Grabbing to $11,000 a month

Ah no, I did not spend $11,000 a month taking Grab. No, no, no.

I came across yet another interesting person when I took a Grab ride home. It started with a simple question on whether he drove this as a fulltime job. I was surprised to learn that he drove 7 days a week, 15 hours a day!  That's hard work.

When asked how much he made, he said it used to be $15,000 a month when incentives were good. This was net of expenses. But these days, he could only make $11,000 a month. That is quite an impressive income as a Grab driver. I was really surprised he could make that much. I don't recall ever hearing of a Grab driver who could make more than $5,000 a month till today.

Given his income level, I was curious if he made voluntary contributions to CPF. He laughed and shared that he has more than enough and didn't need to do so.

He used to own a commercial laundry service. It's those industrial class type that service hotels. A few years back, he got an offer to buy out his business. The offer was the equivalent of 10 years of income. As he could only make 6% ROI on his business, the offer was too good to refuse. So he sold off and cashed out.

[More on his laundry business another day]

Being a divorcee and with a daughter already in her final year in the University, he didn't have much that occupied his time. So he was happy to be a Grab driver, and even more so because he liked to drive. He quipped that while he was driving his beaten-up car for Grab service, his daughter drove their family's BMW to school.

He takes breaks once in a while, usually a few months at a go, traveling overseas, alone.

Since he started driving, he has cut down on his drinking and smoking. He used to drink everyday. It was probably killing his liver. He now hardly drank. Smoking was still a habit, but he had cut down from two packets a day, to less than half a packet. It's certainly an improvement. I wish him good health.

A pleasant late evening ride.