Well, I've been doing occasional Door Dash delivery 'shifts' for about 8 weeks now. I've Dashed mostly on Friday or Saturday evenings during the peak activity time (around 5:30-8:30pm), aside from a couple of occasions where I did a few hours Dashing after dropping DS2 off at a sports competition/training (and had a few hours to wait around).
I've found that Dashing in my local 'zone' is reasonably good. There are a couple of adjacent 'zones' that sometimes pay slightly more 'bonus' during their promotional periods (where you get an extra dollar or two on top of the standard delivery fee), but one of them in quite sparsely populated, so you end up doing a lot more driving to pickup and then deliver an order. Longer trips pay slightly more, but that isn't any more than you would get spending the equivalent amount of time doing shorter jobs, so the hourly rate is about the same, but the extra distance means a much higher fuel expense. The other area is more built-up, but that means you often have to park a long distance away from the pick-up location (and waste time walking from the car and back) and also often have trouble finding a parking spot close to the delivery address. So my 'home area' is pretty much a 'goldilocks zone' for getting a decent amount of work, ease of parking, and less fuel expended.
Overall, during the past 8 weeks I've done some Door Dash delivery work on 15 days. I was off sick one weekend, so I've generally be doing two nights each week. Each session has averaged 2.75 hours, during which time I've driven an average of 54 km and made 5.13 deliveries, and earned an average of $75.53 during a session. So the average hourly gross income was $27.54 per hour, or $1.54 per km travelled. I've estimated the net income (after income tax, GST, and fuel costs) is around $23.53 per hour. The effective tax is lower than my marginal tax rate due to the business use of my car making a large chunk of the car expenses (insurance, registration, servicing and depreciation) tax deductible.
I'm on track to earn around $6,000 pa (after tax and expenses) if I continue to do a couple of three hour 'shifts' each week for the rest of this FY (up to 30 Jun 2023). I don't want to do more, as that would involve working on the less profitable days, or doing some morning or lunch time 'shifts'. I also need to stay within the annual km allowance on my cheap 'limited km' car insurance policy. I quite enjoy driving around for a few hours in my Jag, so the 'work' is quite enjoyable (a LOT less stressful than my 'day job'). It will also leave me free on Mon-Thu nights after I finish my full-time work to be able to do a couple of hours of 'cold calling' prospecting for local clients for my financial planning business.
The hourly rate (in theory) for my full-time 'day job' works out to be $54.36 per hour. I say 'in theory' as although I am 'officially' expected to work 37.5 hrs/week I usually end up doing some work in the evenings and on weekends when things get hectic. So I probably average around 45-50 hrs/week. So my effective pay rate could be as little as $40.76. So Door Dashing pays about 50%-60% of what I earn in my 'day job'. If I ever get some clients for my financial planning business the basic fee will be around $1,000 for about 10 or so hours work to produce a Statement of Advice. After associated expenses of around $250 the net revenue will be around $75 per hour. However, I also have fixed costs of around $12,000 pa, which will take a large chunk out of that (especially if I don't have many clients!). I figure I'll need at least 15 or so clients each year just to cover running costs, and as a part-time financial planner I could service up to 50 clients pa. So, my maximum revenue as a part-time financial planner would be around $26,000 pa for about 10 hours/week client work. Or $26/hour (very similar to what I can earn as a Door Dash driver!). There would be a lot of unpaid hours spent prospecting /finding clients as well. Of course this is just fee revenue for providing financial plan/SoA services. If I am engaged for ongoing services I would receive a similar (or slightly lower) 'hourly rate' for ongoing services and annual review, but would also receive a fee based on 'assets under management' (AUM) of 0.25%. If the average client had $100,000 invested this would provide additional revenue of about $250 pa per client, or possibly $12,500 additional revenue, which would move the hourly rate closer to what I earn in my 'day job'.
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