Back in August, I rented my motorcycle to a friend of BF’s who wanted to visit France with his girlfriend for 10 days. He could have gone to the official BMW motorcycle rental companies and paid around $130 per day for a week rental. It was also likely that the process would have been pretty complicated trying to get a rental vehicle with a Guatemalan passport. Instead, I just added a lending clause to my insurance policy and made a deal with him at $100 per day. Another options would have been to get short term insurance for him. You can get one day insurance from I4AD and similar companies.
BF is an avid rider and knows lots of Guatemalan riders, some of them may rent the bike again in the future. And with $1,000 in my pocket, the $1,500 I paid at the last minute to fly back to France for an eight weeks bike trip didn’t hurt that much.
My bike is parked at my mum’s most of the year. I used to have it at a friend’s place and my friend would use it, but now it just sits idle. Making extra money off it is a win win for a renter and for myself, and as an added bonus, the bike gets started, meaning the battery doesn’t get flat and the other components don’t get damaged by the lack of use.
Want to rent a BMW F650GS 800cc for your European holiday?
Rent your car while on holidays
There is a new company that started up in San Francisco called FlightCar, the idea is that instead of paying $20 or more a day to park at the airport while you are away, a valet from FlightCar picks your car up, and puts it up for rent.
At the moment, you get free parking, a free wash before and after the rental, and a $10 gas voucher for each day your car was rented. If it doesn’t rent, you still get free parking and a wash.
FlightCar also insures your car while someone else is driving it, they pay you $0.35 per mile over the 90 miles a day limit, cover the potential fines and even fill up your tank if the renter brought the car back with less gas.
While I have never tried it, I love all those sharing business models, where you can make money of something that would otherwise have cost you a bundle.
On the renter’s side, there are also big savings to be made when choosing FlightCar over a classic rental company.
Another such site is Ouicar.fr in France, where anyone can list their car anywhere with availability, and rent it to someone else.
Carpool
Another interesting site is Blablacar, which is a marketplace for people who go on a road trip and travelers looking for a ride. For a small fee of about $10 per 100 miles, you can book your ride from the comfort of your home instead of waiting for hours at the junction hoping someone will give you a ride.
In France it is pretty popular because we have very few buses, and the train at the last minute is really expensive. Blablacar also exists in the UK.
I have used a few similar sites that were only for rides within France, and taken a few people with me while driving my car from Paris to Morocco a few years back. It was fun but the ride wasn’t 100% confirmed until the person actually got in your car, and two defaulted, preventing me from booking other people. With Blablacar people prepay with their credit card via the site so your money is guaranteed.
Give rides
While Blablacar is for people who already know where they are going and try to get travelers to share the ride, on sites like TaskRabbit, people list their needs for a ride and you can bid to do the job.
Unless your rate is high enough to make up for your time and car depreciation, I would recommend you only take people if you plan on riding there anyway. For example if you work near the airport, there are people asking for airport rides all the time, you can take them and it would just be an extra 10 minutes out of your way. If you go specially for that, wake up at 4am so the person can make their 530 flight, and ride back home with all the inbound traffic going to work, you lost 3 hours to make $20 minus expenses, that is a poor operation.
On a related topic, I would advise against giving friends rides for gas money and a (rarely) bit extra, it is not worth your time and can leave you bitter if you do it for the extra cash. Do it as a favor, don’t think about it further. If you own a van and are the go to person when all your friends are moving however, you can set a rate a bit below a normal van rental, and let them have the vehicle for the day, without you as a free mover on top, unless you really want to help.
Another idea that comes to mind is taking on a paper route, but the car depreciation stopping and turning on your vehicle dozens of times plus gas, plus time doesn’t seem like a bargain.
Always make sure that you are properly insured before you take on any of those jobs!
How else can one make money thanks to one’s vehicle?
Money Stepper suggest you make money advertising on your car as well!
This post was featured on the Evolving Personal Finance, Freedom Thirty Five Blog, Young Adult Money, Carnival of Financial Planning, Carnival of Financial Finance, Lifestyle Blog Carnival, Carnival of Financial Camaderie, Freedom Thirty Five, Outlier Model, thank you!
Great tips! I would include pizza or sandwich delivery as well, especially here in the United States. You can almost guarantee yourself you will be able to find a job delivering at one of the many shops in pretty much every city.
DC @ Young Adult Money recently posted…The Weekly Quick Hits Roundup
I didn’t know you could do it with your own car, I always see cars with company (pizza, mcd) stickers that seem to belong to them.
You can. The company just gives you it’s sign or sticker to put on your car and after the shift you remove it.
Demaish @ Borrowed Cents recently posted…Commute based on cost and convenience
Different rules in different countries I guess but I do not like to lend my car and I would never accept payment from anyone. There can be serious liability and insurance issues if an accident occurs.
Canadians already pay enough for car insurance. I can’t imagine how much I would pay if I was loaning my car for profit. If I failed to notify my insurance provider they would not have to pay any claims that might happen.
Jane Savers @ Solving The Money Puzzle recently posted…Energy Costs Rise As The Temperature Drops, British Interest Rates And Money Quickies For October 23,2013
Flightcar covers your extra insurance so it doesn’t cost you extra. I added my friend on the policy for a few days for $30. It was worth it to make $1,000.
Wow, I really like this idea! I always say I’m nervous with my vehicle and I would be really nervous to rent it out to strangers, but if you can make enough money off of it, why not? Though to Jane’s point above, Canadians do already pay enough for car insurance.
Daisy @ Prairie Eco Thrifter recently posted…Should You Buy a House Now?
Wow, sounds like a pretty cool idea. I’d say pretty much anything delivery related could be added to this as well. I had heard of FlightCar before and will be interested to see if it spreads to other cities.
John S @ Frugal Rules recently posted…Making Friends at FinCon: Why You Should Go Next Year
sounds like a really cool concept, let’s see if the big rental companies let it happen.
Really interesting ideas here, Pauline. A few years back I applied for pizza delivery jobs which can be an alright gig in the States. Taskrabbit isn’t around us yet, but I tried to sign up for it…
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I didn’t know pizza places let you use your own vehicle, in France they have their own fleet.
I’m not sure I can get a non-commercial insurance policy that would allow me to rent my car here in the states. But I don’t think I would want strangers driving my car anyways.
Flightcar is an interesting idea, and I have heard they are in for quite the court battle with the traditional car rental places in San Fran since they are taking business. So it will be interesting to see how that all shakes out.
From what I understand, Flightcar pays for your insurance so you need no additional policy. I am sure the other rental companies are pretty annoyed by their presence like hotels are by Airbnb but that is the new trend those days and I think they’ll let them operate.
How about adding advertising on your vehicle whilst you drive about town:
http://moneystepper.com/ways-to-earn-money/advertising-on-your-car/
moneystepper recently posted…Real wages in the UK – how inflation is impacting your salary
oh yes I had forgotten about that one, thanks for the reminder!
I wouldn’t rent out my car since I know how I treat rental cars and wouldn’t want others driving my car like that. 🙂
Kyle | Rather-Be-Shopping.com recently posted…Field Trip to the Pumpkin Patch: Life Lessons Abound
Reminds me on a trip with a lot of speed bumps and every time my friend would ride over one at full speed screaming “we don’t care it’s a rental!”. Yeah, you don’t want that.
LOL..so true!!
Awesome ways to make some extra cash with very little work! I would just caution your readers to make sure they have the insurance figured out for when you are accepting money to lend your vehicle. I wanted to rent out my car by the day a while back and spoke with my insurance agent and was told that if I lent it to a friend I would be covered. If I accepted money to rent the vehicle I would need a commercial insurance policy and massive liability policy. For as little as I was planning to rent the car out it didn’t make it worth it. But hey, great job on the $100/day you were able to get your bike! Awesome stuff!
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That is true, checking insurance is very important. Apparently in the case of flightcar they get the insurance for you so the renters are covered IF they rent your car.
I don’t think I would let anyone take my car, but I’d certainly use something like Flightcar if it were more widespread. Rental car prices and taxes are crazy if you don’t look for a really good deal, and last minute is insane. We tried to rent a car once after our flight got cancelled, and they wanted $200 a day to rent onsite without a reservation!
Kim@Eyesonthedollar recently posted…Fincon 13: Stepping Outside My Comfort Zone and Loving It
Hotels play the same game, a few times during this trip I have gone inside a hotel to ask for the rate, was given a crazy price, went online (generally using their wifi haha) and saw the online rate was much cheaper. Now I try to check online too.
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There is a time I used to deliver magazines, also medical supplies here in the US. Apart from raking in miles, the money was good.
Demaish @ Borrowed Cents recently posted…Commute based on cost and convenience
You would have to deduce that from the pay, but I imagine there was a rate per mile or something to compensate car usage.
I heard about the flightcar business model and I also think the sharing business models are next big thing. Although with flightcar, I’m sure the rental car agencies will put up a fight. I think there was some issue about the business not having to pay certain fees that the agency does to do business at the airport. In anycase, I hope the business succeeds as everyone would love to have a cheaper rental car.
Andrew@LivingRichCheaply recently posted…A Farm in the Concrete Jungle and Roundup
yeah, I doubt they’ll go down without a fight. It would be interesting to know the impact of Airbnb on hotels for example.
Thanks so much for the link – and thanks for adding to this ‘sharing debate’ with fab new info. I love these business sharing models too – if there’s one good thing to come out of this recession it’s that it’s got us all thinking about how we can pool resources etc to save cash.
Great ideas re making money from your vehicle – why shouldn’t we rent our vehicles when they’re not in use? I think it’s a great idea. I also spoke to a taxi driver the other day who makes money renting out his driveway whilst he’s at work during the day.
Skint in the City recently posted…How to get onto the property ladder
I rent my parking space in the UK and have seen many ads offering rental just for business hours Monday to Friday. I think I could make a bit more finding two tenants as my only one so far is just parking while he works nearby but that sounds like a big headache trying to coordinate the two, if one stays home one day or the other one works late. I saw long term driveway/garden rental too, to park your RV during winter for example.
I didn’t realize there are so much car sharing and rental businesses. In Hawaii I don’t thing we have those. I haven’t seen those bubble wrapped car with advertisements in a while.
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Hello there!
You just gave me a good idea! I will definitely let my brother read this post. I will tell him to rent his motorcycle to his friend who is now planning to visit the city. I had heard of FlightCar before and will be interested to see if it spreads to other cities.
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I love the idea of renting your car out but I wonder what kind of protections are in place to prevent theft and damage. I’ve used craigslist for rideshares before- helping pay for gas to get to a shared destination.
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Driving a car that is sponsored is a great way to pay less for travel as well. Sure you might have a thousand stickers all over it promoting a company, but hey, your wallet will thank you later.
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You just gave me a nice idea! I had actually heard of FlightCar before. THank you for sharing this very informative post.
Anne recently posted…Single Mother Help with Finances, Daycare and Education
This is a good idea. Sometimes our vehicles are kept in a corner of the house for so long and we jut find out that they are out of order when we take them out to use. We should not leave them there, take them out for rent to get some money from them is better.
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Amazing! I can earn more money from my motorcycle. I rarely use it, because every day I go to school by bike. Your advices like selling the old furniture , the things I do not use, but it is useful to others. It can help make money and clearing my house. It is re-used. Thank you ! 🙂
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Ahha great idea to make more money through renting your own vehicle in vacation and also get free wash and parking.I don’t know about flightcar before reading this post that we can get free parking and wash. This is awesome and thanks for sharing this post with us.