7 Ways To Make Money With Your Car

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If you’re one of the millions of people considering joining the gig economy but you’re not sure where to start, keep this in mind — if you have a car, you have a prepackaged side hustle just waiting to be unwrapped.

Cars are much more than just a means to get to work so you can earn an income. They’re also a potential source of passive income themselves.

Some vehicle-related side gigs, of course, call on you to move people or stuff from point A to point B. But some of the choicest gigs on wheels don’t require you to drive or even to be in your car to earn an income. You can pull in cash passively while your car, truck or SUV does all the heavy lifting.

Here are seven ways to get rich with your car.

Rideshare Apps

If you’re thinking about how to make your car pay you back, you must have considered the side hustle that continues to define the concept of side hustling — driving for Uber or Lyft. Rideshare drivers, depending on location, can average about $17 to $25 an hour.

Transportation services provided by rideshare apps are still among the gold standards in the gig economy when looking to make some easy extra cash. There is a background check, so it helps to have a clean driving record, but you can choose your own hours and the area you wish to work within. 

Join a Food Delivery Service 

If you deliver food instead of people to a destination, you’ll enjoy the same freedom of scheduling and independence that attracts so many drivers to the rideshare industry, but you won’t have to cart around strangers.

Depending on the service you drive for, you’ll be paid through some combination of base pay, mileage, time spent on the road and tips, 100% of which should be yours to keep.

These tried-and-true services should be your first stop:

• DoorDash
• Grubhub
• Uber Eats

Grocery Shopping and Delivery

You can deliver groceries with services like Instacart to earn extra money too. As both a grocery store shopping and delivery service, this gig can be a bit more time-consuming, but there is potential to make a decent hourly wage.

The pay will vary depending on how many hours you work and the volume of the area you work within but platforms such as Instacart are a great place to start if you’re looking to make money with your car. 

Deliver Packages

Just as it is with rideshare and grocery delivery services, you don’t need a special license or a specific type of vehicle to make money delivering packages for Walmart, Amazon and other big retailers, which depend on independent wheels to get their merch from here to there.

For example, Amazon Flex drivers typically earn $18 to $25 per hour. Like all great side gigs, you can set your hours, work when you want and abstain when you don’t.

Become Your Own Car Rental Company

Although it has competitors, Turo is the world’s largest car-sharing marketplace. It did for car rentals what Airbnb did for vacation accommodations, and it works on the same concept.

Typically, people who want to avoid the high-priced rental market book your car when you’re not using it. Because they get to cut out the middleman, you get a paycheck courtesy of your car without having to do any driving.

When you sign up to be a host, Turo provides you with $750,000 in travelers insurance coverage. In many cases, you can make up to thousands a year, which is a nice bit of change to help subsidize your lifestyle.

Advertise on Your Car

With this one, you have to be cautious because the Federal Trade Commission warns that the car-wrapping industry is crawling with scammers. But if you find a good company, it’s a legitimate way to earn money with your car just so long as you’re willing to drive around in an energy drink advertisement on wheels, of course.

Each company has its own unique set of requirements, but you should never have to pay anything upfront — that’s a telltale sign of a scam. Whichever company you choose wraps your car in the decal for you since it costs them less than traditional advertising. Better yet, it won’t hurt your car or be difficult to remove.

Here are some well-known, highly rated companies that are known for reliability and prompt payments, which generally range from $100 to $500 per month:

• Wrapify
• StickerRide
• Carvertise

Help Move Large Objects

Without becoming a full-time mover, you can help people move large objects with your car for a fee. You can advertise yourself or sign up with a company such as TaskRabbit, which allows people to hire you for this specific task.

For this way of making money with your car, owning an SUV or pickup truck is particularly helpful. 

Final Take To GO 

The bottom line is that owning or having regular access to a car is a big step toward making some extra money. You can drive things or people back and forth or even just rent it out when you’re not using it. The options are endless, as is the earning potential.

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