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How to Make Money with Your Car

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Your car might be the most expensive thing you own, so it makes sense to put it to work. While there are many ways to make money with your car, some methods are more passive, meaning they don’t require any extra work from you, but others are more active, such as using your car to make deliveries. In general, the more active the task, the more dough you’re likely to pocket.

How to make passive income with your car

These methods don’t require that you spend hours a day working in order to make money with your car. Rather they allow you to use your car how you normally would and make your car work for you.

Rent your car as advertising space

$50+ a month

You might get businesses to pay you for advertising on your car. The amount you could make depends on where, when and how long you drive and how big of an advertisement space the company could use.

Pros Cons
  • Easy —  you might only have to go out of your way once or twice to have the ads put on the car by a professional. Ads stay on for a few months or as long as two years.
  • The business has to approve you and your car. It usually requires a clean driving record and a newer model car.
  • You might have to consistently clean your car.

 

Potential companies: FreeCarMedia, Wrapify, Carvertise, Sticker Ride, CarWraps.

Rent your car to other people

$300+ a month

For most of its life, your car sits in a driveway or parking lot. Instead, you could rent it out to other people. For example, if you live near a major airport, large city or national park, you could let tourists use your car to get around and see the sights while you’re at work or home. You could also rent your car to Uber or Lyft drivers without having to do the actual driving yourself.

Pros Cons
  • By approving or disapproving requests, you can choose when, where, to whom and for how long you can rent out your car.
  • Renters are required to have plenty of car insurance.
  • Your vehicle needs to be approved by the rental platform.
  • You’ll need to clean your car often and not keep personal items in it.
  • You might have to deal with the aftermath of your car being in an accident while it was rented.
  • Being driven more often, the miles on your car will add up.

 

Potential companies: Turo, GetAround, Hyre Car, RelayRides.

Make your car a movie star

Unknown earning potential

If you have a classic or specialty car, you could list your car on a vehicle casting site. Movie makers often need extra cars to fill a set and provide the right type of background.

Pros Cons
  • If the car is for a background-type appearance, it won’t rack up the miles while it’s earning money.
  • Work isn’t guaranteed, but a listing fee might be.

 

Potential companies: Movie Time Cars, Movie Vehicles, Specialty Car Locators

Earn safe driver discounts

$100 a year

If you don’t get in an accident that is deemed your fault, some insurance companies will reward you with safe driver bonus checks or safe driver discounts. Note that the availability of the safe driver discount can vary by state and auto insurance company.

Pros Cons
  • No extra effort on your part, except safe driving, of course.
  • If you are in an accident or don’t pass the criteria of the company, you may not earn a discount at all.
  • You may have to allow the insurance company to track when you drive where and how quickly.

 

Potential companies: Allstate, State Farm, Progressive

How to make active income with your car

If you want to put your car and yourself to work, be prepared: it will take up your time and take a toll on your car.

You’ll need to buy more gas, do more car maintenance and perhaps cover repairs sooner than you otherwise would. You’ll need a good GPS or good amount of knowledge about your community. Like some of the passive income strategies above, you and your car will most likely need to be approved but some, such as the U.S. Postal Service, may have more stringent requirements.

Deliver food

$10+ an hour

Delivery isn’t just for pizza anymore. You could deliver anything from a full set of groceries that you ran around the store for and collected yourself, to chef-made, gourmet meals.

Pros Cons
  • Depending on what company you deliver for, this could be a full-time job that allows you to work when you want, as much as you want.
  • You may be able to earn tips on top of a base hourly or per-job pay.
  • You’re not supposed to eat any of the delicious food you deliver.
  • Customer tipping habits could affect your income.

 

Potential companies: local restaurants, Postmates, Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub, Shipt, Burpy, Caviar, Tapingo, EatStreet, Instacart.

Deliver drinks

$10+ an hour

If you get tired of delivering food, consider delivering drinks of the alcoholic variety.

Pros Cons
  • It’s a more unique delivery job.
  • There may be limited demand in your area, depending on where you live.

 

Potential companies: Saucey, Minibar Delivery, Drizly.

Deliver stuff

$15+ an hour

If you don’t want your car to smell like spaghetti, you could deliver stuff rather than food. There is currently a huge demand for local delivery drivers due in part to the popularity of Amazon.

Pros Cons
  • Typically higher paying.
  • Can be physically demanding.
  • May have stricter application requirements.

 

You could potentially deliver:

  • Packages from businesses to consumers for: AmazonFlex, Roadie, Deliv, Favor, Burro, GoShare, Doorman
  • Packages from consumer to consumer for: CitizenShipper
  • Official mail for: U.S. Post Office (rural carriers)
  • Furniture for people on: TaskRabbit, GoShare and Buddytruk

Deliver people

$15+ an hour

Not in a religious sense, but in the vein of a taxi service, you might be able to make some cash delivering people to their destinations. Yes, we’re thinking of Uber and Lyft, but another way to make some extra money doing this might be to allow a company to advertise in your car to your passengers. It was reported in 2015 that rideshare drivers can make $3 an hour more by allowing companies like Vugo to advertise to their passengers. The company has more recently predicted that rideshare will eventually be free, the cost offset by advertising to passengers.

Besides acting as a taxi, you might also be able to get paid by select city governments for being a commuting carpool driver. The metropolitan areas around Washington D.C., Birmingham, Ala., San Mateo, Calif., Denver and Colorado Springs, Colo. all offer some compensation. You could also set up your own carpool and split gas.

Pros Cons
  • You could potentially set your own hours and do as much work as you like when you like though your own carpool might require greater consistency.
  • May not be the best job option if you don’t like to deal with people.

Depending on who you want to drive, potential companies you could drive for are below:

  • Anyone: Uber, Lyft, Wingz
  • Kids: HopSkipDrive, Care.com
  • Aging: RideInSight.org
  • Women drivers and passengers only: Safr
  • Carpools: Waze Carpool, select city governments

Start your own company

Unknown earning potential

Rather than sign up to work for someone else, you could start your own company and make money with your car. Here are a few ideas. This may be as simple as advertising your services to your neighbors or more complicated such as applying for a taxicab or chauffeur’s license.

Driving people Moving things Providing a mobile service
  • Airport shuttle service
  • Medical transportation
  • Child pickup and drop-off
  • Equipment transportation
  • Errand or courier service
  • Pet transport
  • Mobile auto detailing
  • Mobile laundry
  • Food truck
  • Mobile dog grooming

 

Of course, starting your own business has a completely different set of pros and cons that you should consider carefully. But the rewards might make it worth the risk.

How to use someone else’s car to make money

Instead of using your car, you might be able to use someone else’s vehicle make money.

Be a dealership mystery shopper

$50+ per dealership

Rather than drive your own car around, you might be able to take a dealership’s brand new cars on test drives as a mystery shopper.

Pros Cons
  • If you can accomplish your mystery shopper mission quickly, this could be a relatively high per-hour earning rate.
  • If you don’t like negotiating or interacting with car salespeople, this might not be the job for you.

 

Potential companies: BestMark, Pied Piper

Be a mobile mechanic

$40+ an hour

If you not only possess your own car but are handy with them too, you could hire out your services as a traveling mechanic.

Pros Cons
  • Potential high earning rate.
  • Flexible hours.
  • It might be hard to be truly mobile and bring all of your tools with you.

 

Potential companies: YourMechanic, a local business, your own business.

The bottom line on how to make money with your car

There are a ton of ways to earn income with your vehicle (or someone else’s vehicle). Depending on where you live, what you drive and the hours you want to work, you could make money driving for someone else’s business or your own. However you decide to earn cash, drive safely.

 

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