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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think “Side Hustle” can get in the bin?

139 replies

courageiscontagious · 19/07/2025 05:17

I am so sick of my feed being full of people “girl bossing” their “side hustle” like it’s a good thing.

it feels like propaganda to make us think there is anything empowering about having to work a SECOND JOB in this dumpster fire of an economy.

One generation ago a man could buy a house and support his family on his one income with only a high school education.

Now, my husband and I have five degrees between us and we both have to bust our arses to support fewer children than my parents had.

FUCK SIDE HUSTLE CULTURE. It’s just another way to make us blame ourselves for being poor when there are systemic and structural factors fucking us over.

end rant.

OP posts:

Poppins21 · 20/07/2025 17:45

wizzywig · 20/07/2025 15:55

Is up there with mumpreneur

I hate that expression my business skills have absolutely sweet fa to do with being a mum.

TheignT · 20/07/2025 19:06

Darragon · 20/07/2025 15:53

Well not really. It's a bit difficult these days to buy a house with an outhouse instead of a fitted bathroom. Most mortgage lenders won't lend on a property without a fitted kitchen, either. So you have to buy a house that has these. Lots of houses just happen to have ensuites, the designers of newbuilds don't survey people, they just build them like that.
I'd also like to see what Social Services said about a family living in a house fit for the 1920s with an outhouse and no fitted kitchen, double glazing, electricity, indoor running water or central heating.

It's likewise difficult to buy a car at 1970 prices (even adjusting for inflation) because cars these days cost so much more to produce, to stop them being deathtraps. Side airbags, disc brakes, catalytic converters, seatbelts etc all cost more during production. There's no option to buy a car from this century that doesn't have these things because we now think that would be too dangerous. With subsequent decades of public transport cuts and urban newbuild sprawl since the 60s/70s into areas that were never on a bus/train route, people generally need a vehicle outside of major cities. Especially now that industry has left most towns so the majority of people can't just walk to the pit/factory to work.

With two people expected to work to survive, nursery fees are now needed for all children the family choose to have. Having children wasn't even much of an active choice in the 50s or early 60s, people just had them and society was set up for it. Now we're told it's a choice we make when people want to rub it in our faces, when for every other species on the planet it's just biological fact, so society have made it extremely difficult and expensive for people to actually have and raise children with so many things that society says they must have.

The NSPCC gleefully abhor situations where a boy and a girl are sharing a bedroom so unless you luck out and get two girls or two boys, that's a non-starter for most people, too.

So the only one I'd agree with you on is holidays abroad which absolutely no one needs.

The cheaper options just don't exist anymore. There isn't a choice. It's pay a bomb for the thing in front of you or don't have it at all and suffer the consequences, which in some of these cases would be significant.

Edited

Show quote history

Car prices in 1970 didn't bother me, we were married for 14 years before we got a car. I mean one car not one each.

I live in a small to medium town and I'm thinking of getting rid of my car as the buses are fine.

TheignT · 20/07/2025 19:08

Poppins21 · 20/07/2025 17:45

I hate that expression my business skills have absolutely sweet fa to do with being a mum.

Edited

Show quote history

I'd heard side hustle never heard mumpreneur. I think I prefer side hustle but that might be familiarity.

GiveDogBone · 20/07/2025 20:22

You’d think if most people worked out how much money they make from their side hustle per hour of time invested, they’re working for less than minimum wage. Don’t let it bother you. Enjoy your spare time with the family.

The underlying problem is well documented, and the cause well known. Too many people chasing too few properties. Then it becomes as arms race, as soon as one family unit takes two jobs, then they can outcompete those who don’t. At which point, everybody starts doing it, and then you’re back at square one, but with everybody working harder. And the only people who benefit are those that have been on the property ladder for decades.

FeetLikeFlippers · 21/07/2025 17:17

God yes! I read something about this in the paper the other day that really pissed me off. It was actually an article about people who had turned a hobby into a career but at the end there were some tips from a so-called expert about how to achieve this if you don’t have a hobby (what kind of weirdo doesn’t have a hobby lol?). Anyway, one of the suggestions was a “drop shipping” business where you take orders online and then the goods get shipped to the customers directly from an overseas supplier. To me that just sums up so much that’s wrong with the world - wanting to make money without having any skills or talent, selling people crap they don’t need, shipping stuff that people don’t need from the other side of the world. I’m assuming most of these “side hustles” involve something similar.

whitewinespritzerandastraw · 21/07/2025 19:06

Agree

lilkitten · 23/07/2025 12:08

Is it just people don't like to say they have a second job? Like "side hustle" somehow makes it more glamorous, rather than they really need some extra money to get by? I also don't like "girl boss", "mumpreneur" etc, it sounds so demeaning. Is a girl boss somehow less of a boss than a "boss"? And then "girl math" etc, feels like women are going backwards

BoredZelda · 23/07/2025 12:15

Insomniapain · 19/07/2025 07:43

Well I thought " side hustle" was a US term. Perhaps you and the OP are US based so it is commonly used where you are?
Is " girl bossing " a US term as well? It's absolutely cringeworthy and ridiculous imo. I've never heard anyone use it

Show quote history

I’m in the U.K., and if you haven’t heard either of these terms you must have been living under a rock.

BoredZelda · 23/07/2025 12:18

lilkitten · 23/07/2025 12:08

I’ll give you most of these, but “girl math” is fine because of its context. I’ve also seen boy math, teen math, dog math etc.

EBearhug · 23/07/2025 12:42

BoredZelda · 23/07/2025 12:18

I’ll give you most of these, but “girl math” is fine because of its context. I’ve also seen boy math, teen math, dog math etc.

Show quote history

Is it? What context makes it all right?

Insomniapain · 23/07/2025 16:33

BoredZelda · 23/07/2025 12:15

I’m in the U.K., and if you haven’t heard either of these terms you must have been living under a rock.

Show quote history

I know the term " side hustle". But I've never heard anyone use it irl.
I didn't know the expression " girl bossing" - thank goodness. It's absolutely cringeworthy.
No I don't live under a rock. I just don't mix with people who use that type of language.

Most of the people I mix with use either standard English or Scottish words and dialect . Not American slang.

lilkitten · 24/07/2025 12:18

BoredZelda · 23/07/2025 12:18

I’ll give you most of these, but “girl math” is fine because of its context. I’ve also seen boy math, teen math, dog math etc.

Show quote history

It's more that I've seen girl math in the context of spending money on make up and clothes, which seems a bit rubbish

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 24/07/2025 12:29

Agree!

I also think it will be holding people back from progressing in their real jobs if they have “side hustles”, as they won’t be focussing on it properly. So it may cost people in the long term to be doing this less well paid extra work.

DiscoBob · 24/07/2025 12:32

Having two jobs was exhausting. I certainly didn't call the evening/weekend one a 'hustle' of any description.
The phrasing reminds me of MLMs. Gullible people ripping off other gullible people.

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