I rent a room. After rent, I have ~200 CAD net positive, which covers food and gym. I can't really accumulate money at this point, but I have existing savings and a few investments.
Maybe there are, but I don't know. It seems pointless to try Fiverr and similar platforms, because it seems they are already flooded with freelancers. But I never did contracting so I am pretty clueless about that. I've read old HN threads and the general consensus seems to be that you have to have connections to get customers.
I used to do a 5 year stint working at a software company, saving up money, then 5 years working on my games. Rinse, repeat.
I got lucky a couple of times, so this won't work for everyone. But working a "real" job to fund your passion projects is as old as DaVinci taking commissions to fund his research.
Don't know your specifics, but I generally make the argument to people that if they have the aptitude for something very high paying that they do that job and then do something they like as a hobby.
I spend a very disproportionate amount of my mental energy on my job, and I think earning a lot of money would not properly compensate for that. Energy is finite and life has a way of being just about as expensive as the money you have.
So, maybe it's fine that it will take me 30 years to earn what these people will in 2.
