I will admit I didn’t expect to make more than $500 in the first month. Given that I surpassed my goal, I did briefly consider taking all of my January earnings and betting it on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to win the Super Bowl. The bookies were giving Tom Brady an extra 3.5 points and it would have paid out $1200 but they were taking on Patrick Mahommes and defending Super Bowl champs the Kansas City Chiefs. It’s not that I’m opposed to gambling, I just chickened out cause it seemed too big of a risk to make this early in the process.. There is one thing I should have known about Tom Brady, whether you love him or hate him, never bet against him.
I did, however, realize when finishing the January post that not many people are carpenters or in the trades. Even if you do have a skill it doesn’t always mean that you want to do it in the evenings to make extra money. When I was working as a fulltime carpenter years ago I was often propositioned for after hours work. I usually declined since there is only so much sawdust a person should ingest in a day. Plus the people asking were usually looking for a deal that hardly made it worth while. So I wanted to find something that was accessible to more people and required less skill or experience. So in an effort to try different ways of making my $500, I was on the lookout for new opportunities.
February started and I didn’t immediately have something lined up or even a plan really. I jumped on my favorite shopping website www.kijiji.ca and found an ad that was looking for delivery drivers. Now being nearly 40 years old and 12 years into my current career I didn’t imagine myself delivering takeout at this stage in my life or at any point in my life if I’m honest. Reason being I grew up on a farm in a rural area, food delivery wasn’t something we had. The cost of delivery from nearest city would be just as much as the food itself but the town I live in now is basically the opposite. A small overall footprint with lots of restaurants to satisfy all the tourists. The delivery rate was $5 plus the driver gets to keep all the tips. I did some quick math in my head, $500 ÷ 5 per delivery = 100 deliveries. There were 3 weeks remaining in the month so 100 deliveries ÷ 3 weeks = 33 deliveries per week. 33 deliveries ÷ by 3 nights per week = 11 deliveries per evening. I wasn’t so sure that this would be feasible but I sent the email to foodieonline.ca to get more information. Turns out they were looking for someone to cover Sunday – Wednesday evenings or 4 nights per week. I accepted and started that same day.
The first night the Alpine Wife was a little bit jealous of my new job although this sentiment didn’t last long because a polar vortex was heading our way and average temps were expected -25C to -30C for the rest of the week. Not fun for going outside but more incentive for people to get food delivered. I didn’t immediately get the drivers app installed on my phone and was just given instructions via Whatsapp, which was actually fairly effective. They would send me the order I would pick up at the restaurant, look up the delivery address and then let them know when I was leaving. The great thing about Google maps is that it tells you the actual distance. Turns out my first order was a massive distance of 950 meters from the restaurant. Far be it from being my job to understand why B. Fowler couldn’t make the drive to pick up her order, I just shrugged and made the 4 minute drive to her house. The next 3 hours went fairly smoothly and in total I did 4 deliveries. I realized that it really doesn’t get much more generic white guy than wearing timberland boots, a North face jacket and Under Armor touque (or beanie as the Americans say) delivering chicken wings and burgers while driving a Volvo listening to a Sasquatch podcast.
That first night I made $38.46 doing the 4 deliveries which is an average of $9.62 per delivery, the $5 delivery fee plus average of 4.62 in tips. I figured that I had spent about 2.5 hours from the time I left the house to the time that I got back which is 15.38 per hour but I hadn’t accounted for any gas. This got me thinking that it would take way less deliveries to get to $500. So the new math I was calculating was $500 / 9.62 per delivery = 52 deliveries for the month.
During the following nights I kept track of my total kilometers traveled and the average MPG or L/100km (as we use in Canada). The rest of the week was busier with deliveries as follows: Tuesday – 7 deliveries = $68.53 Wednesday – 4 deliveries = $34.29.
On Saturday evening of the first week I got a message asking if I could drive. It was a long weekend and -27 outside, lots of tourists in town. Turned out to be a good night for tips since I only did 5 deliveries but made $60.61. The total if your keeping track for the week was 196.89. This also included 2 more deliveries to B. Fowler’s house.
The start of the next week was Valentine’s day and a few men like myself, who are fairly useless in the kitchen, decided to order in for their romantic evening and were also showing some love with the tips. The Alpine wife didn’t think it was very romantic that I was out all evening delivering and I offered her a co-driver position for the night which was immediately rejected. Wisely though I had made her a nice gift basket of Valentine’s chocolate that I had purchased on sale the week after Valentine’s in 2020. What’s more romantic than thinking of that special someone when you see that 50% OFF sticker in the grocery store?
Anyway I’m off track, at the end of the month I averaged 44kms traveled per night. Unfortunately not all orders were such short drives and my average fuel mileage wasn’t as good as pictured below.
Fortunately it wasn’t as bad as below either.
Overall my average was 11L/100KM or 25 MPG for my US and UK readers. The average nightly fuel cost was $1.17 per liter or $3.54 per gallon which works out to an average nightly fuel cost of $4.68 per evening. Essentially the first delivery of the night paid for the gas and the tip and other deliveries were money in the bank. This is how everything broke down for the month.
| Week | # of Evenings | Total Deliveries | Total Earned |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | 4 | 20 | $196.89 |
| #2 | 4 | 29 | $243.53 |
| #3 | 2 | 13 | $131.23 |
| #4 | 2 | 17 | 152.20 |
| Totals | 12 | 79 | 723.85 |
| Total Fuel Cost | $4.68 avg/day x 12 days= 56.16 | Net Total: | 667.69 |
Now I can’t forget about the money seeds I collected in February and took to the recycling depot. The Alpine Wife’s mother had a few garbage bags that she wanted to get rid of so another big haul this month.
Summary
Thoughts on my month of food delivery.
- If possible do it in a smaller community or town. In one night I took 3 deliveries to the same apartment complex at the same time from 3 different restaurants that were all down the street from one another. It took a half hour to pickup all the orders and drive the 1.2 kms.
- Some people just can’t be asked to go outside. In fact one night I made two deliveries that were both 450 meters. Yes you read that correctly 450 meters. Google maps said it was 4 minutes to walk to my destination.
- Having a car with heated seats is a definite bonus when delivering in the sub-zero temps of a Canadian winter.
- Biggest frustration when being a delivery driver is sometimes the restaurant gets behind or it gets an order messed up. When this happens it’s was 20-40 minutes of waiting around to get out the door and on the road. Fortunately it was fairly infrequent.
- This is definitely something that could work around a work schedule since I was still working 9ish-5ish and the the folks at Foodieonline.ca were able to accommodate my availability.
Not bad husband. Not bad.
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