How To Make Money With Your Car

By: Dannie Phan | October 7th, 2020

Traditional offices aren’t for everyone, especially in 2020. If you’re looking for a career that lets you stretch your legs while also making your own hours, why not consider making money with your car? There are several sub-career paths available to you that can let you explore your hometown or connect with local business owners who want to share their products with new audiences.

How Can I Earn Money With My Car

Earning money with your car is easier than it may sound. Your car, after all, is a resource, and not one that all people in your neighborhood may have access to. If you play your cards right, or if you happened to partner with a company in need of drivers, you can supplement a traditional office space in exchange for your car, where you control the music and have more of a say over the hours you work.

10 Ways To Earn Money With Your Car

Some of the best ways to earn money with your vehicle include:

1. Sign Up For A Ridesharing App

The rise of ridesharing has made it easier than ever to get around a strange town without your own car. If you happen to live in one of the areas that sees a number of tourists without cars, you can turn their presence into a living. Ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft pay their drivers consistent rates for safe, clean and friendly care, but you can also work independently of these organizations, creating your own schedule and building your own reputation in the process. All you need is a driver’s license, car insurance, a clean driving record and to pass a background check.

2. Deliver Food

When in doubt, you can also always turn to food delivery. Most restaurants these days are in desperate need of delivery drivers who can share their food with customers within a five to ten-mile radius. In the same vein, food delivery apps like GrubHub, Postmates, UberEats and DoorDash serve as third-party services that allow independent contractors to pick up food from a multitude of restaurants.

If you’re up for earning tips as well as base pay, then food delivery may be the job for you.

3. Deliver Other Products

You also have the option of delivering other products to people’s homes over the course of the average day. Many department stores, including Target, are investing in their own private delivery teams to ensure consumers can receive their goods within a single day or two of an online purchase. Third-party services like Instacart or Roadie do much the same while allowing drivers to collect purchases from popular retailers.

4. Rent Out Your Car

If you’re especially trusting, you can even rent out your car to other drivers on apps like Getaround, Turo, Car2go, or Zipcar. You will, of course, want to have paperwork on hand that establishes liability in case of an accident, but you can charge a sizable per-hour fee to let students, new drivers or folks without a consistent flow of income make their way around your hometown.

5. Wrap Your Car

If you’re less interested in driving people or objects around, you can use your car to send a message. Many advertising companies are willing to pay drivers to wrap their cars in recognizable advertising. This way, those companies can get the word out about their products, and you can make a little money without having to perform a service. Speak with the company like Carvertise or Wrapify who wants to wrap your car to determine whether or not they’ll front the cost of the car wrap.

6. Pick Up Scooters Around Town

Have you noticed more electric scooters in your area? These scooters tend to crop up in urban centers and around college campuses. They allow students and the ambitious tourist to more readily make their way around the area. However, none of these scooters require that their riders return them to their original locations. As such, they can end up scattered all over a city.

You can make an extra cash off of another person’s reluctance to return a scooter to a more appropriate environment. If you reach out to the primary scooter provider in your city, you can arrange to work as a driver and pick up scooters that end up off the beaten path.

7. Carpool

If you know a few folks who need help getting to and from work over the course of your average day, why not make a little bit of money off of the resource you have at your disposal? You can offer your fellow employees or even friendly strangers rides in your car for a small fee. Of course, you will need to take steps to protect yourself if you want to take up this career, and you’ll also want to make sure that you don’t run afoul with any of the ridesharing services in your area. However, with the proper safety and legal measures in place, you can make a healthy side income with the money you receive for your commute.

8. Shop For Others

In 2020, shopping has become increasingly complex, even for people who have extra time in their days. If you want to try and make a little bit of extra money on the side, you can opt to shop for those reluctant to shop for themselves. This process involves collecting someone’s shopping list, driving to the grocery store for them, and then delivering those groceries to their doorstep. In most cases, you can find yourself compensated not only for the groceries that you delivered but also for the cost of gas, with a tip thrown in. If you managed to cultivate an active client list, or if you happen to apply to work with an established organization, you can use this method of work to supplement your existing income or surpass it entirely.

9. Share Your Parking Space

If you happen to live near a college campus or in a big city, you may have a parking spot saved for your visits to high-density locations. If you’re looking for a simple way to earn money without doing much, you can rent your parking spot out to tourists or anyone who may need it on a regular basis. This can require you swapping off a parking pass with someone in need or establishing a third-party money exchanging profile, but you’ll be able to make a passive income off of an investment that you already made.

Which Driving App Pays The Most?

As you might have guessed, many of the aforementioned ways of making money with your car require you to partner with an app. There are several driving apps available to you, including:

Postmates
UberEATS
Uber
Lyft
DoorDash
TaskRabbit
Roadie
Favor
Instacart

The amount of money you can make while working with these apps will depend entirely on you. When you partner with an app to use your car to make money, you establish yourself as an independent contractor. As such, should you have the opportunity to control your workload, you can determine how much money you bring home on a weekly basis. That said, the aforementioned apps have reputations of paying their drivers a reasonable rate, to the point where an ambitious driver can make a living without ever having to set foot in an office.

How Can I Make Money With My Old Car?

If you have an older car on your hands, you may be reluctant to take it out on the road on a consistent basis. Even so, you can still make money off of the vehicle itself. Many junk dealers are willing to purchase parts off of your car before disposing of the rest of it. You can reach out to the scrappers in your area for an estimate on the parts in your older car that are still in good condition.

In the same breath, you may be able to reach out to a hobbyist to receive a similar quote.

If you’re looking for a way to make money without going into the office, you have several car-related options available to you. You can also partner with Swagbucks while you’re in the process of determining which of these car-related jobs suits you best.

In this day and age, it’s easier than ever to find a car-related career that’s unconventional and yet still meets your needs. If you want to start searching, the team with Swagbucks can help you supplement your income while you get your feet under you.