Driver Resources

by Christian Perea on March 12, 2018 Leave a Comment

Is Renting A Car For $5 an Hour to Drive for Uber Worth It?

Don’t have a car, or temporarily without a car, but want to drive rideshare? How does $5 an hour to rent a car sound like to you? Senior RSG contributor Christian Perea tested Getaround, a rental car service for Uber drivers, and explains how it works, what you can expect when signing up to drive, and how you can maximize your earnings.

For only $5 an hour you can pay for the privilege to rent a car and pound the streets of San Francisco as a bonafide Uber driver seeking profits and adventure.

Is it even worth it? Seems a little strange paying Uber for the privilege of shuttling around a bunch of techies. I decided to try it to find out for myself to see how great (or terrible) it is.

Getaround and Uber recently partnered up in San Francisco to offer cars that almost anyone can use to drive for Uber. They’re dispersed all throughout SF, Oakland, and Berkeley, and you can just go on ahead and walk up, unlock the car from your phone via the Getaround app, and proceed to drive them for Uber for as little or as long as you want.

As of now, this partnership between Getaround and Uber is only available in San Francisco, but you can find a list of rental and leasing options nationwide on our Vehicle Marketplace. And I suspect if this goes well, they will roll it out to other cities.

Are You Keeping Track of Your Rideshare Earnings?

Every 1000 business miles = $545 in tax deductions. That means you have to track your miles and earnings. QuickBooks Self-Employed helps you track all of that quickly.

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by Christian Perea on February 7, 2018 5 Comments

Hacking Uber’s Rewards Program For Drivers

Uber and Lyft have experimented with quite a few reward partnerships for drivers in the last few years, but here’s one that I actually find useful. Today we have a sponsored guest post that comes from Elizabeth Bauer-Fleming at Shop Your Way.

This partnership between Uber and Shop Your Way basically pays out rewards points (called CASHBACK in points) for every ride you GIVE as a driver. Further, the rewards can actually be redeemed for useful stuff.

Today, I’m going to share a no-brainer rewards program that EVERY Uber driver should sign up for. Shop Your Way and Uber have partnered up to give drivers $2 CASHBACK in points every time you complete a trip. I say this is a no-brainer because you get these rewards from what you are doing already – Uber driving – and you don’t need to do anything extra other than a few clicks to sign up. You also get 50% off oil changes at Sears Auto Centers and 30% CASHBACK in points for labor on other services.

See terms and conditions at https://www.shopyourway.com/uber/driverterms. #sponsored ad

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by Christian Perea on January 29, 2018 3 Comments

How to Set Up QuickBooks Self-Employed For Rideshare

Since Uber and Lyft do not take out taxes from our earnings, it’s up to us as drivers to track our expenses and file taxes. While that may seem like a daunting task, there’s actually an easy way to track your expenses and file your taxes. Senior RSG contributor Christian Perea shows us how to set up QuickBooks Self-Employed, start categorizing and tracking expenses, and see the big picture when it comes to our earnings and expenses.

Uber and Lyft do not cover income taxes from the money you earn while rideshare driving.

However, they still report your income to the IRS by filing a 1099 or two in your name. That 1099 tells the IRS how much Uber paid you. As independent contractors, we’re responsible for doing the rest of our taxes by reporting income, expenses, deductions, and keeping records.

I’ve personally been using QuickBooks Self-Employed since 2014 because it eliminates A TON of the headache that comes with tracking every penny that goes in and out of my car. I can set rules for every expense that comes through my bank account, and then I have it automatically categorized to count as a deduction on my taxes at the end of the year.

Overall, I now spend about half an hour each week “handlin’ my books” because QuickBooks Self-Employed does such a good job at automating most of my work.

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by Will Preston on January 12, 2018 6 Comments

How to Add Rideshare Driving to Your Resume

For many drivers, ridesharing may be a temporary gig while you’re in between jobs, or it may be an additional job you do outside of your regular 9 to 5 job. Either way, should you add rideshare driving to your resume and, if so, how? Today, senior RSG contributor Will Preston answers those questions and more, helping you create an accurate representation of your work on your resume.

Rideshare driving can be as visible or invisible on your resume as you’d like it to be. Some use their ridesharing business to show off their business skills, while others don’t want to mention it at all.

Let’s talk about the reasons why you might want to put it on your resume, as well as a few reasons why you might not want to do so. And then, we’ll share some creative ways to put it on your resume if you want to.

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by Christian Perea on November 1, 2017 17 Comments

Rydar: The Swiss Army Knife of Driver Tools

Have you ever wondered how you could only drive during surge times, when concerts and events get out and demand spikes? Ever wish you could just drive during a high surge? You can with a new app called Rydar, which identifies places and events for you to drive and helps you drive only during a profitable surge period. Today, senior RSG contributor Christian Perea covers these functions and more.

Rydar is a new rideshare driver assistant app that combines a lot of the features from existing driver apps on the market.

Rydar has custom surge alerts, custom heat maps, tells you where to go for your next ride, an events calendar (think concerts and sports), a mileage tracker, expense tracker, and syncs with your Uber account. All at the same time and in one place.

There are a lot of driver apps on the market right now that do many different things for drivers, and they’re all competing for your hard-earned money. Rydar seeks to combine most of those apps into one big, multi-tool driver app – the Swiss Army Knife of driver tools, if you will.

Let’s see how it does, or you can get started signing up with Rydar here.

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