Rising gas prices take a bite out of some delivery drivers who pay out of pocket for a fill up

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Gas price increases are taking a bite out of the pay from delivery drivers who are paying out of pocket for a fill up.

Some of the drivers are delivering food through services such as Instacart.

Stephen Amspoker is one of those drivers, six to eight hours a day, five days a week.

The pay is determined on the number of orders they accept and fill, minus their gas costs, and taxes.

In some areas of Santa Barbara and Montecito, since late February, gas has gone up $ 1.40 a gallon. It's widely priced at or above $5.95 a gallon throughout the area.

The strategy for some drivers is to stage near their most popular stores and wait for an order to come up on a phone App to hopefully have less driving on at least that portion of their day.

While learning about this in the front seat of Amspoker's car, his first order of the day popped up.

"Oh wait. I got one. I got one and boom. Yea there got it," he said.

It was then off to a nearby grocery store, looking for 18 items. Fortunately it was just a couple of minutes away.

This is job is working out well, he says, "my rating is 5.0."

These freelance or gig workers are worried about their personal costs going up and their income going down with the gas costs because what they do is all in their own cars on their budgets.

They look for larger orders when they can because it reduces the back and forth pace, and extra gas, or smaller orders.

The customer with the grocery order from the Mesa needed it delivered to the San Marcos Pass area, about 15 minutes away.

Amspoker said, "it definitely makes me more strategic on what batches (orders) I accept and doesn't make doing it as appealing as it was a during the pandemic, when gas prices were really low."

It's not a big dollar job, but during tough times, it's paid the bills even with the uncertain pace of orders and the stinging gas costs.

"And especially with the medical bills I kind of have or some sort of emergency, it does make worry ," said Amspoker.

It's a serious issue for these workers on a tight budget, but Amspoker stays positive and focuses forward on the next orders, along with an on time delivery.

His game plan ahead includes creative writing projects and he's also been in front of microphone doing stand up comedy.