If you're looking for a job, it's probably never been easier to start working for yourself. One of the fastest growing jobs are all based on your smart phone.
"It's been about a year now just using my phone to work full-time," Steven Yeager said.
Yeager is 23 years old. He's a father of two. He's married. He's in college. He pays for all of the things he needs to live by working for smart phone apps.
"I cleared about $60,000 this year," he explained.
Yeager calls it his "hustle". His niche is on-demand delivery apps. He drives for a couple of them. One in particular is called Postmates, an app where customers can select items from a store or restaurant and choose what they want delivered to them. The orders can be as small as a cup of coffee to an entire order of groceries.
"Anything you can think of whether it's from Staples, Target, McDonalds, some of the nicer restaurants. Anything you like," Yeager explained.
He says he gets between $5 and $15 per delivery while spending about $30 per week on gas for his smart car.
Several people are also finding ways to make money on their smart phones without ever leaving their home.
"I have a few people who made over six figures last year," Aaron Hirschhorn, owner and CEO of Dogvacay, said.
Dogvacay is an app based company that facilitates dog-sitters and walkers. They currently have about 40,000 sitters in the U.S. and Canada. There are about 350 sitters in Tampa Bay.
"From stay-at-home moms and dads, freelancers, college students, our fastest growing segment is actually retirees," Hirschhorn said.
The sitters also decide their own rates while Dogvacay provides insurance.
"For just the day time like today, it would be $20," Dave Diebold, a sitter for Dogvacay, said. "If it's an overnight stay it's $25."
Diebold retired in 2015. He makes a nice supplemental income of $300-400 per month.
"I love dogs. I love watching them," He said.
"There are negatives as well," Yeager said.
Yeager explains working in the app economy isn't something he wants to do forever. He says he doesn't get any benefits and on occasion he has a slow day. But he enjoys making his own schedule. He says for now the pros outweigh the cons.
"To support my family without a college degree! I'm fortunate enough that in today's age I can use my phone because if this was 10 years ago, who knows where I would be or anyone else in my shoes would be," he said.
