Mama’s Got a Side Hustle (And She’s Not Embarrassed)

On inflation, the price of a good weekend, and why I deliver Uber Eats with my daughter in the passenger seat.

Let me tell you what a regular Saturday costs.

My daughter wants to go to Slick City. Admission is $33.99. Plus $4.99 for the mandatory socks — yes, mandatory, yes, they sell them right there, yes, we own approximately nine pairs already and no I cannot produce a single one on demand. So we’re at $38.98 and she hasn’t even taken her shoes off yet.

Then she’s hungry, because she’s always hungry, so that’s lunch. Then we’re already out, so we might as well hit the mall, and she has found exactly one thing she cannot live without. Then ice cream, because we’re having such a good day and I am, apparently, a woman with no spine.

Add it up. Now do it again next weekend.

None of that is an emergency. Nobody’s lights are getting cut off over Slick City. But that’s kind of my whole point — the things that quietly drain a bank account aren’t the crises. They’re the yeses. And I say yes a lot, because I’ve got one kid and one childhood to work with.

So here’s my confession, and I want you to know I’m saying it with my chest: I have a career, I have clients, and I also deliver Uber Eats.

Everybody’s page looks like they’re thriving.

I know mine does. I like nice things — I’m not going to sit here and pretend I don’t. But somewhere between the vacation carousels and the “just settled in the new house” posts, we all quietly agreed to stop mentioning that everything costs more than it did two years ago. Groceries are ridiculous. Gas is ridiculous. That $400 grocery run that used to be $220 isn’t in anybody’s caption.

And I think the pretending is doing real damage. Because when everyone looks fine, the mom who’s doing math in the plaza parking lot thinks she’s the only one. She’s not. She’s just the only one being honest with herself.

So let me be honest with you: my income comes in and I want it to stay there. There’s a college fund with her name on it. There’s a vacation fund, because I fully intend to show that girl the world. There’s art I want for the walls of our new house. I am not about to raid any of that so we can have a fun Saturday.

That’s not being broke. That’s having a plan and refusing to let the fun stuff eat it.

So I picked up a side hustle. Not because I lost anything. Because I wanted something.

Here’s my actual receipt, because I’m not about to be vague with you about money when the whole point of this is honesty.

Last week: 8 hours and 48 minutes online. 18 trips. $323.32.

But look at how that breaks down, because this is the part nobody tells you. The base fare — the money Uber actually pays for the deliveries — was $86.42. The tips were $86.90. And the promotions? $150. Uber’s running bonus incentives right now for hitting a certain number of trips, and that bonus was almost half my total.

So am I telling you that you’ll clear $300 a weekend forever? Absolutely not. Once those promos end, the same hours look a lot more like $175. Do it while the bonuses are hot, know that tips are half your income so be the kind of courier people want to tip, and go in with your eyes open.

But even at $175 — that’s Slick City, lunch, the mall, and the ice cream. Funded. With my actual paycheck untouched.

There’s something almost fun about it, honestly. You turn the app on when you want. You turn it off when you’re done. Nobody’s asking you for a two-week notice or a doctor’s note. For a woman who runs her own business and has a child’s entire schedule living in her head, that kind of flexibility is the whole appeal.

Here’s the part that surprised me most.

I didn’t have a sitter the first time I tried it. So River came with me. (Uber Eats allows a passenger during deliveries — rideshare doesn’t, but food delivery does, and I checked before I ever put her in that car.) I made it safe, I made it a whole thing, and she thought it was the greatest adventure of her life.

She runs the music. She reads the addresses out. She keeps track of how many we’ve done. And when we’re finished, whatever I decide to hand her — fifty dollars, a hundred, whatever the run was worth — is hers to keep.

You want to know what that child has learned in a car full of somebody else’s dinner orders? That money comes from work. That her mother is not too cute to go get it. That when you want something, you go make the money for it instead of waiting on somebody to hand it to you.

I could have explained that to her a hundred times over dinner. Instead, she watched it.

I know what some people think. That this kind of work is beneath a woman with a résumé. That you have to be desperate to do it. That there’s something a little embarrassing about the whole thing.

To which I say: what exactly is embarrassing about a woman getting her money?

I’m the same girl who loves designer things. I’m also the same girl who will absolutely deliver your wings on a Tuesday so my daughter can have spending money on our next trip. Those two women live in the same body and neither one is apologizing.

Because the alternative — pretending, stretching, telling my kid no while I quietly panic about the college fund — that’s the actually embarrassing option. That’s the one that costs something.

So this is my permission slip to you, if you needed one.

Birthday coming up and the budget’s tight? Vacation you want to say yes to? Back-to-school list that made you laugh out loud? There is nothing wrong with picking up a few extra runs to make it happen. Do it safely, do it on your own terms, do it in the hours that actually work for your life. Here’s my referral link for you to get extra earnings:  https://drivers.uber.com/i/keymvk3

You are not failing because you need a little extra. You’re a mother in an expensive season, and you’re solving it. That’s not desperation. That’s competence.

I have a whole career. I have clients I love. I have a business with my name on it.

And this weekend, I might deliver a few burritos so my baby can go do whatever she wants.

Mama’s gotta get it.