Why I hate the Side Hustle mentality
In theory, I enjoy making more money. In practice, I am seeing it take over our personalities and lives to the point where we live for the side hustle, rather than actually living.
You could work as many hours as there are in a week, drink coffee, go to 3 different jobs, and keep “hustling” but is that a life?
Missing out on your kids growing up, seeing friends, just to hoard pennies to retire early to finally enjoy life (or just to hoard the money), doesn’t seem like a good life to me at all.
Why not… *shock, gasp, awe*….balance it out?
Work a little longer in the years.
Don’t burn yourself out.
Take your weekends to recharge yourself and be with your family and friends.
Stop thinking that every hour you are awake, you’re losing or wasting money by not making any.
Making lemonade out of lemons is always a good thing, but your precious hours are not lemons.
Time is finite. It ends.
Once you lose an hour, you don’t get it back.
Money, comes and goes.
I have always hated the saying of my sibling when he would say (unconsciously):
“Well, that takes half an hour of my time, which costs $X amount of money.”
…to justify a nanny, housekeeper, or whatever, and then the vicious cycle is having to work longer hours to pay for said “cheaper-than-your-hourly-rate” services and to keep that “luxurious lifestyle” going.
Well.
All I have to say is:
If your whole life is summed up in dollars and cents, it is a poor life indeed.
But.. but…
I can hear you indignantly saying:
BUT I NEED MONEY TO…[PAY OFF DEBT], [LIVE], ETC
Okay, I can respect that, but why not look at making more money per hour (so to speak) rather than working longer?
Any fool can pick up 3 jobs and work until they drop dead, but a wise person looks for ways to make their one job worth three times as much money.
Hustle in the smartest way possible instead:
- Job hop for more money and a better title (how I got a $30K increase in an offer)
- Increase your skills and become more desirable
- Go back and get more education if required for your job
- Ask for more money at your salary raises (how not to screw up a negotiation and how negotiating for as little as $7000 can mean 8 more years of wealth)
- Work smarter at your job – find ways to be efficient and effective rather than taking the long way to do things
Make the most of your life, but don’t value it in dollars.
7 Comments
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Sherry of Save. Spend. Splurge.
You can try your best to plan for it but things happen. Best to balance it early rather than waiting until you’re too old or unable to.
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Ariel @ Frugal Mermaid
I love this! Sometimes I feel guilty for not “hustling” in my free time like many people in this community. But my free time contributes to my happiness, so why would I sacrifice that to make slightly more money? The side hustle is definitely not for everyone.
And I like your point about the value of “hustling” more at the job you already have! I can definitely speak to that as well! The harder you work, the more your boss will realize they can’t let you go for any reason. That gives you a crazy amount of negotiating power when it’s time for a raise, or even time to move to another job. Having companies “competing” for you is the fastest way I know of to make tens of thousands more in a matter of days. Great post!
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Sherry of Save. Spend. Splurge.
As a consultant, I know this all too well. I’m a rockstar at work because it’s job security. If I leave, I want them to fail and realize why I should stay.
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SarahN
Agree with you here – I have a friend without a side hustle who is ALWAYS in the office. I keep telling her – no one is dying – you work in fin tech start ups.
But it’s about her life otherwise not having purpose…
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Sherry of Save. Spend. Splurge.
She should try and build a purpose outside. No one has ever said: “I wish I worked more at the office”, on their deathbed.
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So true. After hustling very hard in our earlier years, we built a successful business. It allowed me to stay home with our children while my husband ran and continued to grow our business. He was very good at balancing work with family and I am grateful because he passed away very unexpectedly (heart failure) two months ago.
Our children (25, 22, 18) and I have many wonderful memories of the times we spent together and they are so precious to us. Worth more than any amount of money although to be honest, we were able to spend more time together as a family because of the time he and I invested in our business many years ago, before children.
I am so grateful for my husband and the 30 years we shared. We definitely thought we would have more time together. You are so spot on with what you are saying in your post. Time truly is precious and the fact is, none of us knows how many days we are given here on this earth.