Door Dash

DoorDash.

It is appealing at first. Work when ever you want, set your own hours, and you can cash out at the end of the day, and whatever that is $50 to $100 or more a day is yours to put in your bank account.

Well, if you're just starting out, yes it is very appealing. But before you do let me educate you a little bit before you decide to work for yourself. A month ago I had gotten an email from door dash about how many miles I drove for 2020. It wasn't a lot it was 229 miles. I started in October of 2020 and just did it off and on when the app would let me "DASH NOW".

Let me give you a little bit of information about me. I am a disabled veteran. I get military benefits for the disabilities that I have in my feet and in my knees, it's not a lot but it's enough for me to get by. But I wanted something to do. I was bored. I heard about this food delivery service called Door dash. I thought that sounds pretty cool and simple, go to restaurants pick up meals, and deliver them. I can do that. Well turns out you can only dash when the "DASH NOW" button lights up. Sometimes I could schedule hours but it wasn't too often, in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Door dash was still fairly pretty new. But I was determined to try to make some money while doing this. It wasn't too bad, I was able to on most days work from 11 am until 2 pm sometimes 4 pm it all depended on how many door dashers were out there working.

Let's fast forward to February 2021, I got my w2's from working doordash, Longhorn steakhouse, and Home depot. I'm not one to sit on my taxes until the last minute. I want to get them done. So I made the appointment and I am at H & R block filing my taxes. Then the lady says and, "How many miles did you drive for door dash in 2020"? Stumped I said, "I don't know, uh let me check, I got an email from them a week ago saying how many miles I drove". I sit there and go through my doordash email and find the email that says that I drove 229 miles. I show cpa and she says, "Okay great let me just plug that info in and see how much you're going to get back on your return".

Stumped, I ask her why does it matter? She said because being a contractor through door dash they put a $.50 tax on every mile you drive. "WOAH pump the brakes you mean for every mile I drive I am being taxed on it"? Apparently, yes they do, they tax you $.50 for every mile you drive for door dash. So as you can tell from the picture (the spreadsheet at the top of this article) you will see the date drove, the mileage from when I started to the mileage that I stopped, how many miles it was, the $.50 tax, the day's earnings, the total for the taxes, and the day's actual profit or loss determining on how many miles I drove that day.

Now, I don't want to discourage you, it's great, it absolutely is working for yourself, setting your own hours, and making some money. But when you get this in your head, your going to start wondering, is it really worth it? That is going to be a question that only you can answer. One of my buddies Rich drives for Doordash up in Great Falls, Montana. We were talking about doordash one evening and he showed me what he was making. It wasn't too bad he was making anywhere from $115 to $130 +/- a night. But if he was driving 100 miles a day/night he really wasn't making that much.

So, let's get hypothetical. I'll use estimates. Let's say you drive 100 miles a day/night that's $50 in taxes. Each order you do is $8.00 you would have to do 20 orders to make $160 minus the taxes you actually made $110 a day/night. Let's say you were able to do this for the entire week that wouldn't be too bad you would have $550 a week $2,200 a month, $26,400 a year. Okay now here it is, you were able to make that doing doordash for the entire year now it's time to file your taxes. You remember that you drove 100 miles a day and you worked Thanksgiving and Christmas you didn't take one day off. That's 365 days a year. I think you might be getting audited because you drove 36,500 miles and only made $26,400.

Now I don't know about you, but when I file my taxes, I want to be able to say that I have made money and that working for doordash was worth it wouldn't you?