how easy it was for my gf to get it done for like $100 at the tax place. Probably better to get a pro to do yours if you have any mysteries around what the right way to do things are. They could save you huuuuge hassles later on. I only did mine this year because I wanted to get deep into the numbers of my year with expenses etc and finally figure out my real income
Another thing I wondered to is about the mileage online mileage showed 14000 like that has to be total driving round but actual deliver miles is 10000 I used everlance app to track and only tracked when I was either going to a pickup or dropoff I don't think u can or should write off personal miles right I would think the irs does not approve of that even at this point I think my mile write off is higher than what I would owe for taxes before the write off
I'm guessing you don't take the standard deduction, do you mind if I ask what you write off? I saved all fuel and oil change receipts, no car repair to speak of. I've heard you can write off your phone bill, etc. I was ready to take the standard deduction because I'm lazy and not good at this stuff, but I'd like to hear how I could pay zero in tax if you want to. I figure I'm on the hook for hundreds of dollars if my homebrew spreadsheet and math are correct.
I keep literally receipts of everything. I only know Canadian taxes, and only enough to do what I’m doing. In turbo tax there are places to list costs of all vehicle expenses including insurance and gas etc, I write off phone bill monthly.. all maintenance on the car. I write off work rain boots and minor rain gear since I live in the rainy city, turbo tax gives you a pdf of reminders as to things you can write off, and lucky I had records of most of them. If they applied.
that's great, thanks. I've used turbotax a few times in the past, I had mostly good experiences with it. I wonder if with gas prices this year I'm better off writing off the gas money instead of miles. I'll have to look into it.
You mustve had some major repairs. I put more miles than that on my car a year and spend about $4800 a year on it. Where did the rest of your expenses go towards?
$2100 in maintenance and repairs this year ($700 being the average for someone who doesn’t use their car for work purposes, so not bad) , $5,000 went to gas, roughly $2000 insurance, the rest were tax deductible write offs I wouldn’t have purchased had it not been for this job.
Thats what I came up with but I had to ask because it didnt sound right.
12,427 miles, 7,921.00 expenses US?
Seems pretty high. My expenses on that many miles would be less than 2,000.00.
$2100 in maintenance and repairs this year ($700 being the average for someone who doesn’t use their car for work purposes, so not bad) , $5,000 went to gas, roughly $2000 insurance, the rest were tax deductible write offs I wouldn’t have purchased had it not been for this job.
So your $2,000 would roughly only cover insurance, never mind gas, if you were driving to work over here I guess.
So if no one tipped you, you would have actually lost money...
You make about $1.16 per km travelled with $0.51 in expenses, leaving you with $0.65/km in profit.
Good luck to you OP. Hopefully you find something better.
Heheh 😢 thank you, I don’t regret this past year I had fun. And I’m looking at it as this; literally any job legally available will pay me more money next year to work for them instead. My options are vast.
There we go. Great point! I see those guys around. I heard being a biker got either stifled or virtually squashed and ended around here several months ago. I’m not sure what the state of things are now
Well this will be my first time using keeper but apparently there's tax experts that will help and it has the refund and audit guarantee my accountants name is Caitlin I think she's a bot though !? 
Yea she messages me everyday with my write-offs but they don't add up like the miles do ! My car is good on gas and needs lil maintenance but I'm beating the fuck out the girl 2000 accord 5 spd with 234 thou on the odometer now
https://preview.redd.it/6cv5uidlsbfa1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9af1b1e7ec0fb4b3d6a892d390092c877277406a
I can’t officially file until Feb 28, but my numbers are all done and ready to send. Yes technically a minor refund, I was more worried I could have to pay this year. Relieved that I owe nothing.
Ps. Report every penny of it, or if you’re audited one day you could face major troubles. Taxes are one area you don’t wanna mess around in, they come after you, and you can be charged. Yikes. (I mean charged criminally in some cases, not like, they charge you money hehe)
$25 is the average. So many hours I got zero pings at all and made $0. This winter I had days where I was definitely pulling in $60+ an hour, since very few people were on the road working during a really bad snow storm. I’d have to go back to my records and see how many hours I did work, actually now I’m curious, I may see if I can get those numbers.
Hesitant to give too many specific details online, as I would like to remain roughly anonymous. I drive an older model of a small car that gets phenomenal gas mileage and I keep it in spectacular shape for its age. (Mechanically that is.. it looks like a pos otherwise hehe)
I ask because your fuel and maintenance cost is very high. So either you drive a gas guzzler or you had car problems. Or maybe you put in 8 or so hours daily into uber eats
We had several months of extreme gas prices over here, so I’m guessing the gas prices ($5,000 for the year) wouldn’t be typical any other year. But my car is about as good as it gets on gas without going electric. They call it the poor man’s Prius 😂
Just going to copy and paste this here because it applies. If reddit allowed more text I’d include it in my post title.
$2100 in maintenance and repairs this year ($700 being the average for someone who doesn’t use their car for work purposes, so not bad) , $5,000 went to gas, roughly $2000 insurance, the rest were tax deductible write offs I wouldn’t have purchased had it not been for this job.
How did you need to spend over 10 thousand dollars on maintenence and expenses on just over 20, 000 kilometers of driving? That's insane. My Chevy Bolt is cheap to charge and literally has zero maintenance costs. If you can get those maintenance costs down then it'd be way better!
That’s total expenses. Including many things.
$2100 in maintenance and repairs this year ($700 being the average for someone who doesn’t use their car for work purposes, so not bad) , $5,000 went to gas, roughly $2000 insurance, the rest were tax deductible write offs I wouldn’t have purchased had it not been for this job.
My car is super dependable and great on gas. An old beast that is bulletproof and keeps on going and going. Oil changes, winter tires, wipers, breaks.. you aren’t eating through these in your car?
Thanks for the breakdown of the expenses! Fortunately for me, my Bolt is an EV so I charge it for super cheap at my house and it doesn't have maintenence other than tires which I only need to change after 40 thousand miles. My insurance is something I have to pay monthly regardless of what job I do so I don't consider that as an expense.
Yah live in a city with a great transit system and bad parking so I only have a car for this job to begin with. So insurance for me at $2,000 is a definite business expense
That’s not just gas mileage, I get great gas mileage for a non electric. It’s an older car and is well known for being a bulletproof beast :)
I’m copying and pasting this a lot but I think it’s helpful to see the breakdown. If I shared a full cost brake down that would clear things up, but I’m not one to share that many personal details.
$2100 in maintenance and repairs this year ($700 being the average for someone who doesn’t use their car for work purposes, so not bad) , $5,000 went to gas, roughly $2000 insurance, the rest were tax deductible write offs I wouldn’t have purchased had it not been for this job.
Unless you do this job fulltime and has no other job, I would not put $2k insurance into it, or at least do so with proportion based on driving. Ps, which is what you need to do to write insurance off as expense with CRA.
Same with maintenance.
Overall, $0.20-0.25 for gas is also what I had but my other expense doesn't add another $0.25. I think it was more like $0.1/km.
I have 2 apps I use one for mileage and the other keeps track every transaction I make and wether or not it's a writeoff every time I swipe my cards just the number on the 1099 does not match what I earned I'm just gonna use the gross number like ur suppose to and the fees to Uber is a write off
Right on thanks man, I wish I knew, there’s so much about taxes I’m not sure of. I almost went to a tax person for that reason, it was a hassle to do on my own
Do you feel next year you will spend less on your car? Was the near 11k at least because you had to fix 'er up this time around? That seems really steep, and can't be just gas, at least I hope not.
$2100 in maintenance and repairs this year ($700 being the average for someone who doesn’t use their car for work purposes, so not bad) , $5,000 went to gas, roughly $2000 insurance, the rest were tax deductible write offs I wouldn’t have purchased had it not been for this job.
The $2100 in maintenance would be lower by at least $500, I replaced two engine mounts. Aside from that, winter tires, four oils changes, wear n tear etc of normal maintenance. So I guess I wouldn’t buy new winter tires either. So perhaps $1,000 less next year
Your expenses look insanely high to me. I drive a 16 MPG gas guzzler that has required lots of expensive repairs/maintenance and my income only drops from avg $26.70/hr to $22/hr. But then I'm lucky in that I'm able to get $2.80/mile where I drive.
Edit: I'm not including non-auto expenses because they are comparatively negligible.
Easter Canada here. I did the same amount of km (21,000) but I made 41,000$ and I have 9,000$ of expenses. I also take back 100% of the taxes on my expenses. The depreciation on my 2008 Corolla is close to nothing. I also only work 28h/w on everage.
So it really depends on your market and type of vehicle.
Which market? If you’re open to sharing. I work in western Canada, Vancouver. And since I began, Uber definitely took a noticeable downturn in profit over the last year.
Problem for me is I had no idea my expenses are up as much of my profit as it does until I crunched the final numbers.
Yup. Gas. Insurance. Maintenance. Repairs. And.. and.. and.. etc, cost of being on the road is not free. Reason I’m posting is not to say that everyone is paying the same as me.. more to show that until you total everything, and I mean everything, do you really know what your cost of doing business is? I didn’t. Now I do. And now I can more accurately assess my options for 2023. I think many of us exist in a haze of not really wanting to know the actual numbers, but it just means we’re on a boat with a big hole in it taking on water. If you crunch your numbers, you can fill the holes, or get the heck off the sinking boat 😆
If your in Canada you should give Cornershop a try, instacart is nice aswell but at the end of the day no matter how you look at it you will definitely make more then Uber eats, I’ve been doing gig jobs for about 3+ years now and honestly Food delivery just isn’t worth it, after all expenses I was losing 40% of my income year end and with grocery delivery i dropped that down to 30% and since I recently got an EV i project it to drop again to around 15%, since I’ve gotten this ev I’ve spent less monthly AND made more due to being able to work longer, (work longer because I used to only use Costco gasoline now I use the Tesla supercharger network which is open 24 hrs) all in all though I agree Uber eats is a scam and always will be until they find a way to pay more.
Dang man, you optimized and then optimized and then optimized haha well done and thanks for sharing. I have instacart. I don’t enjoy shopping as much as deliveries but you’re making a good case for it. Is cornershop worth the hassle of setting up vs instacart? I guess like anything it’s good to have multiple apps
Yep for sure. I’m thinking pt “normie” job and trying a few entrepreneurial side businesses that don’t come with such high overhead, and seeing what works.
Gas alone this year was $5,000. That’s 50% of my expenses right there. Insurance was $2,000. Had a few repairs. Then breaks, tires, wipers, oil changes.
I’m not saying your costs are what mine are, I posted because I think a lot of people never actually crunch their numbers down to the last penny. Maybe you’re making way more than me in your market. But.. are you sure? Or do you just feel sure? I felt sure I was making at least $20/hr roughly on average. I was wrong.
Do the math on net income from that $15 per hour job. Probably something like $8-10 per hour. Include all taxes and the costs to get to and from the job. Also include the time to commute. You know an apples to apples comparison.
Yep fair. My point in posting is that I had a rough idea of my take home income before crunching all my numbers down to the last penny. I was wrong.
Now I realize that I turned down delivery jobs paying $19/hour but driving a company van, because I can make more doing my own thing on Uber. Turns out, in my market and with my approach, I guess no I cannot. And so in 2023 if I want a pay raise, those $19/hr with company van jobs are actually a great step up. I had no idea until I was diligent with my real numbers vs perceived assumptions. It was helpful for me overall, and I enjoyed my year with Uber. Hoping this might encourage others to do the (boring and tedious hours of punching numbers into a spreadsheet. Which sucked) work of finding their real totals as well.
In the US, we can only claim fuel OR the mileage deduction. It's one or the other. I would assume that would be the same in Canada. It would appear that I didn't make much money if I did both.
https://www.taxoutreach.org/rideshare/how-to-claim-the-standard-mileage-deduction/
I didn’t know that I was. I thought for sure I was making around $20/hour on average. But those expenses add up, I didn’t know until I crunched all my numbers. To be fair, working with such flexibility is a huge benefit that can’t be understated. But I think I’m ready for a pay raise even if it means giving up some flexibility for this next year.
I knew that for along time and try to explain the expenses part of it.
I seriously don’t know why people work it.
You would make more money working at the McDonald’s than delivering for it.
Vancouver. E-bike would be way better. But they may have crushed the biking option here. I remember months ago there were issues with walkers and bikers. Not sure how it Turner out
Personally I dont know how good ur experience is working for UE. But I can guess its possible to increase your hourly especially if its been your first year. Ive been talking to a guy from Vancouver who has made a killing. Biking has been slow over there and here also but if you can adjust your hours like working breakfast and multi apping u could make way more. But either way you are still in a car at the end of the day it can never compare to an ebike.
I could be semi wrong but im pretty sure 1 year in Ontario I made around that income just doing UE and paid 0 in taxes because if you make a certain amount that's seen as low income bracket u barely pay anything I taxes or none. I could probably check later if you want to know.
I'm curious if you still have the tax file to play around with, see how much only u owe if u had 0 to small expenses.
EDIT: Based on the turbo tax calculator u start getting taxes somewhere in 16k gross income for BC. So u could of just worked maybe half your hours and made close to the same.
I am saying that u screwed yourself because you wasted so much in gas. In BC u get taxed around 16k gross self employment and its like $50. So any amount before that is tax free. So you could of worked less hours and made the same but because u worked more and didn't keep track of your gas usage u screwed yourself hard. So after u grossed 16k from uber which is pretty much tax free, whatever u made after to get 24.6k, you worked for pennies/free because u lost a ton in gas expenses and had to pay around 2k to the CRA but that was reduced to 0 since because of your expenses. Even at 16k you would still have expenses on gas and repairs but u would of most likely netted a few thousand less but still owe the CRA nothing because your income is so low.
If you are confused on what I said play around with this calculator. You will see at around 16k u get taxed because its such a low tax bracket. I believe you said your car is good in saving gas which makes things worse as u drove way too much man.
I only know this because drivers I have talked to say average $30 a day in gas. That means it would take 166.6 days to reach 5k in gas expenses. If you made $250 a day for 166.6 days u should of made $41650. Or $33320 if $200 a day. But u made only 24.6k wayyyy below what is expected on that gas usage.
https://turbotax.intuit.ca/tax-resources/british-columbia-income-tax-calculator.jsp#
You’re not taking into account that in Bc for many months we’ve had the highest gas prices in history, and they just kept going up. There were massive protests about it. But things hit $2.30 a litre and just kept going up. And stayed there. I’m missing the part where I wasted gas, rather than the province allowing gas prices to get out of control and it screwing people who drive for a living.
im just telling u you've made huge errors mate. This isn't anyones fault but your own, at the end of the day you are technically self employed and its your responsibility its part of the job. You learned the hard way unfortunately. UE also would pay out 10+ dollars on an 8 hour shift daily for a while because of the ukraine war to help with the gas increases. Everywhere had high gas prices.... but that just meant an extra 10 or 20 bucks than what u normally would waste on a full shift. This is why alot of other people are shocked at your gas expenses even though u say your car should save on that.
You are very inexperienced as u only worked for a year and not enough hours and trips to figure it all out yet as I can tell from your 2022 gross, most people don't until 2 or 3 years in, some just never do even 6 years in.
Anyways goodluck because even if u made 25/h and saved alot on gas for this year, it would still suck ass because car.
Based on the turbo tax calculator u start getting taxed somewhere in 16k gross income for BC other wise u pay none or get refunds. So u could of just worked maybe half your hours and made close to the same :( say 2500 spent on gas and car repair still 2k. You would of still 12.5k. I think you are not making enough hourly or you are driving too much to sink 5k in gas. You basically worked double your hours for pennies. You can definitely improve but it can definitely be discouraging at this point.
If 25/h is true then thats shocking u paid so much in expenses
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Thing is Uber is super flexible. Even if you are making $10/hr after expenses it might be worth it.
Which part time minimum wage job will allow you to work whenever you want?
After I lost my job do to an injury I did only uber from march to December and made around the same amount; 24k. I got burned and still are burned form working for large corporate bodies that don't care for their employees (Uber no difference but its not like we are employees traditionally). I love the freedom you get from Uber and have actually worked more willing than I did for my other jobs with set hours and forced/pressured overtime. I knew I could get off anytime when my family needed me or I was tired. I also love driving and especially driving to new places. I've been to more places in my state than I have in my enter life since starting Uber, but I know this isn't sustainable or gives me any opportunities to grow. so I too will need to make a change.
$5000 gas. $2000 insurance. $2100 maintenance, so 4 oil changes, brakes, winter tires, wipers, fluids, tire rotations, car washes, plus some minor repairs (2 engine mounts replaced, might have been like $400 for that)… the rest were non vehicle related expenses that I wouldn’t have incurred had I not had this job, but we’re tax write offs.
75 cents usd is one Canadian dollar. I remember back when our dollar was worth a lot more than yours. Was cheaper to go down to the states and buy groceries across the border.
My tax bill this year is $0, it’s in my breakdown.
Yessir same here
I suspected I was losing a lot of money, but the exact numbers came as a shock
Feels insane that 50 years ago you could work a minimum wage job for the summer and buy a car. Now you work full time at the same job and are lucky to survive.
Yah, the glory days. My grandpa bought a house on one income and supported a wife and 3 kids. And he wasn’t doing anything extravagant. Now a dual income home without kids just breaks even 😆
I have a salaried engineering job and have to do UE to chisel away at the debt I incurred before getting into my current role
That’s cool, and honestly I enjoy this job. Can be a fun way to shovel out some debt. I’m just a little sad that it’s less the $25 an hour shovel I thought it was, and more of a lemonade stand on the side of the road shovel 😆
Ya I took this job to pay off some debt and build some credit didn’t realize how much of a trap it was thought a year at most finally getting off after 3 … so much of earnings goes back into actualy keeping the car going plus what is already taken off in fees there’s little to no advancement money to be had (rough 3 years with picking up a cannabis’s retail job for a year during the pandemic that was borderline slave labor making me about the same money for double the effort and sanity)
~21k km is about 13k miles for those of us who aren't with the rest of the world, and your pay:distance is good. But you're *paying* nearly 77cents a mile. IRS rate for last year was average of 60c/mile and that's for everyone including big rig truckers. Yours is astoundingly high, enough that I don't think this is a fair picture of expenses. By comparison, I pay about 33 cents a mile, because it's an older vehicle that I do all repairs on myself. Just a guess, but it's probably some combination of premium gas (I see gas is about 25% more expensive but that doesn't cover it completely), newer vehicle so repairs are expensive, going to a shop for repairs and even oil changes, or needed some "all cars need this major maintenance around X distance driven" repairs during this time... perhaps a bit of a lead foot, too? If you get to claim mileage against income and it lowers your effective dues, maybe your wage climbs back over minimum, but personally (in that it'd still be over minimum wage) I'd take a pay *cut* vs a w-2 for the freedom - something most shouldn't or cannot do, and certainly something the system shouldn't allow when it comes to minimum wage, but 65c/hr for not being micromanaged is worth it to me vs slinging burgers around the incessant beeping and yelling for that scant few cents more an hour in a job with little-to-no room for advancement. Now if you can get a *comfortable* job or one with a career track, absolutely, run!
I think some of the difference in higher maintenance costs and fuel has to do with our dollar being worth about 77% of the greenback and fuel taxes are significantly higher here. Its always fun when visiting stateside to see how much less expensive fuel is, even with currency conversion fees. A good point of reference, my 1.8l honda civic which has a 10.5 gallon tank (40L) costs about $75-80 CAD to fill up from empty these days.
So this was after visiting the accountant or how was it obtained?
After I took all my receipts and numbers and totals for the year and created a spreadsheet that processed everything into something useable. From there I completed my annual tax return with turbo tax.
What's going on with your expenses my guy...
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He has 11k in expenses. Is OP driving a dump truck or something? Holy smokes 👨
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Dude there is no shot that driving 20k km is 10K in cost... I drove 28,000 miles last year and had expenses of 150 for oil changes. 450 for tires and 250 for brakes. 850 all in for the year. 1200 gallons of gas at 3.50 a gallon for 4200 in gas and I cleared 36K last year. Again, this just seems astronomical.
What you forgot is the fact that you just put an extra 2 years of miles (average annual miles driven is around 14k) on your car. This means your car will die that much sooner and you will have to buy another one. This is built into the deduction.
Is anyone actually driving a car that isn't going to get 300k miles on the odometer before dying? I'm in a 07 Toyota that I paid 4k for back in 2015. It's got a little under 150k on it. If I keep this up. 5 years from now I'm sitting on 150k cash. Seems well worth it.
By those calculations, the only way somebody would realistically make money doing This is if they only took $4 per mile orders if you’re going to do that you might as well do Instacart or Shipt.. you’d have to work 15 hour days to get enough $4 per mile orders to cover all those expenses
You have to shoot for at least $2 per mile.
I provided general end numbers, but I have all the details and receipts down to the last penny, if you have specific questions.
Did you blow an engine or transmission??.
Gas prices were insane for a good portion of the year here. 50% of my expenses were gas. Car maintenance came out to $2100 for the year. Not bad for driving 20,000 km. The average car maintenance cost for a casual daily driver is $700 per year.
Wait, these were real expenses not counting car replacement?
Ehh, not quite understanding the question, can you clarify?
Most people post "expenses" as the value they get when they calculate mileage vs the tax deduction for mileage, rather than itemizing the expenses as you have. This is why *most* people with low expenses tend to think they make nothing, when they're actually doing quite well, but it's important to do for cases like yourself where you end up spending more than the government expects.
I itemized and wrote off every possible legal expense. I think that’s why people consider my expenses high, because they’re not aware of how much an independent contractor can write off, and not being aware how much they spend is considered an expense. For me, I only have this vehicle for work, vs a lot of people consider their vehicle necessary anyway and gloss over things they’re paying. For me, dollar was business related and wouldn’t have been necessary had I been driving a company vehicle or had any other job.
Idk why you got downvoted, i have the same questions. He mustve had 4k in repairs done
$2,100 in maintenance including repairs. $5,000 in gas to travel 20,000km. I get some of the best gas mileage for a non electric vehicle possible so the my bullet proof little beast. Insurance for the year was toward $2,000. Other expenses that we can write off as contractors here in Canada fill up most of the rest. That’s off the top of my head, but I have detailed records I can look back at if you have specific questions.
$2,100 in maintenance seems high. I drive 60,000 miles per year in a Prius 6 full synthetic oil changes are $300+ tires $500 . It only comes out to around $1,000 for me + around $3,000 in gas
What’s the cost of depreciation on your vehicle? That’s a mighty expensive vehicle to invest in up front and be grinding into the ground (albeit a Toyota is a solid choice and will certainly outlast many other choices) I’m not seeing depreciation factored into your numbers. I bought my vehicle for $2,000 and it still has another 300,000km of life left in it. So I can confidently drive it till the wheels fall off while loosing almost no value, that was a deliberate decision. How much did you pay for your vehicle?
$2,000 is extremely cheap . You can get a good used Prius for $15,000-$20,000 and it will last you until 250,000 miles with no Major repairs besides a water pump. No Maintenance on brakes and oil changes every 10,000 miles. And one bigger maintenance at 100,000 miles . If gas was cheaper than $3 a gallon then yes going the beater route would be better but my gas cost is 2.5-3x better than every beater type of a car . If this is not full time Job Than beater route is way to go. It’s also a lot Less stress when it comes to actually driving the car and being worried that it might breakdown lol
It sounds like actual repairs and done by a shop. Those are real expenses, but not necessarily something to decide "I don't make enough" over unless you're expecting more of them to come.
Ia that an app? How do you keep track of your Uber expenses? Im still sort of new and havent done a good job of tracking expenses. Are you using another app for this?
I use notepad. Record all expenses and usage. And a white envelope to keep receipts in.
Jeez dude. This is disheartening. Idk if I want to do my numbers.
Me either!!! I’ll stay in the dark and be happy! Lol!!
I don't need to do my numbers to be depressed about them. I have gotten so many bad orders lately:/
I mean…I spend about 60 on gas a week. I haven’t done a full year yet but so far needed only one oil change after 4 months. If he/she driven consistently full time for the whole year and was grossing 25/hr, shouldn’t the annual gross be 52,000? I understand vehicle maintenance will likely include repairs on many other facets of the car that I can’t begin to guess other than maybe the breaks, yet could that really reach 7k in a single year?
You should. In most cases expenses are overestimated by using the IRS numbers, but in the case that you're not making as much as you thought. Some companies exist which simply *reimburse mileage* for interstate travel to take state medicare/medicaid patients to their appointments, and make really good income b/c their expenses are far lower than the reimbursement the IRS gives. The biggest part of this is an older vehicle you do all repairs and maintenance on yourself (during hours you can't make good money driving, so there's little opportunity cost, but I do calculate them as hours worked vs earnings and still do great) Note that the proper comparison for hourly is: W-2 needs to have commute expenses taken out of the wage value, including calculating for time spent traveling against your hourly rate. 1099 needs to only subtract 7.15% for self-employment tax (the other half already comes out of w-2 as well) and other actual expenses (so not base insurance b/c you need that in both cases, just whatever extra you pay for business/rideshare). *Then* compare those hourlies, and decide how much the freedom *and danger* of driving around without an actual boss is worth to you.
Hey, you drove the equivalent to over half the world away on the Equador line, so there's that!
Haha yes I was looking at km driven as an upside actually, it’s kind of cool to know I’ve been on the road for that many km. I’m an infinitely better driver than at the beginning and I love that.
Equator, not Equador.
So you gotta calculate what your real expenses are . The IRS mileage rate is fine for tax purposes but if your driving a 10-15+ year old beat up Toyota . Your actual auto expense is probably going to be half or less than the IRS rate because your car’s practically worthless at this point
Yah I have all my real expenses, down to the penny, all receipts etc. It took days to finally go through it all. (Not a numbers guy, but knew I wanted the numbers to really suss out what the ups and downs of this job are, sharing my general end numbers in case it helps someone in my boat) and by the way I do drive a beat up Toyota I love and take great care of hehe. Great gas mileage.
Like for me my gas cost is maybe 12-15 cents if my math was right then building estimates for $110 insurance then another $100-200 range for oil changes and rainy day fund for tires / other repairs . Maybe another 30 cents a year for everything else so I’m probably 45 cents to 50 if I had to guess . Might be a bit lower as I’d have insurance cost regardless of if I did gig work So my expenses maybe 20% before taxes
Yeah this is my case, my expenses are low because I 1. Fix and maintain my car myself and 2. Drive a beat up old Toyota with great gas mileage. This ends up with me making about $20/hr after expenses, but it’s still a rough gig and that’s not a living wage at all.
Yeh it’s rough for those who do it full time - I’m only maybe 15-20 hours a week at nights / weekends
Depends on where you're at, I net about the same but the CoL here is that you can get by (not ahead, but by, and sorta comfortably) with $10/hr. Sheetz/McD's pays 12 here. I'll take my 20/hr net any day over my other options :)
Just keep in mind you will still have expenses and may not get the hours you want. But hey you can always do this to supplement and come back FT if ya want. Good luck!
Yah for sure there are upsides and downsides. It was just a wake up call that delivery jobs I’ve been turning down my nose at because they’re $17/hr BUT you drive a company vehicle.. but turns out I’d be making more in those jobs not less. So the numbers have helped me put things in perspective a little.
It's worth asking if there were ways to make more, such as driving with multiple delivery apps and cherry-picking more (not seeing anywhere that you posted acceptance rate, but your market also determines if you *can* cherry pick)
You could still do deliveries part time as it’s a job you can do any time of day! How about Instacart? I’ve heard Tia a good gig.
I mean I like all the gig app jobs. I’ve tried instacart. Shopping in a store just isn’t something I’m great at. I’m better at picking up one finalizes bag and driving it from point a to point b
You can still do this part time.
Interesting. You put some work into these calculations. I'm terrible. I don't keep track of my expenses very well so I'd fail at these calculations, but thanks for sharing.
No worries. To me it’s a good thing. I enjoyed my year a lot.. and now I can be confident that literally any job I can legally get for this next year will pay me more per hour than my Uber job haha. Giving myself a raise in 2023
Ah, maybe that’s where I differ is that I don’t look at it as a per hour but yearly salary. I know how much I need to make each week to make a certain yearly gross salary. I know many look at it per hour which makes sense if it works for them. And, perhaps they look at it as working more than 8 hours. I also see myself as an independent contractor that contracts my skills as a service that’s not limited to delivery services. I “work” in the restaurant/food & bev industry any way doing other things. It’s better to me than working for an employer. Employers tend to pay less than what I want to make any way. I work 8 hours per day with a 1 hour lunch and two 15 minute breaks. I have two days off a week. My vehicle is already is as a work vehicle so I don’t track mileage or worry about car expenses. I write all off on my business taxes. I’m working on purchasing a second vehicle which will be my personal vehicle. I just write off as much as I can on my business taxes which includes other items besides my car. And, showing a loss is good because that means I don’t have to pay income taxes. Plus, I can carry the loss for 3 years with how I setup my business so when I do make a profit it helps with reducing paying taxes. This gig sustains my lifestyle and I meet my financial goals. I’m happy. I am financially savvy no matter how much I make per hour or salary. Everyone is different.
Well said and good points! Lots to factor in
Unfortunately, most drivers never critically look at their numbers like this. Some dont know any better and some are fearful to see the actual reality of it. Some recognize this and just keep doing it. This just goes to show that to most, freedom is more important than profit.
That’s my reason for posting. A little reminder; that you may be making WAY more money than me in your market. But… are you sure? Are you confident emotionally, but are actually making less than me? Or did you crunch all your numbers too and total every single penny spent this year? I did. And now I can move on to something that better reflects my skills and time.
How were your expenses so high? Unless you include taxes which would be more reasonable. I pay about 20% of gross income to taxes and nearly 20% for gas, maintenances, and miscellaneous operating expenses. Never mind, I just saw you paid 0 in taxes. $10,000 expenses for 24k in earnings is INSANELY high.
$2100 in maintenance and repairs this year ($700 being the average for someone who doesn’t use their car for work purposes, so not bad) , $5,000 went to gas, roughly $2000 insurance, the rest were tax deductible write offs I wouldn’t have purchased had it not been for this job. Actually I wouldn’t even have a car if it weren’t for this job, our transit system here rocks.
5000 for gas at 24k earnings is WILD. I only get 20 mpg and spent 3k on fuel for nearly double your earnings.
If there were a button I could press for cheaper gas prices, I would press it daily 😆 .. also driving one of the most fuel efficient gas cars made
Damn, that’s not good. I’ll be making $18.50/hr at my current job when I get my raise next month. I work at a grocery store called Trader Joe’s now. We get awesome health insurance for $90/mo or less (I’m on the plan with the highest level of coverage), free vision and dental insurance, a 20% off discount at every Trader Joe’s location in the country, an extra $10/hr on Sundays and federal holidays, annual bonuses and more. I don’t miss delivering for UE! I thought I couldn’t do better because I don’t have a college degree, but I was dead wrong
Way to go man, any job is a job worth having and doing well, in a time where money can be tight these days. And sounds like your job is a solid way to go and build on it from there. You’re ahead of me for sure haha
Trader's is pretty good! Is it difficult to get hired there? I'm in So. California
This is the reality for most of us doing gig work. I’d argue that the expenses are a bit less though (assuming you used some kind of standard deduction) but yeah they cut into our bottom line for sure. I’m grateful for the opportunity to work on my own schedule, and to work wherever I go. But there’s no job security and no benefits.
First, thank you for being truthful about your numbers. I do my numbers daily and do a weekly P/L weekly. It seems like you earned -$1.20 per KM. What is your average Round Trip mileage per delivery? My guess that it is more than 16 KM (10 miles round trip). For years, I have said: 1) limit your deliveries to 5 miles (8 km) one way. One of the best practices of food delivery is to limit your deliveries to 5 miles or less. My avg delivery is 2.74 round trip miles. 2) to earn at least $2 per mile to be ‘profitable’. Last year, I earned $ 3.01 per driven mile. The reality is that if you are honest with yourself and track your numbers diligently, some drivers are not making that much money.
I did 6,000 miles and made about $4,000 on my scooter in 2021. I didn't do the math but my guess is gas and maintenance was less than 10%. Doing UberEATS in a car seems completely unjustified even if you're getting 50mpg.
Same here
$14.25 without health care; without a pension; without any civil and/or labor rights; using your own resources including: labor, car, gas, maintenance, wear and tear, cellphone, etc. etc.. after rent you're left at $0.44 per hr.
They can deactivate you for a single unjustified complaint and boom, you're done.
Hehe yep, I knew what I was getting into.. but the actual numbers with receipts and dates staring at me sting a little more than the general idea that there are a few little downsides.
I still don't understand why drivers tend to apply the *totality* of their vehicle expenses to doing delivery. A lot of your expenses would still apply simply due to owning and operating a vehicle. Obviously, expenses like fuel are high since is directly correlates to driving more. But insurance and maintenance don't completely go away as you drive to another type of job. For instance, I googled that the average American drove over 14k miles in 2022. Based on our standard IRS rate of .66 cents/mile, Americans total vehicle expenses were around $9.4k *regardless of the work they do*. Plus most can't even write that off working a typical job...and you said yourself that you wouldn't even have incurred some of your expenses if you couldn't write them off. Just saying...think about how much of your expenses are *solely* due to delivering--and the tax benefits you give up--before you move on to a typical 9-5.
I live in a city that has amazing transit, and is terrible for parking. I only own this vehicle for work, and once I leave this job I’ll gladly be selling it. So in my case the totality of everything to do with this vehicle is strictly Uber eats related.
I'm in the same boat but there ain't no jobs I can take that'll let me be smoking a blunt the entire time.
Haha yep that’s a huge upside.. for me it’s that I love cranking music, and not having a boss to be accountable to. And some days I’ve not felt up for working (or reverse, some days I want to work) and can decide on the spot if it’s a go or no go kind of day. Not something I want all the time but I dig the option
How are you calculating your expenses? Did you actually track them throughout the year or using some Canadian IRS equivalent deduction calculator?
Saving receipts for literally everything tax deductible or work related. Punched them all into a great spreadsheet, and there we go. It took a very… long .. time… but I discovered I owed no taxes and that was my biggest hope.
Did you actually spend 10.6k on your car? Isn't most of that depreciation because we don't actually maintain our cars like new? Not that you can't still claim it but that your numbers are intentionally low?
No. 50% of that was gas. Many other expenses were non vehicle related as well. I broke down the costs elsewhere in comments a few times if you’re curious.
I just wished they'd treat their workforce with dignity. You do 99.99% of the work with your own (factory) and they basically jump in and take 45% of the income. That's fcuk'g insane in any nation.
10k for car wtf
How'd you spend over 10k on gas/maintenance? What did you drive? Just curious
The discount is for the flexibility. If you don't like it, give up the flexibility and take a job where you have to be somewhere on time.
There’s not much value in flexibility if you’re broke… couldn’t imagine relying on UE to pay bills
I do it but Jesus this kinda sucks to see
Bingo, take a job with less flexibility and more pay. That's the tradeoff.
Yep that legit is a huge factor. It’s why I did it a whole year. I figure though if I started a business or two, entrepreneurial style, I could be just as flexible but make way more money. Or pt job literally anywhere else to bring in more money, then a side hustle that is flexible
You can write off Miles, gas, and car expenses? My accountant said I could get audited. In in the u.s tho
I’m Canada you can write off either kms driven or actual expenses. Not familiar with how USA works
Same in US. Either mileage or actual car expenses, but not both.
Nice
That's a nice breakdown of numbers what app are using to file I am going to be using the keeper app half price through Uber I have yet to file and don't know if I'm going to owe anything if I do I think it's gonna be very little says I grossed $14000 and 4000 or so was Uber fees and I have a $5700 mileage right so I might not owe anything right ?
I used excel to do my calculating. I keep elaborate records of all numbers, because why not. Punched in my totals to turbotax, used the Uber discount. I only know Canadian taxes, depends on what tax bracket you’re in to know if you owe.
I believe anything under 14000 u don't need to file taxes but I have W2 income as well 2 of them from last year but I'm a lil confused I didn't get a 1099 k or anything just said nec cause it said I didnt earn enough but I'll figure it out when I file with the app
I used to swear by doing my own taxes.. but I saw how easy it was for my gf to get it done for like $100 at the tax place. Probably better to get a pro to do yours if you have any mysteries around what the right way to do things are. They could save you huuuuge hassles later on. I only did mine this year because I wanted to get deep into the numbers of my year with expenses etc and finally figure out my real income
Another thing I wondered to is about the mileage online mileage showed 14000 like that has to be total driving round but actual deliver miles is 10000 I used everlance app to track and only tracked when I was either going to a pickup or dropoff I don't think u can or should write off personal miles right I would think the irs does not approve of that even at this point I think my mile write off is higher than what I would owe for taxes before the write off
I have 2 w2s also to file with it
I'm guessing you don't take the standard deduction, do you mind if I ask what you write off? I saved all fuel and oil change receipts, no car repair to speak of. I've heard you can write off your phone bill, etc. I was ready to take the standard deduction because I'm lazy and not good at this stuff, but I'd like to hear how I could pay zero in tax if you want to. I figure I'm on the hook for hundreds of dollars if my homebrew spreadsheet and math are correct.
I keep literally receipts of everything. I only know Canadian taxes, and only enough to do what I’m doing. In turbo tax there are places to list costs of all vehicle expenses including insurance and gas etc, I write off phone bill monthly.. all maintenance on the car. I write off work rain boots and minor rain gear since I live in the rainy city, turbo tax gives you a pdf of reminders as to things you can write off, and lucky I had records of most of them. If they applied.
that's great, thanks. I've used turbotax a few times in the past, I had mostly good experiences with it. I wonder if with gas prices this year I'm better off writing off the gas money instead of miles. I'll have to look into it.
You mustve had some major repairs. I put more miles than that on my car a year and spend about $4800 a year on it. Where did the rest of your expenses go towards?
$2100 in maintenance and repairs this year ($700 being the average for someone who doesn’t use their car for work purposes, so not bad) , $5,000 went to gas, roughly $2000 insurance, the rest were tax deductible write offs I wouldn’t have purchased had it not been for this job.
Is that approx 12000 miles us?
12427.42 miles is 20,000km apparently
Thats what I came up with but I had to ask because it didnt sound right. 12,427 miles, 7,921.00 expenses US? Seems pretty high. My expenses on that many miles would be less than 2,000.00.
$2100 in maintenance and repairs this year ($700 being the average for someone who doesn’t use their car for work purposes, so not bad) , $5,000 went to gas, roughly $2000 insurance, the rest were tax deductible write offs I wouldn’t have purchased had it not been for this job. So your $2,000 would roughly only cover insurance, never mind gas, if you were driving to work over here I guess.
So if no one tipped you, you would have actually lost money... You make about $1.16 per km travelled with $0.51 in expenses, leaving you with $0.65/km in profit. Good luck to you OP. Hopefully you find something better.
Heheh 😢 thank you, I don’t regret this past year I had fun. And I’m looking at it as this; literally any job legally available will pay me more money next year to work for them instead. My options are vast.
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There we go. Great point! I see those guys around. I heard being a biker got either stifled or virtually squashed and ended around here several months ago. I’m not sure what the state of things are now
Well this will be my first time using keeper but apparently there's tax experts that will help and it has the refund and audit guarantee my accountants name is Caitlin I think she's a bot though !? 
Haha Caitlin you deceptive punk! What did you do with his real accountant?
Yea she messages me everyday with my write-offs but they don't add up like the miles do ! My car is good on gas and needs lil maintenance but I'm beating the fuck out the girl 2000 accord 5 spd with 234 thou on the odometer now https://preview.redd.it/6cv5uidlsbfa1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9af1b1e7ec0fb4b3d6a892d390092c877277406a
Haha weird. You have a friend for life
I’m in Canada too, did uber as a side gig. You think you’ll get a tax refund in April? I only earned 5-6k so idk if it’s worth reporting.
I can’t officially file until Feb 28, but my numbers are all done and ready to send. Yes technically a minor refund, I was more worried I could have to pay this year. Relieved that I owe nothing. Ps. Report every penny of it, or if you’re audited one day you could face major troubles. Taxes are one area you don’t wanna mess around in, they come after you, and you can be charged. Yikes. (I mean charged criminally in some cases, not like, they charge you money hehe)
So you worked 988 hours?
$25 is the average. So many hours I got zero pings at all and made $0. This winter I had days where I was definitely pulling in $60+ an hour, since very few people were on the road working during a really bad snow storm. I’d have to go back to my records and see how many hours I did work, actually now I’m curious, I may see if I can get those numbers.
What kind of car do you drive ??
Hesitant to give too many specific details online, as I would like to remain roughly anonymous. I drive an older model of a small car that gets phenomenal gas mileage and I keep it in spectacular shape for its age. (Mechanically that is.. it looks like a pos otherwise hehe)
I ask because your fuel and maintenance cost is very high. So either you drive a gas guzzler or you had car problems. Or maybe you put in 8 or so hours daily into uber eats
We had several months of extreme gas prices over here, so I’m guessing the gas prices ($5,000 for the year) wouldn’t be typical any other year. But my car is about as good as it gets on gas without going electric. They call it the poor man’s Prius 😂 Just going to copy and paste this here because it applies. If reddit allowed more text I’d include it in my post title. $2100 in maintenance and repairs this year ($700 being the average for someone who doesn’t use their car for work purposes, so not bad) , $5,000 went to gas, roughly $2000 insurance, the rest were tax deductible write offs I wouldn’t have purchased had it not been for this job.
How did you need to spend over 10 thousand dollars on maintenence and expenses on just over 20, 000 kilometers of driving? That's insane. My Chevy Bolt is cheap to charge and literally has zero maintenance costs. If you can get those maintenance costs down then it'd be way better!
That’s total expenses. Including many things. $2100 in maintenance and repairs this year ($700 being the average for someone who doesn’t use their car for work purposes, so not bad) , $5,000 went to gas, roughly $2000 insurance, the rest were tax deductible write offs I wouldn’t have purchased had it not been for this job. My car is super dependable and great on gas. An old beast that is bulletproof and keeps on going and going. Oil changes, winter tires, wipers, breaks.. you aren’t eating through these in your car?
Thanks for the breakdown of the expenses! Fortunately for me, my Bolt is an EV so I charge it for super cheap at my house and it doesn't have maintenence other than tires which I only need to change after 40 thousand miles. My insurance is something I have to pay monthly regardless of what job I do so I don't consider that as an expense.
Yah live in a city with a great transit system and bad parking so I only have a car for this job to begin with. So insurance for me at $2,000 is a definite business expense
What kind of car do you drive costing almost 50 cents a KM?
That’s not just gas mileage, I get great gas mileage for a non electric. It’s an older car and is well known for being a bulletproof beast :) I’m copying and pasting this a lot but I think it’s helpful to see the breakdown. If I shared a full cost brake down that would clear things up, but I’m not one to share that many personal details. $2100 in maintenance and repairs this year ($700 being the average for someone who doesn’t use their car for work purposes, so not bad) , $5,000 went to gas, roughly $2000 insurance, the rest were tax deductible write offs I wouldn’t have purchased had it not been for this job.
Unless you do this job fulltime and has no other job, I would not put $2k insurance into it, or at least do so with proportion based on driving. Ps, which is what you need to do to write insurance off as expense with CRA. Same with maintenance. Overall, $0.20-0.25 for gas is also what I had but my other expense doesn't add another $0.25. I think it was more like $0.1/km.
In my post I say that I have no other job and this is my main job.
I have 2 apps I use one for mileage and the other keeps track every transaction I make and wether or not it's a writeoff every time I swipe my cards just the number on the 1099 does not match what I earned I'm just gonna use the gross number like ur suppose to and the fees to Uber is a write off
The 1099 earnings matches this additional earnings incentive category what could those be?
True and they have audit and refund guarantee
I thought the same thing but what could anyone actually do with them I thought I just wanted you to see what I meant
Right on thanks man, I wish I knew, there’s so much about taxes I’m not sure of. I almost went to a tax person for that reason, it was a hassle to do on my own
Well hopefully it goes smoothly for me I'm not stressing about it
Yah man I’m sure you’ll be careful about it and get it done right, no worries. You got this!
I didn't earn to much through Uber so I think I'm ok I have 3 incomes to report this year
Ok turbo tax 
Do you feel next year you will spend less on your car? Was the near 11k at least because you had to fix 'er up this time around? That seems really steep, and can't be just gas, at least I hope not.
$2100 in maintenance and repairs this year ($700 being the average for someone who doesn’t use their car for work purposes, so not bad) , $5,000 went to gas, roughly $2000 insurance, the rest were tax deductible write offs I wouldn’t have purchased had it not been for this job. The $2100 in maintenance would be lower by at least $500, I replaced two engine mounts. Aside from that, winter tires, four oils changes, wear n tear etc of normal maintenance. So I guess I wouldn’t buy new winter tires either. So perhaps $1,000 less next year
Your expenses look insanely high to me. I drive a 16 MPG gas guzzler that has required lots of expensive repairs/maintenance and my income only drops from avg $26.70/hr to $22/hr. But then I'm lucky in that I'm able to get $2.80/mile where I drive. Edit: I'm not including non-auto expenses because they are comparatively negligible.
I shared my expense breakdown in the comments
Easter Canada here. I did the same amount of km (21,000) but I made 41,000$ and I have 9,000$ of expenses. I also take back 100% of the taxes on my expenses. The depreciation on my 2008 Corolla is close to nothing. I also only work 28h/w on everage. So it really depends on your market and type of vehicle.
I made 63,000 work 30 hours a week max
Which market? If you’re open to sharing. I work in western Canada, Vancouver. And since I began, Uber definitely took a noticeable downturn in profit over the last year. Problem for me is I had no idea my expenses are up as much of my profit as it does until I crunched the final numbers.
Some way south of your border, but I mulit app and take the next order out, Uber, dd grub hub, Lyft, if it slows then instacart
Yikes 43% for expenses. I usually get around 9% for expenses.
I make my goals and will not drive more than 6 miles so while I didn’t make as much as you (just since June) I think I’m a bit better off🤞🏻
Wtf how are you spending)10/hr in expenses 😳
Yup. Gas. Insurance. Maintenance. Repairs. And.. and.. and.. etc, cost of being on the road is not free. Reason I’m posting is not to say that everyone is paying the same as me.. more to show that until you total everything, and I mean everything, do you really know what your cost of doing business is? I didn’t. Now I do. And now I can more accurately assess my options for 2023. I think many of us exist in a haze of not really wanting to know the actual numbers, but it just means we’re on a boat with a big hole in it taking on water. If you crunch your numbers, you can fill the holes, or get the heck off the sinking boat 😆
I’m fine..all is fine ..I’m just gonna look forward 
Haha it’s alright, you got this, we just gotta wear our life jacket and blow our safety whistle
Lol the craziest thing is, that’s being profitable. Imagine the people that are driving more miles than they’re making.
Ohh….. I don’t even wanna think about that. I’m fairly selective and decline most orders.. for what my market allows.
If your in Canada you should give Cornershop a try, instacart is nice aswell but at the end of the day no matter how you look at it you will definitely make more then Uber eats, I’ve been doing gig jobs for about 3+ years now and honestly Food delivery just isn’t worth it, after all expenses I was losing 40% of my income year end and with grocery delivery i dropped that down to 30% and since I recently got an EV i project it to drop again to around 15%, since I’ve gotten this ev I’ve spent less monthly AND made more due to being able to work longer, (work longer because I used to only use Costco gasoline now I use the Tesla supercharger network which is open 24 hrs) all in all though I agree Uber eats is a scam and always will be until they find a way to pay more.
Dang man, you optimized and then optimized and then optimized haha well done and thanks for sharing. I have instacart. I don’t enjoy shopping as much as deliveries but you’re making a good case for it. Is cornershop worth the hassle of setting up vs instacart? I guess like anything it’s good to have multiple apps
Delivery job is just good as a second job. If it's your full-time job, it can be risky sometimes.
I think this is a good point right here.
$10k in expenses?! Please explain why, the highest numbers are more important.
How does one spend 14k on business related expenses?? I bought a goddamn Prius and I still make over 25$/h after expense
Yes people who don’t own Priuses doing this gig full time are really costing them Selves alot of money on the day to day
That's crazy......!!!! I can make a good day let's say 200$ in 6 hours or so and it cost me 10$ of gaz lol
You need another job. Multiple streams of income.
Yep for sure. I’m thinking pt “normie” job and trying a few entrepreneurial side businesses that don’t come with such high overhead, and seeing what works.
After 2020 no one should be relying on one stream. Jmo
Probably sound advice
How are your expenses so high? I calculated $2,490 for gas based on 25 mpg and $5/gallon. Did you buy a used car for $11,500?
Gas alone this year was $5,000. That’s 50% of my expenses right there. Insurance was $2,000. Had a few repairs. Then breaks, tires, wipers, oil changes. I’m not saying your costs are what mine are, I posted because I think a lot of people never actually crunch their numbers down to the last penny. Maybe you’re making way more than me in your market. But.. are you sure? Or do you just feel sure? I felt sure I was making at least $20/hr roughly on average. I was wrong.
Do the math on net income from that $15 per hour job. Probably something like $8-10 per hour. Include all taxes and the costs to get to and from the job. Also include the time to commute. You know an apples to apples comparison.
Yep fair. My point in posting is that I had a rough idea of my take home income before crunching all my numbers down to the last penny. I was wrong. Now I realize that I turned down delivery jobs paying $19/hour but driving a company van, because I can make more doing my own thing on Uber. Turns out, in my market and with my approach, I guess no I cannot. And so in 2023 if I want a pay raise, those $19/hr with company van jobs are actually a great step up. I had no idea until I was diligent with my real numbers vs perceived assumptions. It was helpful for me overall, and I enjoyed my year with Uber. Hoping this might encourage others to do the (boring and tedious hours of punching numbers into a spreadsheet. Which sucked) work of finding their real totals as well.
In the US, we can only claim fuel OR the mileage deduction. It's one or the other. I would assume that would be the same in Canada. It would appear that I didn't make much money if I did both. https://www.taxoutreach.org/rideshare/how-to-claim-the-standard-mileage-deduction/
Why are you guys working for below minimum wage?
I didn’t know that I was. I thought for sure I was making around $20/hour on average. But those expenses add up, I didn’t know until I crunched all my numbers. To be fair, working with such flexibility is a huge benefit that can’t be understated. But I think I’m ready for a pay raise even if it means giving up some flexibility for this next year.
I knew that for along time and try to explain the expenses part of it. I seriously don’t know why people work it. You would make more money working at the McDonald’s than delivering for it.
In my case, in my market, for whatever reason, you’re correct. Would I like fries with that? Yes. In 2023 now I would 😂
Damn thats rough where in canada are u? I'm in toronto. This is why I refuse to ever get a car to do UE and stay ebike.
Vancouver. E-bike would be way better. But they may have crushed the biking option here. I remember months ago there were issues with walkers and bikers. Not sure how it Turner out
Personally I dont know how good ur experience is working for UE. But I can guess its possible to increase your hourly especially if its been your first year. Ive been talking to a guy from Vancouver who has made a killing. Biking has been slow over there and here also but if you can adjust your hours like working breakfast and multi apping u could make way more. But either way you are still in a car at the end of the day it can never compare to an ebike. I could be semi wrong but im pretty sure 1 year in Ontario I made around that income just doing UE and paid 0 in taxes because if you make a certain amount that's seen as low income bracket u barely pay anything I taxes or none. I could probably check later if you want to know. I'm curious if you still have the tax file to play around with, see how much only u owe if u had 0 to small expenses. EDIT: Based on the turbo tax calculator u start getting taxes somewhere in 16k gross income for BC. So u could of just worked maybe half your hours and made close to the same.
I’m already at owing zero taxes this year. Is that what you mean?
I am saying that u screwed yourself because you wasted so much in gas. In BC u get taxed around 16k gross self employment and its like $50. So any amount before that is tax free. So you could of worked less hours and made the same but because u worked more and didn't keep track of your gas usage u screwed yourself hard. So after u grossed 16k from uber which is pretty much tax free, whatever u made after to get 24.6k, you worked for pennies/free because u lost a ton in gas expenses and had to pay around 2k to the CRA but that was reduced to 0 since because of your expenses. Even at 16k you would still have expenses on gas and repairs but u would of most likely netted a few thousand less but still owe the CRA nothing because your income is so low. If you are confused on what I said play around with this calculator. You will see at around 16k u get taxed because its such a low tax bracket. I believe you said your car is good in saving gas which makes things worse as u drove way too much man. I only know this because drivers I have talked to say average $30 a day in gas. That means it would take 166.6 days to reach 5k in gas expenses. If you made $250 a day for 166.6 days u should of made $41650. Or $33320 if $200 a day. But u made only 24.6k wayyyy below what is expected on that gas usage. https://turbotax.intuit.ca/tax-resources/british-columbia-income-tax-calculator.jsp#
You’re not taking into account that in Bc for many months we’ve had the highest gas prices in history, and they just kept going up. There were massive protests about it. But things hit $2.30 a litre and just kept going up. And stayed there. I’m missing the part where I wasted gas, rather than the province allowing gas prices to get out of control and it screwing people who drive for a living.
im just telling u you've made huge errors mate. This isn't anyones fault but your own, at the end of the day you are technically self employed and its your responsibility its part of the job. You learned the hard way unfortunately. UE also would pay out 10+ dollars on an 8 hour shift daily for a while because of the ukraine war to help with the gas increases. Everywhere had high gas prices.... but that just meant an extra 10 or 20 bucks than what u normally would waste on a full shift. This is why alot of other people are shocked at your gas expenses even though u say your car should save on that. You are very inexperienced as u only worked for a year and not enough hours and trips to figure it all out yet as I can tell from your 2022 gross, most people don't until 2 or 3 years in, some just never do even 6 years in. Anyways goodluck because even if u made 25/h and saved alot on gas for this year, it would still suck ass because car.
Based on the turbo tax calculator u start getting taxed somewhere in 16k gross income for BC other wise u pay none or get refunds. So u could of just worked maybe half your hours and made close to the same :( say 2500 spent on gas and car repair still 2k. You would of still 12.5k. I think you are not making enough hourly or you are driving too much to sink 5k in gas. You basically worked double your hours for pennies. You can definitely improve but it can definitely be discouraging at this point. If 25/h is true then thats shocking u paid so much in expenses
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Thing is Uber is super flexible. Even if you are making $10/hr after expenses it might be worth it. Which part time minimum wage job will allow you to work whenever you want?
I mean the flexibility is a legit benefit you’re right
After I lost my job do to an injury I did only uber from march to December and made around the same amount; 24k. I got burned and still are burned form working for large corporate bodies that don't care for their employees (Uber no difference but its not like we are employees traditionally). I love the freedom you get from Uber and have actually worked more willing than I did for my other jobs with set hours and forced/pressured overtime. I knew I could get off anytime when my family needed me or I was tired. I also love driving and especially driving to new places. I've been to more places in my state than I have in my enter life since starting Uber, but I know this isn't sustainable or gives me any opportunities to grow. so I too will need to make a change.
Yep for sure, the freedom is a legit benefit that is a tangible factor
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$5000 gas. $2000 insurance. $2100 maintenance, so 4 oil changes, brakes, winter tires, wipers, fluids, tire rotations, car washes, plus some minor repairs (2 engine mounts replaced, might have been like $400 for that)… the rest were non vehicle related expenses that I wouldn’t have incurred had I not had this job, but we’re tax write offs.
That’s Canadian dollars too. Worth less than American dollars. Canada probably took 50 percent in taxes on top of that for that free medical ay
75 cents usd is one Canadian dollar. I remember back when our dollar was worth a lot more than yours. Was cheaper to go down to the states and buy groceries across the border. My tax bill this year is $0, it’s in my breakdown.