When I worked at the pharmacy, my car broke down.
I didn’t have the money to fix it at the time, so a friend who lived nearby offered to take me to and from work until I could get it repaired.
Having a friend willing to help like that was amazing and allowed me to continue working while I waited to get my car fixed.
As a rideshare driver or gig worker, if you don’t have your car, you can’t make money.
You can’t borrow a car, and you can’t take public transportation to and from work. Without a functioning vehicle, you’re simply unable to make money.
For gig workers, their vehicle is their livelihood, and we need to treat it as such.
To ensure that we are always able to work, we need to take the time now (when we don’t need it) to save money for maintenance and repairs.
Don’t wait until it’s too late when you’ll likely panic and spend more money than you should have.
Maintenance We Think About
The first step in maintaining your car for gig work is taking care of the “little things”—the tasks we might take for granted or not consider important.
Regular oil changes will not only keep your car running smoothly, ensuring a comfortable ride and high miles per gallon, but it also keeps the engine running for years longer than pushing it off.
Another important and often neglected maintenance for gig workers is our tires.
Making sure our tires are in good shape and getting new ones when we need them is important. Saving for the time when we need new tires is crucial.
However, we can make our tires last longer by regularly rotating them. This will even out the wear and tear on them and allow you to get full life out of your tires.
Maintenance We Don’t Think About
If you’re anything like me, you don’t know much about cars. Opening the hood of a car when I’m buying a new one is 100% for show, so it looks like I know what I’m buying.
Because of that, it’s easy to forget about maintenance that happens under the hood.
Engines sometimes need repairs or replacements. Belts, alternators, spark plugs, and probably 100 other things I don’t even know about also require attention.
Take the time to learn what your vehicle needs. This could mean doing research, talking to a knowledgeable friend, or paying a mechanic to inspect your car regularly.
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How To Save for Maintenance
If you’re just starting as a rideshare driver or gig worker, now is the time to start saving for maintenance.
Even if you’ve been driving for a while without issues, it’s never too late to begin setting money aside.
When your car stops moving because of an issue, it’s too late.
There are things you can do, such as rent a car for gig work or put it all on a credit card, but it isn’t going to help long term.
Every vehicle has different maintenance costs.
Each vehicle has different maintenance costs. For example, larger vehicles take larger tires, which cost more than smaller tires.
To figure out how much you need to save for maintenance you need to figure out your true cost of driving and work backwards from there.
You could save a percentage of your daily or weekly income or set aside a specific amount, such as $25 or $150 per week.
However, you decide the amount you put aside, and the most important thing is that you do it regularly and separate the savings from your normal accounts.
Not only separate the savings from your checking account but have it at an entirely different bank.
Don’t carry the card around. Leave it at home and only use it for emergencies.
It should be difficult to get access to it, so you’re not tempted to spend impulsively on sales and things you “have to have.”
It should be so difficult that you can’t access it when you need it, but it should be a slight inconvenience to you.
How To Save On Maintenance
If you’re good with engines or are willing to watch a lot of YouTube videos and practice, you can save a lot of money on maintenance.
Changing an entire engine or transmission may be beyond what you want to do yourself. Those are complex repairs that I personally would want someone with loads of experience to do so it’s done correctly.
Things like oil changes, changing your spark plugs, and even rotating your tires can easily be done on your own, saving you potentially hundreds of dollars each time.
If you can’t or don’t want to do your own maintenance, the next best thing is to make sure you don’t overpay for maintenance.
Using sights like Kelley Blue Book or RepairSmith can help you know how much something should cost. When you speak to a mechanic, and they give you a price that is way outside that range, you know you’ll be paying too much.
Also, as crazy as it might sound if they are charging too little, that can also be a concern because they may not do good work.
Your Car Is Your Livelihood
As gig workers, we need our car more than most.
It isn’t simply a convenience for us; it is our livelihood. Don’t wait until it’s too late to start saving for your maintenance.
Regular maintenance will keep your car running longer. Keep up with the costs of maintenance by saving money every single week.
When your car is well maintained, you’ll save time and money and never have to worry about whether you can work or not.
