I got paid. Yay payday, right?

Wrong.

Uber says you can earn $20 – $30 per hour while driving in your spare time. Is this really true?

One of my Uber riders mentioned what they paid for a fare. ~15 dollars. And what I was earning for that fare was about 13 dollars. So right off the bat I’m thinking I’m paying Uber ~14% of the cost. Okay, I can deal with that. It’s not great, but it’s a fair trade to use their service.

Here come the real fees.

It turns out, the fees are closer to 25% to use their service. So for a 100 dollar day (4 hours of work), you earn $75.

Since you’re an independent contractor, take %50 and put it away for taxes on untaxed income and small business tax. That leaves you with $37.50 for 4 hours of work. How much per hour is that? well, that’s $9.38  an hour. Now that’s pretty insulting. Less than minimum wage in some states.

If you are running this smartly as a business and deducting all of your expenses, then you may have a better income. But, even if you do treat this as legit business taxes equate to about 30%. Let’s assume you are just driving in your spare time and not doing the full on business deductions.

But wait, there’s more.

Let’s look at the hidden costs. Don’t forget to take into account the wear and tear on your car or leasing costs (approx $10 day over 365 days), gas ($10 for 4 hours of driving), and insurance (~$3 day). So approximately $23 dollars in expenses per day of driving.

Let’s do the math. $ 37.5 (earnings after taxes) – $23 (approximate expenses) = $14.5

$14.5 dollars for 4 hours of work. That’s $3.63 per hour. Just barely above what a waitress makes per hour, and she gets tips (that aren’t claimed)!

Let’s say that you have no expenses on your car, or car payments and you’re going to drive your clunker into the ground. $37.5 – $13 (approximate expenses minus upkeep) = $24.50.  Divide that by 4 hours, that’s a whopping $6.13 an hour. Still, less than minimum wage in all states.

So when Uber says you can make $30 / hr driving in your spare time. Consider the costs. 30*25%(uber fees) = 7.5   So $ 22.5 / 2 (for taxes) = $11.25. Then subtract hourly expenses… you get the idea…

Well I guess I’m done driving with Uber. There is something to be said about having a day job where taxes are taken out automatically, even if you’re underpaid!

I was hoping for a bit of extra income, but it seems that driving Uber is waste of time, and wearing on my vehicle. My time is more valuable than $3.63 an hour.

It seems that I’ve reached my desired outcome for driving Uber. To light a fire under my ass. It has worked!

So, what’s next?

Let’s take a look inside Amazon FBA (Fullfillment by Amazon).

It’s 8pm. Just about time to go.

I’m reticent this time, but not scared. Why am I doing this again?

To put a fire under my ass and get some traction in something I’m good at (not Uber).

Today, I didn’t do a job application, I didn’t make anything, I didn’t go and connect with anyone that could help me. So…, I make myself drive Uber, until the pain of driving Uber for cash begins to outweigh the pain of applying to a better job, making something or connecting with people.

I’m going to say, 7pm is my cut off point. If I haven’t created something of value, contacted somebody to grow my network or moved my financial needle forward in another way then I need to go drive Uber by 8pm.

This sounds pretty damn harsh. Maybe like i’m being mean to myself. But how many times can you hear “It’s going to be okay,” or “You’ll be just fine,” from your family and friends before you want to stab yourself in the eye with a fork?

Has the socialization of Academia and primary education taught us to be slaves to a boss. Where we require a deadline, and a negative consequence for insufficient action? Likely.

This is the way the world goes round. And the socialization of humanity.

What then, separates those who do, vs, those who want and dream?

1 thing. Action

Take 1 tiny microstep in the direction of your dreams. Of course you need to know what those are, and once you do, create a SMART MAP (massive action plan) as a vehicle for your actions.

The better the MAP that you create for yourself, the easier it is to get where you’re going.

– Changeover –

It’s 1:51 AM

Tonight was good. I had 10 trips and made $110.

I went from 9pm and stopped at 1 am when the Uber surge pricing was on because I wanted to skip the drunks. Maybe next weekend I’ll brave the drunkies. If I had to make more cash, I would certainly still be out there.

People were no problem. All went well in that department.

However, i’m noticing that this is not creating the “Fire under ass” effect like I had hoped.

Instead I’m zoning out for the rides, talking to people, finding myself trying to enjoy the conversations, or lack thereof, depending. I’m focusing on the driving and learning how to drive around so I’m not getting into an accident.

When I realized that I was beginning to numb out emotionally, I attempted to recall why I was doing this in the first place, and what I’d rather be doing.

But the immediate gratification of seeing money accumulate is pretty nice.

One guy tonight recommended a good place for a rub and tug. Apparently I should ask for “Doe”

Seeing the people at the clubs all slutted up made me long for that life, for about 30 seconds. But then I don’t really want the Uber life either.

I want the life of the successful entrepreneur. So basically being Rich, Happy, and Hot. That’s what i’m striving for.

It’s 1 am.

The tip I got tonight was to stop driving before you hit the drunk crowd. So I stopped at 1 am.

I went from 9pm to 1am and made about $100. That was 8 trips. 9pm – 1am, is the recommended time for Friday and Saturday nights from Uber Drivers for taking the most rides.

Everybody was nice.

Except for this one woman who was not so much…, but 7 out of 8 is pretty good.

Verdict.

It was terrifying to begin, the first ride was scary, for as long as it took to get the folks in the car. After that, it was strange, I didn’t know how to use the navigate part of the Uber app, So I sort of faked my way to their location (they told me at the beginning of the ride). But it all came off without a hitch.

Once I figured out the navigate part, everything went much smoother. And rides basically kept coming in as long as I was near a town center or a square. Pretty self explanatory really, but it doesn’t help to drive fast on the outside of town. Get in the heart of the city for rides.

Most of the times the conversation led to me driving for the first time. And often the passengers opened up and started talking about themselves or how long they had lived here. Or they just talked amongst themselves, which was also fine by me.

Did I get what I wanted out of this experiment?

I didn’t have an expectation going into this. I was just worried that I wasn’t doing it right or something.

What I wanted was to feel a sense of pain and get a major fire under my ass to build a passive income online business right now.

I did get a renewed sense of urgency to get a better paying job and earn more passive income. $100 for 4 hours is decent if you’re unskilled. However, that’s also 2 pre-made $50 dollar products on an automated e-commerce store. Or a 100k a year job working a 9-10 hour day would be making a better wage.

The goal here is for passive income, but it’s interesting to look at how a job might compare.

What action did I take because of this? I applied to a better job.

Is that what I want? Not as much as I want a passive income business.

Now how to get this to trigger a response for building a passive income business? (another fear that I have).

I’m a college grad, Graduated with Honors, with a masters degree from Harvard University, and I a gainfully employed with a steady IT job and all my bills are paid for. So Why Uber?

I want to make more money – plain and simple. -Right?

Wrong.

My motivation is to make enough to have:

The freedom from worrying about how much something costs. Freedom to travel wherever I want to travel wherever I want to travel. Freedom to help people like my family. Like if anyone every needed anything or medical or anything like that, just being able to go, you know what, I got this. For me that was real important. – Marie Forleo

So, why Uber? That will never pay that kind of money.

Exactly… This is for grit.

I simply can’t get the traction I am looking for with what I’m doing with passive income revenue streams. I basically fail before I even begin. I just suck at starting. Even though I’m the arrogant A student in all my years of college. The monetary pain isn’t real enough.

Uber is my extra pain and hence, Uber is my grit to get something done. If I have to resort to Uber (not that Uber itself is bad), to feel the pain of what it’s like to work all the time to get ahead. My hope is that all this service work will make me realize my value in other areas. Areas that pay.

So here it goes, my first trip is tonight.