love triangles? try income triangles
celebrating 60 issues of Financial Hot Girl?!
Before we start… welcome to Financial Hot Girl’s 60th issue! 60 weeks of building this community and I’m so glad to have every one of you inside.
Back in 2022 being a Financial Hot Girl was just an idea in my head, and now it’s a real energy, a personality shift, and a way of life. One that I’m embodying everyday and one that I hope helps you feel financially hot.
We’ve got bigger things coming for you. Thank you for being here, and happy Sunday reading 🫶
One of my income streams this month has been from selling a lot of my old clothes and tech. I’ve been in my decluttering era all month, and it helped me realise something about this kind of money. I don’t actually make any until I’ve:
found the item
cleaned it
photographed it
listed it
replied to DMs and negotiated
packaged it
walked it to the post office and sent it
And even then, it’s only after the selling platform confirms the sale that I finally get paid. So if I was ill, or couldn’t do one of the 293839 steps above, no money for me.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love a side hustle. Emotionally, this process has been freeing. But it’s crazy how much physical effort it takes to earn even the tiniest amount of money, especially when your income is 100% active.
It’s made me think a lot about the system behind how money enters our lives, and whether it actually supports the version of life we’re trying to build… or just traps us in one that always feels too busy or too burnt out to change.
So today we’re talking about the three types of income, and how to start building income leverage. Let’s get into it.
౨ৎ In this issue:
The three types of income that matter
Forget love triangles. This is the triage of income that matters in your life:
Active income: you trade time for money (job, freelance, shift work)
Leveraged income: you do the work once and get paid many times (digital products, content, affiliates, scalable services)
Passive income: you don’t trade time at all (investments, royalties, automated business models)
None of these are better than the other (well, passive income is the goal), but the way you earn money determines how much space you have in your life to think, create, rest, and grow. We all need a little bit of each!
Let’s break down an example. If you’re constantly burning out, you might be over-indexed on active income. You constantly have to show up to earn, and effort = money. So how do you build leveraged income if you have no time to actually leverage?
How to build leverage when you don’t have time
You build it by trading intention instead of just pure intensity, using your existing habits and energy more deliberately.
Here’s how.
Leverage your job
Now, you don’t always need to start a side hustle (thankfully). You can make your active income more leveraged by:
Negotiating for outcomes instead of actual hours (e.g. project-based freelance work)
Up-skilling during work hours (e.g. ask to take training that supports your goals)
Asking yourself: what system could I build at work that frees up time long-term?
Turn consumption into creation
Most of you reading this are very likely already online. You’re already reading, scrolling, or watching content. Start building leverage by:
Writing one high-value post a week
Filming one voiceover-led vlog from your daily routine
Making a template based on something you’re an expert in
Switch your mindset from thinking you need to be Alix Earle posting 30x a day, to creating once and letting the internet scale it for you.
Use a ‘Tiny Leverage Loop’
I understand that time is a big barrier for a lot of us. I know that very well as someone who started their YouTube channel in the depths of their accounting exams! So if you only have 3 hours a week:
Use 1 hour to document what you know
Use 1 hour to package it into something repeatable
Use 1 hour to share it (via content, conversation, or email)
Even if no one sees it at first, you’re planting assets instead of spending energy.
Buy time before you try to earn more
If your plate is actually really full:
Can you automate a personal admin task?
Can you batch your meals or workouts for the week?
Can you outsource a £10/hr task to make space for a £100/hr opportunity?
These are a few example of how you could reinvest the active income in order to buy time that you could use to build leveraged income. And this is how you literally sneak in leverage without burning out.
Now, these were a few ideas from my own experience building leverage, but there is no right answer. There’s just a smart answer for the season you’re in. And your income strategy should match your season, as always, the Financial Hot Girl way.
You can absolutely keep a 9–5, side hustle, freelance gig, whatever it is - but don’t let that be the only income muscle you train.
Because if the only way you earn is by being awake or emotionally available, you’ll never feel financially safe, even when you’re earning.
How to build your income plan
If you want to use this info to build a personal income plan according to your life season and your energy, I’m teaching it in Earn, Keep, Grow (EKG).
EKG is a financial implementation system — to help you take everything you (might, or might not) already know about money, and finally do something with it.
EKG walks you through:
Building income streams based on your life season
Creating a money system that protects your time + mental load
Making investing feel like something you can do based on your personal goals, energy and values
If you're tired of feeling stuck, unstructured, or like you’re too smart to be this broke, this is your sign to join the waitlist - who are getting more in depth tutorials this week on each section: Earning, keeping, and growing your money.
Interested in Earn, Keep, Grow?
Join the waitlist for more info, early access and bonus content.
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This newsletter and everything shared in it is to help you build a well-rounded, aspirational life that includes money. I hope it was able to do that today 🫶
— Dev xo