My Instacart Financial Report - Week 1

in LeoFinance3 years ago (edited)

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My first Instacart paycheck 💸 🛒

I have completed my first full week of shopping for customers through Instacart. As an Instacart driver, I am paid by the batch, but I also receive tips which is the larger portion of my pay. I was unsure how things would go initially, this is how my first day went.

Since losing my Instacart virginity, I have quickly caught on to how it all works. My speed at the various stores has increased dramatically already. I'm starting to get an idea of which orders are actually worth my time. The key is lots of items and low mileage, at least for me that is what I shoot for. If I notice that the customer is an unusually good tipper, then I'm quick to accept one of those batches also.

I didn't overwork myself during this first week. I worked Mon-Fri and committed anywhere from 2-6 hours each of those days. In total it was just over 20 hours and some days were much more productive than others. In the coming weeks, I hope to work even more than that, but never over 30 hours unless I am just having a really boring week. I don't want to get back to feeling overworked and doing 40+ hours like most people these days.

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I plan on doing a weekly Instacart Financial Report like this one, so if you enjoy this kind of content be sure to follow me if you aren't already doing so.

I'm going to be breaking down each day of work individually. Luckily, the Instacart Shopper app makes that extremely easy to do. Let's go ahead and get things started.


Monday, January 9th

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My first day of giving this gig a shot. I wouldn't say that I was nervous, but I didn't have full confidence just yet. It didn't take me long to get in a groove though, I ended up working about 4 hours this day.

I made about $13.75/hr on this day.

I think the app was trying to avoid giving me orders from multiple customers at once, which I think is smart. It did a great job of gradually introducing me to the more difficult batches that pay more.

My tips were less than my batch pay, which now I realize is a bad thing. I needed to do a better job of accepting the batches that were with customers who tip higher.


Tuesday, January 10th

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Day number two and I aimed to knock out four orders once again. I spent about 30 minutes less than Monday working but made basically the same amount of money. This to me smells like progress.

I made about $15.70/hr on this day.

I think I did a good job of not accepting anything that would pay less than $10, but a bad job of getting any batches over $20. Again, I think the app was trying to make sure I didn't get overwhelmed and mess up since I was still new.

My tips were once again less than my batch pay, but I had a feeling that the stat would flip once I completed enough orders to be considered fully trained.


Wednesday, January 11th

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This was a shorter work day for me as I didn't have the free time I usually do. Family dinner plans cut into my available working time, but I still found a way to spend 2.5 hours out shopping for people.

I made about $14.57/hr on this day.

One thing I was very happy to finally do was complete my first double order. This is where you shop for two separate customers at one store. I use one cart and baskets inside of it to make sure I don't confuse the two orders. It works well, but it would be a lot easier to just push around two carts at once.

This was the first day that my tips were higher than my batch earnings. This is going to be something that always fluctuates, but anytime tips are higher I think it was a good day overall.


Thursday, January 12th

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This was the day that I worked the most total hours, an exhausting 6 hours. I would not like to work this much every single day, but I think I can manage it a time or two each week.

I made about $10.84/hr on this day.

This was my worst day in terms of making the best use of my time. I did pretty well overall, but my third order left me a $0 tip and that just wrecked my chances of having higher hourly pay. I assumed the customer was the type of person to change their tip after they've rated the service, but I guess that instead, she was just a cheap ass. I talked about this story a few days ago in my unique Instacart stories blog, she was the birdseed woman. I never again will accept a batch with a $0 estimated tip, lesson learned.

Somehow despite the $0 tip, my tips were still. higher than my batch earnings. If it weren't for that one horrible order, this would have most likely been my best day of the week.


Friday, January 13th

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I saved the best for last and I did not do that on purpose. Friday was an excellent day for me. I only had to work about 4.5 hours and earned nearly $80 by the end of it. Shoutout to the two people who left me a $25 and $15 tip. I wish everybody was this giving because I sure appreciate it.

I made about $17.83/hr on this day.

Shopping early in the morning seems like by far the best time to do it. There aren't many people out at that time and traffic is as close as it'll get to non-existent. I haven't tried late at night yet, that may be good for the same reasons. Honestly, though, I hate having to drive in the dark so I will probably just keep working in the morning and afternoon depending on what else I have to do that day.

My tips were more than double my batch earnings for this day. I really hope that I have more days like this one. If I had worked as much as I did on Thursday, most likely would have had my first $100 day. I know that will come soon enough though.


End of week hours and pay

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My weekly pay was close to $300 and I barely worked over 20 hours. I absolutely love being able to work as little or as much as I like. Being able to just flip the switch on the app and all of a sudden get to work beats the routine of a regular 9-5 by many miles.

I made about $14.19/hr on average this past week.

I am very confident that next week I will increase my hours, hourly pay, and total earnings. My goal is of course to surpass $300 since I was so close this time. I think that I could get close to $500 if I put in the time and make sure to accept the best orders.


Doing it again next week

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Saturdays and Sundays are said to be the highest-paying days within Instacart. I love how much information the app provides shoppers, I'm big on stats. It looks like some days through the week also have increased pay. I haven't figured out exactly why and I assume it'll change each week.

I probably won't be able to work much on the weekends ever, but if I ever do it'll be very interesting to see if the pay really is noticeably better or not.

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I hope you have enjoyed this insider look at what kind of pay is possible while working for Instacart.




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Hopefully your hourly rate goes up as you get more and more used to it.

I really think it will. One of my friends said he was consistently making $25/hr. That would be so awesome to have an income like that again.

Sounds like you are figuring it all out and that it's working for you. That's great! Can you make lists of regular customers? Like category 1. Good tippers to accept and category 2. Bad tippers (aka birdseed lady) to avoid.
You may want to factor in your expenses when doing yoir analysis - i.e. estimated gas money spent. Sounds like you are aware of that already though since you look for low milage batches. You may want to look into items that you can right off for taxes if it's considered freelance work. May be able to right off a portion of your milage and cell phone bill for example.

Sadly the app doesn't tell me who my customer is before accepting it. It gives you the estimated batch pay and what type of tip they tend to give. Then it tells you how far away from the store they live and what items they will be purchasing. Only after accepting a batch do you get the person's name and are able to chat with them. It also will not give you their exact address until you have uploaded a copy of the recipient of purchase.

I'm definitely taking note of gas, I'm using more than I usually do that's for sure. So far it still seems worth it. Taxes will be something I will have to be ready for next year too.

I see. Yeah I suppose it makes sense that they withhold some of that info. Yeah track milage and keep receipts for any "business expense." You will want to claim as much back from taxes as you can. 👍

I also find this type of amazing app in my country because working only 4 hours and earn 54$ its very huge amount. In Pakistan people's works 10 hours and earn just 1000 pkr in dollars just 4$. One of the biggest advantages of working on such apps is that you can also give time to hive. There are so many educated people in Pakistan but they are forced because there are no jobs here. Some time ago, there was a government job for guard, so people with MA had applied for this job because there are no jobs here.

Living in the USA provides so many opportunities. Many people who live here take it for granted. I’m grateful to be where I am every day. I know that you understand that opportunity usually comes at a cost, so the fact that I was so easily able to start this job is such a blessing.

There is actually a lot of workplace in the USA. That is why the people of Pakistan and India go to foreign countries after studying so that their hard work pays off.

Needless to tell you that I follow you because you already know eh eh!

I really like this type of relationship, moreover, as you know, I find this working formula interesting, so I am pleased to read your developments.

I'm sure you'll be able to increase your earnings and I don't think you'll do it just by working more hours; in my opinion, by practicing you will be able to maximize deliveries at the same time; obviously by doing a few more hours it will be easier to achieve certain gains.

However, I like the effort you put into it and the value you give to time, we see it the same way!

The last company I worked for the thought of its workers as "bodies" and not human beings. At least with Instacart, they don't try to get me to overwork myself. I like that it is up to me and not somebody else whether or not I show up to do some work.

I'm with you on that thought about increasing my earnings. I don't want to increase the hours, but with more experience and better shopping strategies, I should see a decent bump in my average hourly pay.

This is the worst thing, one is inclined not to work well and indeed to not really want to work under certain conditions.

I would say that's not halfbad? Almost 300 usd for around 20 hours work? Fucking amazing to say the least and you made more on tips than the actual pay😂 are you showing a bit of booty there 😂

!PIZZA
!LUV

I've been looking through https://www.reddit.com/r/InstacartShoppers/ and it seems as though my first week wasn't too bad in comparison to other new shoppers. There is potential to do much better of course, but also things could have been worse. It's mostly about taking the right orders, being good at the job is the second most important thing.

Outside of the USA, I know that $300 is an insane amount of money for 20 hours of work. Sadly, that won't even pay my rent here and I have "low rent" for my city. It's still going to help out a lot in terms of me being able to continue living the way I want to right now.

Your instacart uniform is super cool and very tactical looking! 😊😎🤙

Nice payday already! wow, u are a natural at this! :)

really interesting to see the numbers and what % of that is tips..

You never know when you’re going to get an order on the moon. Gotta be prepared, I have my helmet in the passenger seat at all times 🧑‍🚀

I’m aiming for more high tip orders, you know I need that 💰

all good! 😁👍💲

Another late comment. Dude, I think it's a success that you earn about 300 dollars by working 20 hours in 1 week. Moreover, this is a job you are a beginner. I think you can reach 400 dollars in the same hours over time. Good luck!

When I worked my first job in high school as a grocery bagger and cart getter, I was lucky to make $150/week, if that. Now it is possible to easily make double that here in the USA with so many jobs like Instacart.

I know a lot of people in Turkey who would work in this kind of job. It's really great that there are such opportunities in America.

I hope that these opportunities will spread far and wide so everyone is given an equal chance to succeed in life.

I love it. Working how you want. I think the hourly pay is not bad. This kind of app is just popping up in my country. I check this out, sounds like fun! Hopefully, I don´t have 5 customers' orders in the same shop :-) Could be complicated. Thanks!

This is such a great line of work for so many people. I'm very flexible as is, but I imagine people like single mothers benefit hugely from the way Instacart works. At least with Instacart, they give you the option of only accepting orders for one or two people at a time so that you do not give overwhelmed.

Well done bro, this is a part-time job, and you still have time to create your content, maybe you can do both, in combination, you can record a podcast when you're driving and I'm sure it will be amazing.

Having the ability to continue creating content on Hive while working this job is one of the biggest reasons I'm so hyped about it. I don't ever want to get involved with another job that makes it nearly impossible for me to ever find the time to write posts or create videos.

Yes man, I'm in that situation and it's a nightmare.

I feel for you. I was stuck in that mode for my first 4 years of creating on Hive. I never want to go back to that and I hope you will gain the same freedom sooner rather than later.

Hope so 🙏

Hey that's not too bad, especially considering you were unaccustomed to the whole gig. Next week will be better for you I'm sure! Best part is you are your own boss on your own time.

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I was hoping next week would be better, but as you'll see in my post tomorrow that probably will not be the case. I have a feeling Week 3 will be great though!

That's the spirit..Will look forward to seeing a week 3 recap!

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@tipu curate

that is the most important thing to know which orders are the most accessible to carry them out since efficiency and speed is the essential type of work

I'm slowly but surely figuring out how to best do this.

You really earn a lot
Good luck to you

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It's not a bad gig, especially with all the perks of basically working for yourself.

He really liked his new job and he believed that as the days go by it will be much better


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