How to earn 2000 dollars a month working part-time as a Grab food delivery rider

One of things I have learned whilst working as a food delivery rider for charity is how relatively straightforward it is to earn 2000 dollars a month whilst working part-time as a Grab food delivery rider. I realize that some people may want or need to earn an extra 2000 dollars a month to provide for themselves and their families. For those people, I share my lessons learned here.

How do you earn money as a Grab delivery rider? After signing up for Grab, you're free to deliver when and where you want. My advice is to

• work peak hours,

• work in high-demand areas and

• take full advantage of Grab's incentive schemes.

If you do these things, you can comfortably net 7 dollars per delivery and complete around 3 deliveries per hour. This gives you earnings of around 20 dollars per hour. Work around 25 hours per week to make 500 dollars per week which equates to more than 2000 dollars per month.

Here is a bit more information on how to make the most of your time.

Work in a high demand area

I work mainly in River Valley, Orchard and Tiong Bahru. In such areas, there are a relatively high number of jobs and a relatively low number of delivery riders. This ensures that you're kept busy delivering with limited wait time between jobs and the distance per job is relatively short.

In high demand areas you also get more 'grouped' orders which means that you pick up food from 2 restaurants in close proximity to one another and deliver to 2 customers who live near one another. This helps to increase the number of jobs you do per hour.

Rider incentives (see below) are also more generous in high demand areas.

Grab's high demand areas currently include Orchard, River Valley, Tanglin, Marina Bay, Tiong Bahru and Bukit Merah.

Work at peak times

I have a job in the daytime and can only work Grab outside 'normal' working hours. My weekly schedule as a Grab Food delivery rider is as follows:

• Monday to Friday: 2 - 3 hours per day between 5 PM and 8 PM

• Saturday and Sunday : up to 9 hours per day between 11 AM - 8 PM

Evenings are the busiest times for orders so make the most of them (I normally complete 6 - 10 jobs in 2 - 3 hours in the evening). On Saturdays, I take full advantage of my free time and work 8 - 9 hours (completing 20 - 25 jobs). How long I work on a Sunday depends mainly on how tired I am. If I am tired, I might only work 1 - 2 hours on a Sunday.

Make the most of Grab's incentive schemes

Grab Food's base delivery 'fare' paid to the delivery rider is around 5 dollars per delivery (it can vary a little based on distance, single v group order, etc.). As I said above, I earn around 7 dollars per delivery. How? By making the most of Grab's incentive schemes.

There are 2 main types of incentive schemes:

• Zone based incentives

• Time based incentives

Zone based incentives allow you to collect rewards (called "Gems") which are converted into cash. You earn more Gems in high-demand areas (see above). How it actually works is a quite intricate and I won't try to explain it in detail here. Suffice to say that the Gems you collect by working in in a high-demand area provide more than 1 dollar extra per job.

Time based incentives provide a fixed 'lump sum' payment based on hitting a certain number of jobs in a certain time. Grab offers various time based incentives (which they called "quests"). The more jobs you complete in an allotted time, the higher the incentive. You should do your research and find the incentives that work for you based on when you can work. The time based incentives I target are as follows:

• Weekday 'quest' : 30 dollars bonus for completing 35 deliveries from Monday to Friday

• Weekend 'quest' : 22 dollars bonus for completing 20 deliveries in a day on a Saturday and / or Sunday. (Sometimes I earn the higher level of this incentive which is 32 dollars for completing 25 or more deliveries).

So, for me, based on when and where I am able to work, the zone and time based incentives net out to a little more than 2 dollars per delivery. That increases my gross earnings per delivery from the base of around 5 dollars to more than 7 dollars per delivery.

It's that simple. If you're looking to earn an extra 2000 dollars per month have a bicycle (or other vehicle) and are prepared to work 20 - 25 hours per week, you can do it my working as Grab Food delivery rider. My advice: work in busy areas; work at peak hours and take full advantage of Grab Food's incentive schemes.

(Note : all of my tips are based on working as a rider on a bicycle.)