Welcome Back, Future Funder!

What if that side hustle that’s supposed to change your family’s lives is actually making everything worse?

What if the extra $800 a month you make with your side gig is costing you $1,200 in expenses and missed opportunities (and even more relationally)?

And what if the "just hustle harder" messaging that's everywhere these days is terrible advice for your specific situation?

If you've been grinding away at a side hustle while wondering why you're still broke and exhausted, it might be time to do some real math. Because not all income is created equal, and sometimes the money you're chasing is the most expensive money you'll ever earn 😬

In today's edition of Dinner Table Discussions, we'll debunk some of the hustle culture hype:

✅ How to calculate your TRUE hourly rate (including hidden costs)
✅ The opportunity cost calculator most side hustlers ignore
✅ When side hustles make sense (and when they don’t)
✅ A List of Actually Good Side Hustle Options

Bon appétit! 🧑‍🍳

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🍽️ Main Course: Your Side Hustle Might Be Costing You More Than Your Day Job

Here's the painful truth about a lot of side hustles: they pay less than minimum wage when you factor in all the costs.

And we're not just talking about gas money for DoorDash or craft supplies for your Etsy shop. We're talking about the real costs that nobody wants to calculate because they'd have to admit they've been working for $4 an hour while their marriage falls apart and their kids barely see them.

Yikes.

Let's meet the Martinez family and do the math that most hustle culture influencers conveniently skip.

Meet Sarah Martinez: a Side Hustle Success Story (Or Is it?)

Sarah works full-time as an administrative assistant making $45,000 a year. To help with the family budget, she started a side hustle doing freelance graphic design in the evenings and weekends.

Her pitch to her husband: "I can make an extra $1,000 a month! That's $12,000 a year!"

Sounds great, right? Let's do the real math.

Sarah's Reported Side Hustle Income:

• Average monthly revenue: $1,000

• Annual revenue: $12,000

But here's what Sarah didn't calculate:

Direct Costs:

• Adobe Creative Cloud subscription: $55/month ($660/year)

• Stock photo subscriptions: $30/month ($360/year)

• Website hosting and domain: $180/year

• Canva Pro backup subscription: $13/month ($156/year)

• Freelance platform fees (15% of revenue): $1,800/year

• Total direct costs: $3,156/year

Time Investment:

• Client communication and revisions: 8 hours/month

• Actual design work: 15 hours/month

• Marketing and portfolio updates: 5 hours/month (and that’s a conservative estimate)

• Invoicing and admin: 2 hours/month

• Total time: 30 hours/month or 360 hours/year

Tax Impact:

• Self-employment tax (15.3% on net income): $1,353

• Additional income tax (22% bracket): $1,946

• Total tax hit: $3,299

Hidden Costs Nobody Talks About:

• Increased childcare: 2 extra hours/week at $15/hour = $1,560/year

• Meals out because too tired to cook: $200/month = $2,400/year

• Missed career advancement opportunity at day job due to evening exhaustion

• Stress-related purchases and "treats" to cope: ~$100/month = $1,200/year

Sarah's Real Numbers:

• Gross revenue: $12,000

• Direct costs: -$3,156

• Taxes: -$3,299

• Hidden costs: -$5,160

• Net income: $385/year

Sarah's actual hourly rate: $1.07/hour

She's literally working 360 hours a year for less than the cost of a fancy coffee per hour. And that's before we factor in the biggest cost of all: opportunity cost.

The Opportunity Cost Nobody Calculates

While Sarah spent 360 a year hours doing graphic design for $1.07/hour, here's what she could have done instead:

Option 1: Invest in Her Day Job Career

Sarah could have used those 360 hours to:

• Get a professional certification in project management ($400 cost, 100 hours study time)

• Build relationships with senior leadership at her company

• Lead a high-visibility project

• Position herself for a promotion

Result: A 10% raise on her $45,000 salary = $4,500/year increase. Every year. With benefits. And paid time off. And no self-employment tax.

Option 2: Invest in Her Marriage and Kids

360 hours equals:

• 72 date nights with her husband (5 hours each)

• 720 bedtime stories with her kids (30 minutes each)

• 45 family weekend adventures (8 hours each)

Result: Stronger marriage, better-adjusted kids, lower stress, better health. What's that worth? More than $385.

Option 3: Invest in Passive Income Instead

If Sarah took the 30 hours per month she spent on her side hustle and instead worked just one extra hour of overtime at her day job per week (paid at time-and-a-half), she would earn:

• Overtime rate: $26/hour (her regular $17.30/hour × 1.5)

• 4 overtime hours/month × $26 = $104/month

• Annual overtime income: $1,248

THEN she could invest that $1,248 plus the $3,156 she would have spent on design software into an index fund:

• Total annual investment: $4,404

• Over 10 years at 7% return: $60,847.64

Her side hustle making $385/year? Over 10 years that's just $5,319.33 at 7% growth 😅

When Side Hustles Actually Make Sense

After reading Sarah's story, you might think we're anti-side hustle. We're not. We're anti-bad-math.

Here are the scenarios where a side hustle can be genuinely worth it:

Scenario 1: You Have a Genuine Skill Gap to Fill

If you're between jobs, underemployed, or your main income genuinely can't cover necessities, a side hustle can be a bridge. But it should be:

• High-paying relative to time invested ($30+/hour after all costs)

• Temporary with a clear exit plan

• Not sacrificing long-term career growth for short-term cash

Scenario 2: You're Building Equity, Not Just Trading Time

Side hustles that create assets or build toward ownership:

• Starting a business you plan to scale and possibly sell

• Building a YouTube channel or blog with long-term passive income potential

• Creating products or intellectual property you can sell repeatedly

• Learning skills that significantly increase your main career value

Scenario 3: The Math Actually Works

Let's look at a side hustle that actually makes financial sense:

Jake's Lawncare Side Hustle:

• Mows 8 lawns on Saturdays, $40 each = $320/week

• Spring through fall (32 weeks) = $10,240 annual revenue

• Equipment already owned (sunk cost)

• Gas and maintenance: $800/year

• Time investment: 6 hours/week (192 hours/year)

• Additional taxes: ~$2077

• Net income: $7,363

• True hourly rate: $38.35/hour

Jake's side hustle works because:

• High revenue per hour of actual work

• Minimal overhead and complexity

• Doesn't interfere with main career advancement

• Defined time boundary (Saturdays only, seasonal)

• Physical activity (not sitting at another screen)

The Side Hustle Equation You Need to Use Right Now

Before you start or continue any side hustle, calculate this:

(Annual Revenue - Direct Costs - Extra Taxes - Hidden Costs) ÷ Total Hours Worked = Your True Hourly Rate

If your true hourly rate is less than $25/hour, you need to seriously question whether that side hustle is worth it.

And if your true hourly rate is less than your day job's hourly rate, you're moving backward.

Useful Side Hustle Ideas

Data Annotation

• Wages can be anywhere from $20/hr to $40/hr and beyond

• Training AI models by annotating the data (rating their outputs)

• Lots of different tasks you can choose from and qualify for

• All you need is a laptop, that’s all

  • Apply to Data Annotation

DoorDash

• Wages depend on your location, but can be as low as $12/hr or high as $25-$30/hr

• We suggest DoorDashing at peak times of busyness for maximum earnings

• You just need a registered car and driver’s license to get started

• Make sure to calculate whether your true hourly rate is worth it though

  • Apply to DoorDash

Freelance Writing on Upwork or Fiverr

• You set your own wages; could be $25/hr or $60/hr

• You just need to have the skills to actually write content well

• Tip: Look for clients in a field you already know. That’s where you offer value

• Main reason to suggest this is it only requires a laptop, nothing more

• Note: Upwork and Fiverr take fees on what you earn (and that’s before taxes)

  • Make an Upwork account

  • Make a Fiverr account

(Not a side hustle) Take an Extra Shift at Your Job

• We’re serious. If you work an hourly job, most employers would be ecstatic for you to take another shift or two a month

• You don’t have to pay freelance taxes on that income

• You don’t have to buy any new equipment

• You can think less about the positives and negatives and make more money this way 

Bottom Line

Side hustles can be valuable, but only when the math actually works. Most people running side hustles are making less than minimum wage when they calculate their true hourly rate, and they're sacrificing their most valuable non-renewable resource: time with their family.

Before you hustle harder, do the math. Calculate your real hourly rate. Factor in the opportunity costs. And then decide if that extra income is really moving your family forward, or if you're just running faster on a treadmill going nowhere.

Sometimes the smartest financial move isn't making more money, but investing your time more wisely.

Cheers to getting 1% better each week! 🥂

👂 We’d love to hear from you

👂 Do you have a side hustle? Have you ever calculated your true hourly rate?

We'd love to hear about it—and your story could help someone else make a smarter decision. Just hit reply and share.

Thanks for reading,
—Your friends @ Future Funders 🍽️

P.S. Forward this to a friend who's been "grinding" for months and has nothing to show for it. 😬