Uber vs. Lyft

Today I tried to use Lyft for the first time instead of Uber. In the past I have used Uber as my preferred ride service but my son told me to give Lyft a try. He has both apps on his smartphone and told me that Lyft would save me $15 today. So I loaded up the app on my phone, put in my credit-card information and hailed a ride for me, my wife, and grandson.

Both Uber and Lyft applications look very similar. Yes, there are differences but they are mostly cosmetic and otherwise behave the same. You have choices for different levels of service and know the number of people you can squeeze into the car. This is very important as there were 3 of us. You can also see the driver's rating and where he/she is on a map in relation to your location.

I could see that our driver was getting close to us and then he disappeared. The Lyft app then told us it would locate another driver. We waited for about 5 minutes and it told us nobody wanted to give us a ride. We then had to reschedule a new driver. I went in and tried to schedule another ride and the price increased by $10. I then switched to Uber and put in our destination. The price was half of what Lyft wanted and so I booked the ride with Uber. Furthermore, we had waited 15 minutes for Lyft already and the Uber driver would arrive in 2 minutes.

I'll be the first to admit that you can't base your opinion for a company on one unfavorable experience. I will also say that I have had an Uber driver get close to picking me up only to cancel at the last minute and make me order a new ride. That being said, I am probably never going to use Lyft again. Uber has treated me well in the past and I think they have gained my loyalty. Besides, I am not traveling nearly as much as I used to and I don't really need Lyft or Uber services as much as I used to. Today was just one of those exceptions.

Ideas for Investing $2000

Recently I opened a Webull trading account and started playing around in the stock market. It has been less than 3 weeks and I have increased my investment by 30%. Part of that is because the overall market is up and part of it is because I guessed and purchased an undervalued stock that is going through the roof right now. The exercise has got me thinking about other investments one could make and that is the inspiration behind today's post.

I chose the amount of $2000 because it is a sum of money that a lot of people can easily raise, especially with a potential new round of stimulus checks. It is also a number that lends itself to smaller investments and not enough for a larger investment such as a home.

I also want to think outside the box. When most people think of investments, they picture the stock market and I want to go beyond that. Yes, it is one option but what other options exist. I doubt I will create an exhaustive list but it should give you some ideas of what will work for you. You may even come up with some better ideas on your own.

The Stock Market - Yes you could do as I have done and invest in the stock market. The problem is that there are thousands of stocks to choose from. What do you invest in? Many investment advisors suggest companies whose brands you use. This is why a lot of people invest in Apple (APPL) and have done quite well over the past years. I saw the run on toilet paper since COVID-19 began and invested in a toilet paper company. Unfortunately that stock has lost value for me. It is only down $2.50 and so I am not too concerned, but it does highlight the fact that you can lose money in the stock market. Let's look at some other ideas that many will find more appealing.

Invest in Yourself - A long time ago I used to work for Oracle Corporation. I had a fair number of shares of stock in them (ORCL) and sold that stock to pay for my college education as I received the stock while I was in high school. I don't regret that choice at all. You could do the same thing with the suggested $2000 and invest it in your own personal learning. It won't come close to paying for a college degree but it may allow you to take the continuing education course that gets you that better paying job. Perhaps there is a skill that you want to learn simply to improve your own quality of life. While it may not reward you monetarily, it will pay you back in other ways.

This brings up investing in your self image. You have to be careful with this one as some people tend to go overboard but it is something to consider. If you work in an office where people dress up, it makes sense to invest in nice clothes. Perhaps your teeth are a bit crooked and you are very self conscious about it. Just be sure that the investment you are making will truly pay you back in some form. Don't use it as an excuse to buy something you don't really need.

I think you are the first area you should look at before other investment opportunities. If you are satisfied with who you are and what you have become, then you can look at other investments.

Invest in Tools - Before you can build a house, you better own a hammer. Not everyone wants to go into construction and there are other tools you may need for your interests. If you want to become a YouTube star, you might need a camera or a computer. You might even be able to get started with a good smartphone. $2000 is a start to help you get going. Just be forewarned that YouTube sensations don't happen overnight and it may be a year or more before you see any repayment of that investment. This is where my 30% in 3 weeks starts to look good.

There are plenty of other examples of purchasing tools that will help you earn money. Right now there are several car manufacturers that are offering 0% loans on new cars. $2000 would be a great down payment that could get you a rental car that you can make available on Turo. I skied with a guy who has a small fleet of Hondas and renting them on Turo is his full-time job. Perhaps you don't like the idea of letting someone drive your car and you dream of becoming a Lyft or Uber driver. A new car would definitely help out especially since both companies have minimum standards for the quality of cars they allow you to drive.

I'm sure there are plenty of other examples of tools purchases but I don't want to go on too long and will leave other ideas up to you.

Hopefully this has given you some new ideas on what to do with your investment money. Just remember that an investment takes time to mature. Stocks may be down or your YouTube channel may not have the 1000 subscribers to allow you to monetize your content. Hold tight, keep at it, and don't panic. Remember that investment money should not be needed for a year or two. If it is needed before then, don't invest it.

A Free Meal from Uber

A few days ago I got an e-mail from Uber telling me I had a free meal up to a $30 value simply because I have an account with them. I have to admit that since I have not been flying much, I have not needed their ride-share services. I did recently try a restaurant delivery service and enjoyed it and so I thought I would give Uber Eats a try this evening. The catalyst for doing so is because my wife is helping my oldest daughter drive to Alabama for graduate school and I didn't want to cook anything for myself this evening.

The e-mail made it really easy to get a meal as I just needed to click on it. The link took me to ubereats.com. I just had to log into my Uber account and it had all of my billing information. It even showed an old $5 credit I had from using the ride-share service earlier this year. Then I looked for a type of food I might want for dinner. That can be tougher than it sounds.

This evening I selected Greek food. I had up to a $30 credit and so I made sure to get plenty of extra food so I have a few more meals later in the week. After all, my wife won't be back until late Thursday evening and while I am not a bad cook, I am preoccupied with other activities . . . like watching movies, playing video games, and practicing the guitar. I picked up a gyro for this evening along with a salad for tomorrow. The total came to something like $20. As with all food-delivery services, there are other fees to be aware of and my $30 credit didn't cover any of them. Those added up to $10 and so I had to come up with a small sum of money. I knew I would and so that didn't surprise me.

I placed my order and did not feel like it needed to be rushed to my house. Selecting the take-your-time option took $1 off the delivery fee and my estimate is that it slowed down the order by a maximum of only 5 to 10 minutes. It still arrived 20 minutes before the expected delivery time. Then I watched the map with the status of my order. I finished up a few projects from work and just kept the map in the background on my 3rd monitor, glancing at it every few moments.

Eventually a car appeared on the map and it surprised me that the car headed away from my house. I couldn't figure out why until I realized the Uber driver was headed to the restaurant to pick up the order. Then he headed towards my house. He took a much different route than I would have taken but I learned something new, he got there faster than I would have. I will have to remember that route the next time I am in that part of town.

My meal arrived earlier than promised and that is always nice. Furthermore it was still warm. I ate the gyro and put the rest of the food in the refrigerator. Now I just need to hope my youngest daughter doesn't investigate it when she comes home from work.

I still prefer to go out to restaurants as opposed to take-out food. However during these times of COVID-19, I would rank my experience with Uber Eats very similar to that of Doordash. I think they are about equal in price and service. If you get a coupon in your e-mail, I highly suggest using it.

Airport Delays

I am at the airport waiting to catch my last flight of the year and it is turning into a little adventure. One would think that the San Francisco airport would be able to handle a little bit of rain. Nope there is a comedy of errors that are working against it and I find myself in the middle. Normally I would have a fellow travel buddy to share the grief but this evening is a day earlier than my regular weekly flight and so I will have to share my adventure with you.

For those that don't know, Tuesday is generally the best day of the week to purchase airplane tickets. I have a regular routine where I go through my existing flights and make sure I have the best prices on existing flights and then book any additional flights so that I have travel booked 3 months out. Yesterday was that day and I had to book a number of flights on Southwest due to schedule conflicts. Then I got into the office this morning with an e-mail from Southwest letting me know that one of the flights I booked in March is now cancelled. They rebooked me on a much later flight that doesn't get me home until after 1am. What they didn't tell me is that the original flight I booked was twice as expensive as this new flight nor did they offer me a refund of the difference. No offense Southwest, but that is a bit underhanded. I cancelled the rebooked flight and got my money back. I will look at other options on other airlines as getting in after 1am is not an option.

With that as a background story, let me now move onto today's flights. After getting my Southwest flight cancelled, I got another e-mail. This time from Alaska Airlines letting me know I had been upgraded to First Class. I thought that strange as I am not scheduled to fly again for the next  several weeks. When I looked closely, the upgraded flight is for today and scheduled to leave out of San Jose instead of San Francisco. Then I got another e-mail from Alaska explaining that today's flight would now be leaving out of San Jose and I had to arrive at the San Francisco airport 2 hours early. If I did that, they would make arrangements for me to get to San Jose. There was only one problem, I had a meeting that I needed to be in and couldn't be at the San Francisco airport 2 hours early.

I had arranged a ride to the airport and managed to move my ride to 45 minutes earlier. This enabled me to be at the airport at the appropriate time for the airline to get me to San Jose. Next I headed to my meeting and explained to my visitors from Japan that I would need to cut the meeting in half so I could accommodate a change in departure airports. It worked out and we finished just as my ride showed up to bring me to the San Francisco airport.

I arrived at the airport with 15 minutes to spare and walked up to the ticket counter. The agent politely helped me check in and started to arrange an Uber ride to San Jose. Then a supervisor came up and explained that traffic would prohibit me from making my flight. "Oh crap," was the only thing I could think of as I knew I would get home but knew when would be measured by a calendar instead of a clock. The last time this happened, I got routed on a late flight to Seattle where I slept in the airport before catching a 5:30am flight to Salt Lake. Fortunately a different supervisor intervened and they put me on a Delta flight leaving out of San Francisco an hour earlier than my original flight. The only downside is that I would have to give up my First-Class seat. In my mind I am just happy to be getting home an hour earlier than I originally thought.

I ran next door to the Delta counter and got a seat assignment. I headed through security and made it to my new gate just as the plane was supposed to start boarding. Then I saw that the Delta flight was delayed to a 5:57 departure. That is about the same time as my original flight. I had no luck on the seat assignment but I did have a window seat somewhere in the middle of the plane.

So now I find myself hanging out in the San Francisco airport waiting for a delayed Delta flight to Salt Lake City. I'm sure my departure will get moved out at least once before I board but I am happy to be going home this evening. Let's hope it actually is this evening.

A Possible Uber Discount

I have been using Uber to get from my office to the San Francisco Airport recently and have noticed a steady increase in cost for the same distance. It has gotten to the point of me looking at other alternatives and today that may have worked in my favor.

Last week I used Uber to get to the airport and my cost was either $20 for Uber Pool (shared ride with other people) or $25 for Uber X (direct non-stop by myself). This is consistent with costs for the past few weeks. In going through my receipt, I noticed a $7 surcharge because of the airport. I know that there is a BART train that is non-stop and leaves from the Millbrae station, which is close to the airport. The cost is only $5 and so I checked to see how much Uber would cost just to get to Millbrae. When I saw the cost at only $10 for Uber Pool, I thought I would do that this evening. Just to make sure I did a fair comparison, I checked how much it would cost to the airport. Instead of $20, the cost came up at only $15 and so I booked Uber. After all, it saved me from having a train transfer.

While going through the airport security I thought about it and wonder if the programmers at Uber recognize when customers are trying to save money. If I was a developer looking for ways to differentiate my rideshare application from others, I would look for little nuances like that.

Anyone that has used Uber for any amount of time know that there are a number of factors that determine pricing. Ever try to hail an Uber or Lyft after a concert? It is really expensive unless you can get a fair distance from the concert venue. It could be that my reduction in price today is reflective of a number of other factors and I just got lucky. Fortunately I will have many more opportunities in the near future to test out my hypothesis. I'll be sure to keep you posted.

Hard-Working Uber Drivers

I spent the first couple days of the week at Disneyland. Yesterday I didn't want to bother my wife and make her drive me to the Los Angeles International airport at 4:30 in the morning and so I took Uber. I think the $50 cost was worth it to my wife and two daughters who would have hated taking me at such an early hour.

I got in the car and started up my usual Uber conversation. I asked questions like, "How long have you been driving for Uber?" It came out that the driver would soon be quitting. He has 2 kids in college and has been driving to supplement his normal income to help pay tuition. His son will be graduating in December. It impressed me that my driver would wake up at 4am every day, drive to Disneyland, pick up a customer, and drive near the airport where he works his regular job. Then he would do the reverse each evening. He did this for his kids and I have to admire that.

With ride-share services such as Lyft or Uber, anyone with a car should have a job if they need one. My Wednesday morning driver realized that he needed a bit of extra money to help with his kids' college and signed up with Uber. He doesn't drive all day, every day. Instead he drives one trip in the morning to near where he works and then one in the evening. He also confessed to driving a few people on weekends as well. So if you find yourself needing a little extra spending money, take a page from this playbook and consider driving for Uber or Lyft.

Uber at Disney World

My wife and I took a trip to Disney World last week so we could do some research for a potential future family trip. We found a great place to stay on AirBnB that was supposedly on the Disney World property. One advantage of staying on property is that you can use Disney's excellent transportation between your hotel and the different parks.

We arrived in Orlando on Monday and took Uber to the hotel. During our check-in, we asked about getting to the park and were told that a rideshare was the least expensive way to get there. At that moment I realized that any cost savings by inexpensive accommodations could easily be negated by trips back and forth. Fortunately my wife and I could leave the hotel in the morning and not have to return until the evening. Anyone with small children requiring naps would require two round-trips instead of our one.

Ultimately we had a great visit but were glad that we hadn't brought the entire family. We did have our youngest daughter with us but could all fit in a single car. With small grand-kids and ten adults we would have spent a fortune with Uber or Lyft.

No Exciting Computers

I had a bit of time to think as I walked the 3 miles to my office this morning. Mostly I thought about how I had already crossed the threshold of distance to where summoning Uber seemed a waste even though it was raining. What driver would pick me up for such a short drive. I did think about other things and one of them surfaced again when I go to the gym at work and prepared to get another 30 minutes of exercise. I briefly glanced at the locker-room TV and noticed that one of the ESPN commentators has the same laptop I do. It seems like the vast majority of people have settled on the same few laptops. There just doesn't seem to be any exciting new computers these days.

Naturally I have spent part of my day thinking about the state of computing hardware and what would make me excited. The size of a laptop is something that used to differentiate various models. Now it seems we have settled on small, medium, or large and each has its merits. We also used to have peripherals such as floppy, CDROM, or DVD disk drives. Now it seems that everyone relies on network connections and doesn't need removable media any more. What about case material? Well you have the brushed aluminum look, solid black carbon fiber, or some colored plastic cover. All of that is boring. About the most exciting difference between laptops is the lit brand logo that appears on the back of the screen. Some love the simple Apple logo while others prefer the 3 intertwined-snakes for the gamer specific Razer laptops.

As I thought about the lack of excitement in the computer market right now, I realized that we can't really blame the hardware manufacturers. It is tough to get excited about new hardware when it all runs the same old software. You have your choice between Windows, MacOS, or Linux. Even then Linux really isn't an option for most people as it is still more of a hobbyist's operating system unless you are working with servers.

So what will it take to get me excited about a new computer or laptop? I don't know. Perhaps this just means there is a new opportunity out there for something extraordinary to come along. I would hate to think that computers have evolved as far as they will go.

True Civilization

This past weekend I had the opportunity to drive from Salt Lake to Gooding, Idaho. Ever hear of Gooding, Idaho? No, I didn't think so. The only reason I know it is there is because my wife's sister lives there with her family. There was a family event up there and so we made the relatively short drive to get together. During the quick trip I was surprised at how I found myself comparing life in small-town Idaho with life in Salt Lake and life in the Bay Area.

One may be tempted to believe that cities are much more civilized than small towns. After this trip, I believe the opposite is true. The first indication was the traffic and speed limits. While the distance I traveled was around 250 miles, the trip only took around 3 hours each way. That same trip in California would have taken over 4 hours. Why? Because the speed limit in Utah and Idaho is 80 miles per hour. It is only 65 in the Golden State. Furthermore there was no need to fight any sort of traffic as there were relatively few cars on the road. The last time I left the Bay Area headed to Salt Lake, I spent an hour or so fighting traffic just to get out of the Bay Area. I thought that was ridiculous given that I left at 9:30 pm.

My next observation came when we stopped for dinner. We pulled off the Interstate and found a relatively popular family dinning restaurant chain. There is an identical restaurant found near my home in Salt Lake as well as one near my office in the Bay Area. The menu is the same at each of the 3 places and one would think the food and service would be as well. Nope, not even close. This small-town restaurant in the middle of Idaho had significantly better service and the food actually matched what I saw on the menu. When does that ever happen? The menu always looks awesome and then the food gets to you and one would think it was run over by a truck before arriving at the table.

I thought about the joys of civilization as I drove to the motel to check in for the night. While I could find a much higher quality place to stay in both Salt Lake and the Bay Area, there wasn't a chance I would find the same quality for the price I was paying. The motel had clean rooms and a very nice swimming pool with attached hot tub. Again, a point for small-town America.

My final check was to pull out my smartphone and check the Internet connection. It was LTE speeds with a stronger signal than I get at my office in San Mateo, California. I did a quick check to see if there were any Uber drivers in the area. That is the one short-fall of a small town: no Uber. Of course the town was so small you could walk from one end to the other in a few minutes and so a taxi or Uber would be pointless, but I had to check.

With all of the technology we have available to us, why do small towns continue to shrink while large cities continue to get bigger? Can't we have more telecommuters? What is wrong with us? Small-town America is much more civilized than our overcrowded cities. Maybe we might want to start taking advantage of that.