Want to know the best way to make some extra money? Hint: It’s the full-time job you already have. Sometimes, you have to put your passion project aside and focus on your main hustle, not your side hustle.

Of Dollars and Data had a great post recently about this very thing at the macro level. While he was mostly ranting against entrepreneur twitter niche, in which successful entrepreneurs brag on how easy it is to become an entrepreneur while often shitting on anyone who’s not at the very least attempting entrepreneurship, his point remains. The fact is, the best way for most of us to make extra money is to focus not on our side hustle, but on our main hustle.

And I say this as someone who’s made exactly zero dollars on this side hustle. (Less than zero if you factor in paying for web hosting, but I digress.)

What’s the Quickest Way to Make an Extra Grand?

Think about which scenario is more feasible. Are you more likely to earn a $1,000 raise from your existing job or career path, or to make $1,000 on whatever your side hustle pursuit happens to be? Chances are, it’s your main hustle, not your side hustle that will propel you to further gains in the immediate future.

Ramit Sethi has all kinds of helpful tips about asking for a raise and negotiating your salary, areas in which I struggle greatly and have yet to put his advice into practice. But there’s some sort of psychological bonus in earning money on your own. I have a more emotional reaction to winning $2 on a scratch off lottery ticket than I do when I receive my significantly larger paycheck every two weeks. We tend to take our salaries or regular earnings for granted.

In thinking about how to make more money, rarely do we consider the current position we hold in our career that we’ve worked so long and hard to achieve. You know, the job that we beat out several other candidates for. And if we do, we think about it in terms of leaving that existing position for another one with a different company as a way to earn the salary increase. While that certainly is one way to do it, we do tend to overlook that we can make money for doing essentially no additional work (well, maybe some, as Ramit advises) through our current main hustles.

The “Focus On Your Main Hustle, Not Your Side Hustle” Mantra

In a way, the “focus on your main hustle, not your side hustle” mantra is me explaining away a weeks-long lull in new posts. And make no mistake, I love a good side hustle. There will be times when I dive into Impersonal Finances as if it’s a real revenue-generating machine and try to figure out how to create interesting content and optimize SEO and all that bloggy stuff. But there will be times when Impersonal Finances is the furthest thing on my mind, as it admittedly has been for the last few weeks. Sometimes you just need to focus on your main source of income. Other times I’m just being lazy.

That latter reason is why the entrepreneurial spirit that Of Dollars and Data rails against serves as motivation to many future self-starters. Like most things, the “entrepreneur or else” attitude is borne of good intent. Who doesn’t want to be their own boss? Who doesn’t want to hold their own future in their hands? But the fact is, not everyone can do it. Not everyone should do it

There is a value to a consistent paycheck that has become almost disparaged in certain circles. Focusing on your craft and working toward promotions, or simply taking on additional hours to earn overtime, are far more productive and immediate paths toward making extra money than, say, filling out surveys for hours on end in return for 30 Rapid Rewards Points.

Start With a Potentially Money-Making Hobby

As someone with a new and unsuccessful blog, I especially loved what Of Dollars and Data had to say about his own experience in the world of side hustles:

Since I started blogging nearly 3.5 years ago, I have spent around 2,000 hours writing 195 posts (~10 hours per post).  If you aggregate all of the money I have made from ads and affiliates on the blog over this time period, it comes out to roughly $12 an hour before taxes.

Not exactly a get-rich-quick scheme. And definitely not a higher earning rate than most traditional career paths have to offer.

But there remains that certain pride that comes from earning income outside of the traditional route, which is why a lot of low-trafficked blogs like this exist. The $2 scratch off wins are psychological boosts that allow us to dream of a day when we don’t have to rely on anyone else for our livelihood. And it’s good to have hobbies, especially hobbies that can eventually earn you extra income.

By all means, go ahead. Start a blog. Become a Tik Tok influencer. Sell some shit on Etsy. But in the pursuit of side hustling it’s best not to lose track of the fact that your main hustle remains your best bet toward creating additional wealth.