Life as a 1 week Uber driver during company forced leave (Part 2)

This is the second and final part of the post - "Life as a 1 week Uber driver during company forced leave"
Click here to read Part 1 if you have not done so.

Are you all ready for the Numbers?

The length of Singapore from West to East is around 50km.

For the 7 days, I had clocked:
43hours and 41mins on the road (Average 6.25hours per day)
Mileage: 1077KM (Average 154km per day)
60 Uber trips (Average 8.6 trips per day)

This mean I had drive from one end of Singapore to the other end 22 times.

My take home pay for the 7 days is S$1048

This work out to be around $23.80/hr of salary

Sounds good??

HOLD ON first.

Let me show you the breakdown because as a new Uber driver, I have additional new joiner incentive.

So let take off these new joiner incentive and see how it is like

  Take home pay:    $1048

- Referral:               $100

- $1 for $1 match:   $200 (Cap at $200) 

- Smove car rental: $442 (First week free rental)

 ------------------------------------------------

                                $306

-------------------------------------------------

My take home pay, without all the new joiner incentive, will drop to S$306

This work out to be around $7/hr of salary

However, if you drive during both the peak hours (6am - 10am & 6pm to 11pm) where there is fare surge, you can definitely earn double my amount or more.

1) If you have a full time job (5 days 9-5 without/little OT) earning above $2500/mth, I don't think Uber is suitable to do full time unless you willing to have a paycut (Not to mention no employer CPF contribution, no MC, no leave, no benefit, no AWS and no bonus)

2) If solely based on normal Uber fare, Uber driver wont be able to survive. It is the incentive and surge during the peak hours that is attractive.

3) Having to say that, full time Uber driver normally will start driving from 6am to 11am, go back home sleep and come out to drive again from 5pm to 11pm (11 working hours)

4) Beside the no employer CPF contribution, no MC, no leave, no benefit, no AWS and no bonus, Uber driver also is of higher risk compare to office worker such as possible car accidents and traffic fine ($$$$$$).

5) I feel it is bad for health too as drivers need to hold their bladders quite frequently

6) Driving Uber is good for those who tender without a job or do it part time during their free hours to earn extra income

7) If you have at least 2 days of annual leave to spare, you can consider driving Uber for few days to take advantages of the new joiner incentive. Drop me an email to compoundingdividendxdividend@gmail.com if you would like to have $100 sign up bonus (subject to changes from Uber) + tips for new Uber driver.

 

Transferred $10,000 from CPF OA to SA

I am 30 years old this year and I just triggered a transferred of  $10,000 from my CPF OA to SA today. This is my first transfer.

The main reason for this action is to build a stronger retirement nest by using 25 years of time to let the compounding magic do its work.

CPF did provide an OA to SA Transfer calculator for you to see how much extra interest you will earn when you reach 55years old.
Click here for the OA-SA calculator

This is how my CPF account look like before the transfer.
OA:              $58,XXX
CPFIS-OA: $22,XXX
SA:               $22,XXX
MA:             $25,XXX



Some of you might wonder, do I have a BTO flat yet?
The answer is Yes. But I only made the 5% downpayment (HDB loan) and key collection will be in Q4 2019.
Lucky and fortunately, my 4 room flat cost me just $260,XXX

I had did my maths and assuming we do not have any pay increment or AWS or bonus since 2016 all the way till our loan finishes, it will take us around 8years to fully paid finished our HDB loan.

To us, 8 years seem reasonable and if I were to get unemployed, I still can use my CPFIS as a backup plan.

Life as a 1 week Uber driver during company forced leave (Part 1)

I had always wanted to try to drive for Uber / Grab to see:

1. how it is like as an Uber / Grab driver
2. if the earning is high
3. can this be my backup plan in case I am being retrenched or if I were to tender without a job in the future

So my chance came when my company forced us to clear our annual leave. As I was being "forced" to clear 5 days of leave and not wanting to rot at home doing nothing, so I went to try to drive Uber for a week.

Suddenly, this year forced leave seem good.
Its like 1 stone kill 2 birds for me - On one hand, I can earn extra income during my leave and I also can finally try out as an Uber driver.

"UberFLEX Club (UFC) is a brand new club that caters specially to drivers who rent hourly from SMOVE, allowing for commitment-free driving!"

As I don't own a car, and I only have 1 week to spare, so I went to Smove to rent their car. Unlike Lion City Rental (LCR), their minimum contract is 1 month rental while Smove on the other hand, allows hourly rental, which is prefect for my case.

To sweeten the deal, UFC + Smove is having promotion for new Uber driver

• 1 week rental and petrol for FREE (Yes, there is a catch. You will need to hit 1 trip per hour which is easily do-able)
• $1 for $1 match on your earning (Cap at first $200)
• $100 for being referred to join

                     
Before I start my Day 1, I went to buy a handphone car holder ($10) and break my 2 x $50 notes into smaller notes (10 x $2, 4 x $5, 6 x $10) and of cos, dig my coins bank for some $1, 50cents, 20cents and 10cents coins.

I also bring along with me the following items during my Day1:
1) Xiaomi powerbank (As I do not have in-car charger)
2) Water bottle for plain water
3) Ezlink card (For ERP & carpark)
4) Milo

The above is the driver screen where we can see which part of Singapore is in high demand (The redder the colour mean the higher demand in that area). Of course, higher demand mean higher fare due to price surge.

Less than 2 mins after I am online for my first time, I got my first ping :)
I was so excited about it as that was what all drivers are waiting for.


I was lucky that I did not encounter any nasty riders.
But if I were force to choose one of the worst rider I had, then it will be HER.
She is the only one which I gave her a 3 stars rating (All my other riders got a 5 stars rating)
She lived in one of the condo and her destination was Sentosa Cove.
She should be in her early 30s and is the kind of lady you will turn back to take a 2nd glance when she walked pass you.
The moment she boarded my car, she say "Make a 3 points turn here to head out to the exit" (When the road width in her condo is only about the normal 1.5 times road width). "Follow my instruction by taking this road route. Don't follow your GPS" and when reaching the Sentosa gate, she said "Take the shortest Q between Counter 1 to 3".
It was her TONE when she commented all these which make me feel uneasy.

Fast forward to the 7th day, which is also my last day, below is the pointer I would like to share with rider from driver point of view:
1) Key in the exact address or postal code. Do not rely on your phone GPS pin drop (It is not 100% accurate all the times). This also save everyone time and enable you to have a faster pick up when you need a ride.
2) Google map is not 100% accurate. I have riders, who frequency go to the same location such as workplace/home, able to point out to me that in front is a 1 way dead road when Google map showing I could reach the destination using this road. So if you already know the direction, please alert and point out to the driver in advance (You will have a shorter trip time and could save money for not having the need to detour).
3) If you keep encountering Uber driver going to the wrong pick up location despite keying in the exact postal code, most likely your pickup location is marked wrongly in Google map. Advice you could drop an sms to alert the driver of the exact road path to take to reach you faster.
4) Especially in shopping mall area/Orchard Road/Bugis Junction, we are unable to pick up along the road or go into the taxi stand. So please be alert and keep your eye on the road to spot your Uber car so that you can wave at the car to alert the driver you are the one he is hunting for.

As I only drive for 7 days, I believe other more old bird drivers will be able to share more pointers based on their experience.


I will continue in my next post on the next part - My Earning for driving Uber in these 7 days.
It will contain numbers, numbers and more numbers.

Projecting my 2017 Dividend amount

As mentioned in my yesterday blog post (Click here), my target dividend to achieve in 2017 is $3,985.

I am curious to find out IF I totally did not do anything to my portfolio, how much dividend I will receive at the end of 2017.


Let relook at my current portfolio as of 1st Jan 2017:

No.	Counters	No. of Shares
1	CapitaMall Trust	16,500
2	CapitaRetail China Trust	11,000
3	Keppel Corp	2,600
4	Vicom	2,000
5	Warchest	$10,076

Assuming dividend payout remain the same as 2016:

CapitaMall Trust
Total dividend declared in 2016: $0.1113
Projected dividend received in 2017: $1836.45 ($0.1113 x 16,500 shares)

CapitaRetail China Trust
Total dividend declared in 2016: $0.1055
Projected dividend received in 2017: $1160.50 ($0.1055 x 11,000 shares) 

Vicom
Total dividend declared in 2016: $0.2775
Projected dividend received in 2017: $555 ($0.2775 x 2,000 shares) 
Total Projected dividend received in 2017: $3551.95

(Keppel Corp shares was bought using CPFIS, therefore, not counted toward my dividend target)

So, I fall short of $433.05 for my 2017 dividend target if I were to do nothing :(

Since I still have a warchest of $10,076 to deploy, therefore, I should be able to achieve my 2017 dividend target and I am still ontrack to achieve my $24,000 dividend per year by 2037.