How a PhD candidate made $700 in her first month on Turo

posted on March 6, 2020

When Angela C. moved from Whitby to Toronto, she arrived in her 2015 Nissan Micra. Shortly thereafter, York University, where she was a PhD candidate and contract faculty member, went on strike. Despite her strike pay, her income plummeted by over 50%. “I went from having an income of around $2,500 a month to having an income of $1,200 a month. So I couldn’t afford the car.” She figured her Nissan would have to go, but she wanted to find a way to hang onto it. As a busy graduate student and mom, she wanted the car for grocery hauls, IKEA trips, and making the three-hour-long trip to visit her parents in Perth. After learning about Turo, she listed her car with the goal of just earning enough to cover her expenses. The results exceeded her expectations. “The first month I made almost $700 on it. I make a profit almost every month,” Angela says. “I doubled my money month one. Between insurance and the car payment, I pay around $350 a month.”

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Overcoming car sharing cold feet with a neighbour’s help

But it took longer than expected to actually have a “month one”. When she first signed up for Turo, she got cold feet and instantly restricted her car’s availability for six months. Fortunately, a neighbour’s persistence prompted her to make the car available half a year after originally listing it. “There was one guy who booked like a year in advance and tried to get my attention. He was like two doors down from me and he uses it once a month to go around to all the LSAT test sites and advertise his tutoring service,” Angela recalls. “He was like, ‘Hi, my name is Nick. I’ve been using Turo for a while. It’s a great platform, and you’re really, really close. Can I use your car?’ He was the one that finally convinced me to make my car available. It worked out really well.” With feedback from patient guests, she soon learned the ropes of being a quality host. For instance, cleaning the car in between trips was a bit of a hassle at first, but she found a $40 dustbuster on Amazon that makes quick clean-ups a breeze.

Her car has led to new friends both locally and globally. Many of her current Turo regulars are people in her neighbourhood she hadn’t met prior to listing her car. She’s also met people traveling from places like Australia, Mauritius, and South Korea, likely because she lives right on one of the city’s subway lines. “I think the reason why people like me so much is that they get an actual person who’s renting their actual car. I meet every single one of my guests in person.” Her advice for prospective Turo users who are anxious about listing their car is to just jump in — most people are great drivers who just have no need to own a car. “I wish I’d done it sooner.”

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