Hello! I'm 29 and working toward FI in a mid-sized Iowa city. I love to run and I coach high school track and cross country in a small rural town. Just got out of debt at the start of this year. Now I'm trying to save enough money to cover anything that my meager coaching salary doesn't. For other income, I've delivered lots of pizzas over the past 3-4 years (might get back into that soon), and I currently do apartment/pool maintenance work for a big property management group here. Excited to be part of the forum!
Looking forward to filling my FI days with lots of gardening, running/triathlon training, wood working, reading, and making more visits to friends and family.
Ralphy in Iowa
In a nutshell, I LOVE delivering pizza, and I could probably write all night about different reasons why. One of the biggest is the fact that increased productivity actually correlates to higher income, which is a no-no in my other jobs. Where I worked, drivers made 4.50-6.00 per hour, though a lot of other stores in town pay minimum wage. Vehicle compensation was 1.00 per delivery - which usually about breaks even for gas on a slow night, but can be a big money maker on busy nights. I've had lots of Fridays and Saturdays where I used half a tank of gas (about $10 in my 30-35 mpg 1989 Ford Festiva) but made $40 in comp. We got a W2 every year, but it only reported wages. Vehicle comp and tips were paid nightly in cash. Paychecks were weekly. I averaged about a 2.50 tip per delivery.
For the last year I did it, I was the "Driver Manager," so I had to be available for most busy shifts (Friday, Saturday, home football games, etc) but also got a raise and free food and pop. No-brainer for me, since I always wanted the busy shifts for the extra $$ anyway.
If you live in a college town (or other bigger market, I suppose), drive a fully-depreciated fuel-efficient car, there's definitely decent money to be made, especially if you're not relying on the income.
Delivering also helped me justify having a car in my ERE strategy
Would be happy to answer any other questions about pizza delivery...
For the last year I did it, I was the "Driver Manager," so I had to be available for most busy shifts (Friday, Saturday, home football games, etc) but also got a raise and free food and pop. No-brainer for me, since I always wanted the busy shifts for the extra $$ anyway.
If you live in a college town (or other bigger market, I suppose), drive a fully-depreciated fuel-efficient car, there's definitely decent money to be made, especially if you're not relying on the income.
Delivering also helped me justify having a car in my ERE strategy
Would be happy to answer any other questions about pizza delivery...-
Steve Austin
- Posts: 177
- Joined: Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:17 am
What is the central driver (NPI) of your love of pizza delivery? Is it the delivery? The transactional nature? The homogeneity of the product? The car driving? Also, being a software engineer, I'm kind of curious about how the dispatching of particular drivers to particular delivery addresses works. Any software involved, or does a human make all the decisions on that?
Owning a pizza parlor is on my list of to do's, as it makes ridiculous money. A friend/co-worker of mine used to manage two pizza places before his divorce in his mid twenties. Now we talk about it a lot, but haven't pulled the trigger.
A laundromat also comes up quite a bit - again, hard to pull the trigger.
A laundromat also comes up quite a bit - again, hard to pull the trigger.
@ Steve -
Last question first - we had a computer program that kept track of all your deliveries, the money you owed the store, how long you were gone on your run, etc, but orders were dispatched manually, with a few unwritten guidelines. Let's say I get back from a run and the other drivers are still gone on their deliveries. I have to take the oldest order in the store. If there's another order ready that's going to the same part of town, I can also take that, even if it's not the second-oldest order. When we were really busy (usually around bar closing time), we'd have to string together 3, 4 or sometimes 5 runs. So dispatching was self-policed, and most drivers were pretty good about not getting too greedy. If you tried to take more than your share, other drivers definitely noticed and would turn around and screw you back.
I think what I liked best was that if you worked hard and you worked efficiently, there was a direct effect on your income. Taking more deliveries meant more money in your pocket, period. I've worked too many hourly wage jobs where there was very little external incentive to do a good job - you'd still get paid the same at the end of the day.
There were a lot of other things I liked too -
- I do actually enjoy driving (especially in my Festiva)
- I was able to put an arcade machine in the lobby for some extra income
- we served mostly college students, so working weekends was basically hopping around from party to party (which I suppose isn't a plus for everyone)
- the income to effort ratio was very nice - most weekend shifts I could drive around town listening to music and talk shows for 10 hours and walk out with $100 to $150 in cash, and get a paycheck at the end of the week on top of that
- a small sense of being your own boss (you don't spend a lot of time in the store on a busy night)
There were some cons, too -
- relying on college students for business meant that business was essentially dead in summer (which worked out - more time for camping and canoeing)
- vehicle maintenance and gas costs can be a problem if you don't have the right car...I used to have a Monte Carlo that got about half the gas mileage that my Festiva gets, plus it was a lot harder to work on
- not all drivers make good money - I was definitely at the top end at our store, and not everybody gets to (or wants to) work the busy shifts
- late, late nights...our store took orders 'til 3:30 am on weekends to catch the bar close rush, and clean-up could take until 4-5 am
@ Q - I agree that pizza joints can bring in a lot of cash in the right situation, and I've thought about owning one too. Our market has gotten saturated with pizza shops in the past couple years, though, which is why I got out of driving. Our store just wasn't getting the business that it used to,
Last question first - we had a computer program that kept track of all your deliveries, the money you owed the store, how long you were gone on your run, etc, but orders were dispatched manually, with a few unwritten guidelines. Let's say I get back from a run and the other drivers are still gone on their deliveries. I have to take the oldest order in the store. If there's another order ready that's going to the same part of town, I can also take that, even if it's not the second-oldest order. When we were really busy (usually around bar closing time), we'd have to string together 3, 4 or sometimes 5 runs. So dispatching was self-policed, and most drivers were pretty good about not getting too greedy. If you tried to take more than your share, other drivers definitely noticed and would turn around and screw you back.
I think what I liked best was that if you worked hard and you worked efficiently, there was a direct effect on your income. Taking more deliveries meant more money in your pocket, period. I've worked too many hourly wage jobs where there was very little external incentive to do a good job - you'd still get paid the same at the end of the day.
There were a lot of other things I liked too -
- I do actually enjoy driving (especially in my Festiva)
- I was able to put an arcade machine in the lobby for some extra income
- we served mostly college students, so working weekends was basically hopping around from party to party (which I suppose isn't a plus for everyone)
- the income to effort ratio was very nice - most weekend shifts I could drive around town listening to music and talk shows for 10 hours and walk out with $100 to $150 in cash, and get a paycheck at the end of the week on top of that
- a small sense of being your own boss (you don't spend a lot of time in the store on a busy night)
There were some cons, too -
- relying on college students for business meant that business was essentially dead in summer (which worked out - more time for camping and canoeing)
- vehicle maintenance and gas costs can be a problem if you don't have the right car...I used to have a Monte Carlo that got about half the gas mileage that my Festiva gets, plus it was a lot harder to work on
- not all drivers make good money - I was definitely at the top end at our store, and not everybody gets to (or wants to) work the busy shifts
- late, late nights...our store took orders 'til 3:30 am on weekends to catch the bar close rush, and clean-up could take until 4-5 am
@ Q - I agree that pizza joints can bring in a lot of cash in the right situation, and I've thought about owning one too. Our market has gotten saturated with pizza shops in the past couple years, though, which is why I got out of driving. Our store just wasn't getting the business that it used to,
There's plenty of room for pizza here in the bay. Shoot, we have every type no less - philly, NYC, chicago, old school italian (yeh, pizza is american born but still), california pizza kitchen, all the chains, and some stellar mom and pops.
One in particular, where I used to live, has such excellent pizza and is run by some older asian people. My apartment complex is Massive, and the 3 big chains are close (15 minutes tops), with 2 small places nearby too.
Good to hear that there is a pizza driving culture of sorts too. Cuz there's definitely a pizza eating culture.
One in particular, where I used to live, has such excellent pizza and is run by some older asian people. My apartment complex is Massive, and the 3 big chains are close (15 minutes tops), with 2 small places nearby too.
Good to hear that there is a pizza driving culture of sorts too. Cuz there's definitely a pizza eating culture.
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Steve Austin
- Posts: 177
- Joined: Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:17 am
Ralphy, I enjoyed your answers. I suspect that you could expound even further into novella length, and it would still be interesting. Have you read the early 90s cyberpunk (or cypherpunk, can't recall which) novel Snow Crash? You might really enjoy at least the beginning of the story, in which the protagonist is a driver for a full-guarantee pizza delivery parlor, run by organized crime. Neal Stephenson is the author. The book is also known for foretelling the World Wide Web.
Probably the biggest con that I forgot to mention was the stigma of being a 'pizza driver'. Since the main requirements to get a job as a delivery driver are to have (A) a car and (B) a pulse, a lot of people assume you're lazy or the stereotypical stoner. I certainly had to put up with a few years of "You're still delivering pizzas?" from my mom.
It's very refreshing to bring up my enthusiasm for pizza delivery here and actually receive some genuine interest from the forum.
It's very refreshing to bring up my enthusiasm for pizza delivery here and actually receive some genuine interest from the forum.
Very interesting, thanks Ralphy... Jobs where you get paid for productivity, rather than mere presence, are fantastic.
I had a job in a furniture warehouse where I was paid piece rate, .55-1.10 per piece of furniture moved.
That was 10 years ago, and I have still not earned that much money from another job. But my body would probably be broken by now if I'd had stuck with it.
I had a job in a furniture warehouse where I was paid piece rate, .55-1.10 per piece of furniture moved.
That was 10 years ago, and I have still not earned that much money from another job. But my body would probably be broken by now if I'd had stuck with it.