Uber and Lyft Work For Me
by John Lawrence, June 25, 2018
As a recent retiree, I found that I wasn't quite meeting monthly expenses without taking money out of my reserves. This was not a good situation as eventually my reserves would be totally depleted. So the wolf was getting closer and closer to the door. When the reserves get down to zero, the wolf is at the door, and, finally, he gets inside, and the next thing you know, you're on the street. Not a good situation.
Luckily, I got the idea of replenishing my reserves by driving for Lyft and Uber. I'm glad I checked them out. Before long I was significantly adding to my reserves on a weekly basis, and the work was fitting completely into my lifestyle as a retiree. I still got my swim and my nap in. Anything else that came up that I wanted to do, I did that too. As someone said once, "You're never late for work." That's because you have complete and total control over your time. You do it when you want to do it, and, when you don't, you don't. There are not too many jobs that require essentially no training (I got 15 minutes with Lyft), no credentialing, no course taking, nothing but a good driving record and a decent car. It sort of puts the kibosh on 5 years of college and a ton of student loan debt.
I've heard a lot of blather about how Uber and Lyft drivers get no "employee benefits" because they are self-employed. It's BS. I was self-employed for 40 years of my life as a window cleaner. Not only do you get no employee benefits as a self-employed person, but you have the privilege of paying both the employer's and the employee's social security contribution which amounts to approximately 15% of your income. Still it's worth it to be your own boss in my opinion, and have the freedom to decide when and where you want to work.
Employee benefits don't amount to too much in my opinion. They used to have "defined benefit" pensions. That meant that you paid a little money to your employer out of your paycheck, and your employer invested that money so that, when you retired, you got a monthly check. However, all that money you paid in belonged to your employer, not you, so that when you died, your employer kept the rest of the money. It did not go to your heirs. Sweet for your employer, a screw job for you and your family.
Now they have the "defined contribution" retirement plan or 401(k). You can contribute part of your paycheck to the stock market. There is no guarantee that you'll ever realize enough from it to pay your monthly expenses when you retire. If the stock market crashes, you may lose all your money. It's basically a plan that enriches Wall Street. You still do not have control over your investments so, for instance, you can't invest in real estate.
As a self-employed person, you have to think about investing on your own terms so that the wealth you create can be passed down to your heirs and not go to enrich some corporation or Wall Street. For me, that meant real estate. So the idea is that you have to be in the business of creating wealth not just living on a monthly stipend as wages when you're working and a pension when you retire. Creating wealth means that you will be able to cash that in when you can no longer work. Hopefully, you will have enough at some point so that you don't have to work. You will have a nestegg or reserves.
That's where Uber and Lyft came in. I found that my nestegg wasn't big enough to sustain me even when my rental and social security income was taken into account. My social security income was about equivalent to what I can make in one week with Lyft and Uber, and that's even after the privilege of paying both the employee's and employer's share into it. I pity the other seniors who have to live off of that. Fortunately, I did invest in California real estate early on so I have some rental income. It's just not quite enough, that's all. I should have take this wealth creation bit more seriously, but that's not how I (or most people my age) were raised. I was raised to be an employee and have my employer take care of me. (Actually they were mostly taking care of themselves.)
So driving for Lyft and Uber, getting my swim and my nap in each day, and getting the wolf farther and farther from my door is a happy situation for me. I have a 5 year plan. When my new Toyota Camry Hybrid is 5 years old, it will probably be shot with the miles I'm putting on, and I will probably be shot too. At that time, I will probably be able to live off my reserves as a supplement to my other monthly income, and I will have the knowledge that I can pass it all on to my heir when the time comes for me to depart the planet.
