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I keep of track of this very carefully A year ago gas was about 3.29, last night it was 4.09 but it was higher a week ago. So yeah a buck a gallon is the increase, at least here in Maryland.
My MPG varies depending on how much in town driving I do. As for the trips very rarely do I do a short one around here, they tend to be 20-40 minutes, but I do go into town and those rides are obviously shorter. My calculations are easy. At the end of the night I fill up, it's always between 6-8 gallons unless I did a long day which I don't do many of. Last night I did 11 trips so the bonus was an additional 6.05 and I used just under 7 gallons. That's how I arrived at my figure, the new bonus covered all but $1 of the gas price increase.
When you do a 40 min ride and drop the person off. Do you then get another ride there? Your already 40 mins away from home that your going to have to make up either with a ride/rides back or just eat the drive back?
As I said "depends on when you measure from", what was your gas 18 months ago? Two years ago?
Gas has consistently been in the 3.29 range around here, with variants so minor it was not a big deal either way, for several years. It's basically a dollar a gallon higher now then when I started 3 years ago.
When you do a 40 min ride and drop the person off. Do you then get another ride there? Your already 40 mins away from home that your going to have to make up either with a ride/rides back or just eat the drive back?
There is something called a Destination Filter. When I take a ride 40 minutes from home I utilized this filter, set it for home, and any ride I pick up with go in that general direction. So it causes a delay but you do get rides pointed towards home so instead of dead miles you can earn as you work your way back.
I use this anytime i get a ride to or near Washington DC so I don't get sucked into rides going further into the city or into Virginia when I'm trying to get back to Maryland. If I get a ride to Baltimore I shut it down, I don't pick up riders in Baltimore anymore as it's too dangerous. When I reach a certain spot outside of the city I turn on the Destination Filter.
These filters are a tremendous tool. Uber give you only 2 a day, but if I do enough rides between now and April 30 I will get a 3rd. Lyft offers multiple uses per day but they time out much quicker.
I'm still stunned that Uber and Lyft are a thing at all.
- "Wild idea, but... What if we could make a transportation service that offered a gigantic fleet, but without all that pesky investment and maintenance and write-off? Or background checks and whatnot?"
- "How are you going to do that?"
- "We'll have the workers provide the fleet cost out of their own pocket!"
- "Why on Earth would they do that?"
- "Oh, we'll call them 'entrepreneurs' and talk about 'hustle culture' and whatnot."
- "That - might work. And the company will make money, how?"
- "Oh, the company won't make money. It'll burn through billions of investor funds. Pretend to have a plan like - heck, I dunno - self-driving cars or flying cars or some pie-in-the-sky idea like that. Venture capitalists eat this sort of stuff up. Just tell them we're building market share and we'll make it back some day."
- "Self-driving cars. Are you feeling well?"
I would never set foot in a driverless car, Uber wasted so much money in all of this. But the industry is fine and it's not going anywhere. There is tremendous demand and I have already showed you how it can be profitable if you do it right.
On a side note I was just made aware of the new Earned Income Credit laws which is now much better for people without kids. As I had explained if you properly capture and document all the business miles we are entitled to we have very little taxable income. As my wife was working in 2020 last year we got a tax refund, I had assumed we would be paying this year. Instead thanks to the EIC instead of paying taxes we got a refund again. This credit is to be applied to low income households, we are on paper a low income household. I don't think that tax law is right for people in our situation but I didn't write the tax laws, I simply utilized them.
For the same reason we have qualified for free health care through Medicaid. Our reportable income falls below the limit, they do not go by assets they only go by current earnings. Again I don't think this is right as a person who has paid into the system for 40 years but if that's the law then we will take advantage of that.
So free medical care and tax free earnings on top of the $22/hour I average clearly shows this is not a minimum wage job, not even close. The benefit are better than that government job my dad wanted me to get.
Gas has consistently been in the 3.29 range around here, with variants so minor it was not a big deal either way, for several years. It's basically a dollar a gallon higher now then when I started 3 years ago.
2-3 years ago average gasoline prices were in the low $2 range and asome states in the upper $1 range. Are you in California? They were about $3. Every person reading this thread that drives a car knows gasoline is much more than a dollar higher than 2 years ago.
2-3 years ago average gasoline prices were in the low $2 range and asome states in the upper $1 range. Are you in California? They were about $3. Every person reading this thread that drives a car knows gasoline is much more than a dollar higher than 2 years ago.
I checked and you are correct, the gas prices here in Maryland were about 2 bucks a gallon less 2 years ago. So OK that added an additional $7-$9 on a night I earn $175. So I just take one more short ride and it takes care of that.
Higher gas prices do not offset the free medical care and tax free earnings we realize as I had explained earlier. Most Uber drivers don't know what they are doing, they waste gas and put miles on their cars driving around unproductive areas or times in search of a ride. And I know they are not taking full advantage of the laws as I do. They are the one's complaining about the pay, me I have no such complaints because I have figured out how to make it work.
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