Thanks dicey and researcher1.
I'm fine with the direct approach, but thanks for the protection dicey.
Researcher1 I am not sure I agree with the logic, so let me explain.
The fuel costs, wear/tear etc. are intended to be covered by the mileage deduction against your taxes, or at least that has been how I have heard any CPA ever explain why when examining any business that uses vehicles that you can "ignore" this because you are made whole that way. This has always made sense to me as at the $0.54 at 100 miles you are getting $54 of credit. My oil changes are $19 at the dealer. I do not change my oil every 100 miles and I am therefore way ahead on the "wear/tear" department and therein lies the logic of the CPA advice I have been given that typically mileage allowance covers those earlier replacements etc.
I would love to continue to discuss as I certainly want to learn other perspectives, so I ask a counterpoint. If what you are advocating is true then everyone who delivered would stop doing it because they would be losing money.
So that we can look at this with more detail, let me share my actual info on all fronts. If I miss something else let me know.
Income so far $5,885.37
Fuel March - June (4 full months): $523 - keep in mind we have two other cars in the household and even though they were not going out as much as me, my kids are working and driving to their jobs so at least 2-3 tanks of gas are theirs, but lets just say all the gas is mine to make it easy
Oil changes - $50 (twice for the miles driven)
Miles: 6,574 - this is the mileage used for deliveries as I am tracking this in a log as I must for tax purposes
Insurance; $61/month (again hard to say this is all for delivery especially since there is no markup at all for State Farm as delivery is included in their base provisions and this insurance was a net savings of about $200/year over what I was paying before)
So yes if I keep up this pace I will be at about 19,720 miles for the year for deliveries. I would at that point have made a little under $18,000 for that work, had 4 more oil changes and spent another $1,000 in fuel.
So the annual numbers extrapolated would be
Income $18,000
Expenses $1,600 fuel - 150 oil changes = $1,750
$16,250 to cover insurance (which as stated above really is not extra cost than just having the cat anyway) and to build up a fund for a replacement vehicle
So if I needed to replace the car every 3 years (figuring I'd get to about 100,000 miles total with other driving by then versus 6-7 years otherwise), I have $48,000 in extra income to pull from to do that. I can likely find a good Honda or Toyota for $15K with low enough miles to last me another 100K, so it seems that I might be roughly $30K in the plus column here. Again, want to hear the counter argument to what I am missing, but this would seem to be how this could realistically play out.
On a side note of luck, in May I had my check engine light go on at a little over 118K miles. When I took it into the dealer they said I needed a new engine, but it was under warranty until 120K so I got a new engine in my car now for free, which will likely get me the next 100K in deliveries without any more cost now. I understand this was just dumb luck as otherwise I would have been at the point of replacing the vehicle as you note, so I am not factoring this into my calculations, just enjoying the benefit it has provided me.
Taking this from a different perspective, if I make $100K in my job ($50/hour) would you also then say because I cannot get to my job for free that my hourly rate is therefore lower? I do not think we normally look at work that way any more than my kids making $10/hour at McDonald's factor in their car cost and say they only make $8. I understand and agree that you want to look at your expenses, but am still not certain that it is not fair to state that I can average $20-$25 per hour doing this work and that their are fuel and wear/tear expenses that come with that that mean I will need to buy a car sooner. At this point I also need to say I have been working from home in my normal job since March so I am not commuting to work there, so not even an opportunity to offset commuting cost, but in reality that is such a challenge at least heading into work that I would likely not do that again when we do return to office which at this point with the last we heard will not be for at least two more months.