Mining worker Sam Tomlinson has a side hustle renting out cars and is hoping it will help him achieve financial freedom in the future. (Source: Supplied)
An Adelaide FIFO worker says he’s has made $37,000 this year through a “hands-off” side hustle that only takes the equivalent of an hour a day to do. The 30-year-old hopes the side business will be the key to becoming “work optional” by the time he hits 40.
Sam Tomlinson currently works as a machine operator at a mine site in South Australia, working one week on, one week off. In his downtime, the mining worker told Yahoo Finance he was building a lucrative side hustle running a car-sharing business.
“It keeps me busy and just that extra income is awesome. It makes a huge difference to the life that I can live,” Tomlinson said.
“I’m pushing for that 40-year-old retiree sort of thing, not retired, but I just don’t want to be working flat out.”
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Tomlinson has always been interested in cars and was previously self-employed, running his own mobile detailing business, something he still does on the side today.
“I’m a real car guy and I always had cars. I was always buying and selling cars, always had cars around my place,” he said.
“Some of these cars would just sort of sit there until they got sold once I was done cleaning them up, fixing them up. I’d always sort of thought it’d be cool if I could rent these out.”
While trying to sell an Audi online at the start of last year, he received a message from someone asking if he would be open to renting it out for a week instead.
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The 30-year-old currently has seven cars in his fleet, acquiring three this week. (Source: Supplied)
Tomlinson thought it was a great idea, so he ended up setting up an account on car-sharing platform Turo, which is promoted as the “Airbnb of cars”.
“I rented that out to him and that was an awesome experience. He took such good care of that car,” he said. “So I decided to sort of dive headfirst into it and try out a car on there. And it just did so much better than I thought it would.”
Tomlinson was earning about $1,500 a month renting out the Audi.
He has since sold it and bought four MGs specifically to rent out. They were all purchased secondhand from dealerships, costing around $20,000 each.
The cars were bought on finance with two to three-year loan terms, with the equity in his house helping him secure the loans.
“Year to date, I’m at $37,000 earnings. But that was pretty much with two cars,” Tomlinson told Yahoo Finance.
“I’ve only had two cars listed for that full period. Some of the others came on a bit later, or they weren’t listed for a period of time. So two and a half, you could call it.”
He estimates the cars make him around $18,000 each per year, or $1,500 a month, and he plans to keep them for around two years each.
They are rented out between 60 and 70 per cent of the time, which is more than he initially expected and is likely due to the cars being located near the airport.
This week, he bought another MG and two Hyundai Staria ‘people movers’ to add to his fleet.
Turo states that hosts in Australia are earning $1,000 per month per car on average, but it notes this doesn’t take into account costs of vehicle ownership, such as maintenance and insurance.
If you’ve bought the car on finance, your repayments will also need to be factored into the equation.
In terms of actual profit, Tomlinson said he was earning between $2,000 and $2,500 per month across the four cars. So roughly, $500 to $625 each.
“The finance is the biggest expense,” he said.
“It’s more all the other little bits that you’ve sort of got to account for, like the rego, if you’ve got to put tyres on it or something like that.”
Tomlinson hopes to build a fleet of 16 cars and calculated this would replace his $110,000 mining income. (Source: Supplied)
Accidents are also bound to happen, with Tomlinson sharing one of his previous cars was totalled by a renter.
Turo comes with legal liability protection for third-party property damage. It also has insurance plans that cover damage, but you’ll be off the road for a period of time and could face excess charges.
In terms of the time involved, Tomlinson says he spends between six to seven hours a week on the side hustle.
He has an arrangement with a car wash near the airport, where he stores the vehicles, while his friends help step in to manage things when he is away working.
Tomlinson is part of a growing cohort of younger Australians who are rethinking traditional retirements and don’t necessarily want to keep working flat out until they are 67.
Your Future Strategy director Gareth Croy previously told Yahoo Finance he’d noticed people were becoming a lot more “active” and “aware” with their retirement plans, including some people actively looking to retire early.
“Historically, we would see people get into their 50s, and in some cases their early 60s, and only start asking the question then about whether they are actually in a position to retire,” he said.
“Now people are a lot more seemingly financially astute to be going, we need to be asking the question as to, is my super going to be where it needs to be? Have I got ancillary investments to support that if I’m leaving the workforce before I can access my super?
“Those weren’t questions that people were asking as frequently in the past.”
Your Future Strategy director Gareth Croy said people were taking a more ‘active’ approach to their retirement. (Source: Supplied)
Recent Vanguard research found Aussies aged 25 to 34 now expect to need $106,000 a year to retire comfortably. By contrast, retired couples report spending just $55,000 annually.
Tomlinson has calculated that expanding his fleet to 16 cars would match his current mining income, which is $110,000 a year gross.
“If I can get 16 cars happening, I could essentially leave the mines. I don’t know if I would because I’m enjoying it. But that’s the goal,” he said.
Along with building his car-sharing business, Tomlinson also owns his own home in Adelaide, which he purchased back in 2018. He also has a few collectible cars and is building a share portfolio.
“I kind of look at it like a house, I guess. Some people buy houses and rent their houses out, I just love doing it with cars,” he said.
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