What Asset Liquidator Calculates
Gig pay minus IRS-rate mileage cost — how much of your car you sold for tonight's money.
Asset Liquidator answers one question: after the car's real cost, what did the shift actually pay?
A $220 shift looks like $27.50/hour over 8 hours. Asset Liquidator subtracts the real cost of the car that earned it — at the IRS standard mileage rate, which aggregates fuel, depreciation, insurance, tires, and maintenance. Often, half of the gross pay is just the car being consumed.
Quick answer
Asset Liquidator answers one question: after the car's real cost, what did the shift actually pay?
Key points
- ▸ Formula: Real Profit = Gross Pay − (Miles × $0.67). Real Hourly = Real Profit ÷ Hours.
- ▸ IRS standard mileage rate bundles fuel, depreciation, scheduled maintenance, repairs, tires, and a slice of insurance. It's the most honest single-number proxy for the asset cost.
- ▸ Net-worth impact % = true cost ÷ gross pay. Over 50% means the shift is mostly liquidating the vehicle, not earning.
- ▸ The dial visualization separates "app earnings" from "net-worth impact" — two metrics that should not be summed.
- ▸ Urban short-trip shifts beat long-freeway shifts on this metric. Fewer miles per dollar earned.
- ▸ Surge pricing helps real hourly only if the miles don't scale linearly with surge. They usually do.
Examples
- $220 gross, 180 miles, 8 hoursTrue cost $120.60. Real profit $99.40. Real hourly $12.42. Net-worth impact 55% — more than half the gross was vehicle cost.
- $150 gross, 200 miles, 6 hoursTrue cost $134. Real profit $16. Real hourly $2.67. Net-worth impact 89% — essentially selling the car for cash.
- $180 gross, 80 miles (urban), 6 hoursTrue cost $53.60. Real profit $126.40. Real hourly $21.07. Net-worth impact 30% — the market was dense, the car barely used.
When to use which tool
- CYAN · STABLE — Net-worth impact under 30% — dense-market shift, car mostly doing its job.
- GOLD · GUARDED — Impact 30-60% — meaningful liquidation, rising depreciation cost per shift.
- MAGENTA · CRITICAL — Impact above 60% — slow-liquidating the car for app cash, break the cycle.
Related
Frequently asked questions
› Can I use my actual cost instead of IRS $0.67? Trust & accuracy
Yes, if you track fuel + depreciation schedule + maintenance + insurance + tires carefully. Most drivers under-count depreciation by half; the IRS rate is conservative and hard to miscalculate.
› Does this apply to my non-gig driving?
The same math tells you the true cost of any trip — useful for checking whether a long commute is still worth the job, or whether delivery fees are cheaper than in-person pickup.
› What about tax deductions?
If you're a 1099 gig driver, the IRS rate is also what you'd deduct. The real profit here is roughly what's taxable, minus a few loss adjustments. Useful framing for quarterly estimated taxes.
› How should I use a decision framework in real life? How-to
Use a decision framework to expose the tradeoff, not to outsource the decision. Write down the inputs, compare the output with your constraints, then ask what would change the answer. The strongest use is scenario testing: base case, conservative case, and failure case.
› Is this financial, legal, or tax advice? Trust & accuracy
No, this is not legal, financial, tax, medical, or professional advice unless the page explicitly says that use case is supported. It organizes assumptions so you can inspect them. Verify high-stakes choices with qualified people who can review facts, contracts, regulations, and downside risk.