How to Make More Money Without Working Harder

Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Getty Images

Your landlord just raised your rent — again. You’ve been invited to yet another destination wedding. And your friends want to meet for dinner, but your paycheck won’t hit for another week. Should you get a side hustle? Didn’t you hear something about how cat sitters can make $100 a day? When did it get so hard to afford your life? 

Katie Gatti Tassin, host of the Money With Katie podcast and, more recently, author of Rich Girl Nation: Taking Charge of Our Financial Futures, gets these questions a lot. Here — and in her new book — she offers realistic advice for increasing your income without overhauling your life, working around the clock, or side-hustling yourself to death (which, to be clear, she does not recommend). 

For a long time, the prevailing advice for making more money, especially for women, was to just ask for a raise. And maybe that worked for some people, but clearly not all. Where does that leave the rest of us? And what do you recommend that people do instead?
When I got my first job, I noticed very early on that while my department was primarily women, the most powerful and highly paid people at the top of the organization were men. So it wasn’t that there were men at my level who were doing my same job and being paid more to do it. Instead, there was a split between the people who were in charge, getting paid the most, and the people who were doing what we might consider the grunt work, day to day, and making less.

This also happened to be around the time that the girlboss era was reaching its cultural crescendo. Of course, I read Lean In and went on the hunt for advice that would help me avoid becoming a stalled-out middle manager. But I wound up feeling pretty betrayed by that brand of empowerment. It had led me to believe that women weren’t earning as much as men or getting promoted because they just weren’t good enough negotiators. It also implied that women’s choices and behavior could fix, and were to blame for, these society-wide outcomes that are much more complex and aren’t within our individual control.

But eventually I came around to see that you don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater — negotiating in a way that navigates gender bias effectively can help you be paid more for the work that you are already doing. Maybe you can’t work any harder than you already are, but you do probably need to navigate the systems that are poised to disadvantage you. It’s not your fault that the world is this way, but there are things you can do to make it more tolerable.

So, what are some ways to get more recognition for the work that you’re already doing?
There are some small, low-effort tweaks that are going to make it way easier to justify promotions. The popular negotiation advice is to keep a list of your professional accomplishments and then unfurl it to your manager and be like, “Look at all the wonderful things that I have done. Don’t you think I deserve more money?” And that’s great, but it’s better if people know about those accomplishments as they’re happening, not months afterward.

There was a woman I worked with in my first job who got promoted almost every cycle. Whenever there was an opportunity for acknowledgement or accolades, she was getting them. And she worked hard, but probably not that much harder than anyone else. Her secret was that she was socializing her wins. So whenever there was some initiative that she was part of, or she was working on a project and there were learnings associated with it, she would share that out with the department. Her tone was very much, “Just wanted to reveal these findings from our latest user study in case they’re helpful to other teams working on something similar.” Or, “This information might be useful to you.” Or even congratulating a member of her team for doing something great, which in turn reflected well on her. In doing so, she was constantly reminding people that she was present, she was engaged, and she was getting shit done. It never felt like a bragging montage, or hogging the spotlight, because she was communicating it for everyone’s benefit and being a team player. And that can go a really long way.

I think a lot of us are taught that if you work hard, the money will come — or that it’s annoying to toot your own horn. How can you get over that?
You have to recognize that corporate politics are just part of the deal. And that doesn’t mean partaking in something soul-crushing and fake, but it does mean recognizing that in many ways, perception is reality in the workplace. It is just as important that people perceive you to be working hard and getting things done as it is that you are actually working hard. I don’t love that. But the truth is, if you want to be paid fairly for your work, you have to make it other people’s business.

What are some other ways to make sure that your manager and higher-ups are noticing and appreciating your work?
I got this advice from a friend who is the founder and CEO of a multimillion-dollar company. She told me that the most important thing to keep top of mind is that the easier you make your boss’s life, the faster you are going to be promoted and rewarded. This is also known as “managing up,” and there are basically five levels to it.

Level one is going to a manager or a supervisor and saying, “Here’s the problem.” You’re dumping it in your boss’s lap and making it their problem. Maybe it’s important that you’ve brought it to their attention, but still, it’s annoying. It can come across as making their life harder, not easier. You don’t want to do that.

Level two is, “Here’s the problem. I’ve started to investigate it and this is what I think is causing it.” That’s a little better because you show that you’ve already done some legwork to figure it out. But it’s still not ideal.

Level three is, “Here’s the problem, and here’s what caused it. These are a couple of solutions that we have.” That’s better. But you really want to be at least at level four, which is, “Here’s the problem. Here are a few possible solutions, and this is the solution I recommend.” Anyone who’s ever been on the receiving end of that knows how great it is. It gives your boss the easy button of, “Yes, okay. Go do what you think is best.” It doesn’t take much brain power or disrupt their day. It allows everyone to execute and move forward.

Then you get to level five. That’s when you’re saying, “Here the problem and what caused it. This is what I already did to address it. I’m just keeping you in the loop.” So you’re letting your boss know that there was a problem, and you’ve already solved it. That’s where you want to be, ideally, but it also depends on your level of seniority. Some people don’t have the authority to make those decisions, in which case level four is your sweet spot. But those are the things that make your boss appreciate you and give you raises and bonuses and want to keep you. You’re taking problems off their plate, and that’s invaluable.

We’ve talked about how negotiating doesn’t always work, but it’s not irrelevant either. What negotiation tactics are helpful?
I think one of the well-intentioned but ultimately problematic things that came out of the Lean In era is that we were told to aggressively ask for what we deserve. And unfortunately, that advice does not work as well for women as it works for men, because people tend to have different expectations for how women behave. Researchers found that even when women and men asked for raises at a commensurate amount, men were 15 percent more likely to receive them. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask at all.

One thing to remember, particularly if you’re interviewing for a new position, is that the number at the top of the salary range they’re offering you is almost never the top of the range that they’re authorized to give you. That’s the unspoken social contract underpinning all of these interactions — they are expecting you to negotiate.

One of the best negotiating tips I ever got was from Kathryn Valentine, an expert in negotiation and women’s leadership. She told me that because women are socialized to put other people at ease, interpersonally, they sometimes undermine themselves when they’re in a position that’s uncomfortable, like asking for more money. So often they will make their ask, and then immediately begin offering reasons for why they understand if it’s not doable right now, and they totally get it if that’s not going to work. And what that does is make other people feel comfortable turning you down.

Instead, make your ask in a relational way — that is, you highlight all the reasons why your ask is mutually beneficial. Then you say, “What do you think?” And stop talking. You allow for the uncomfortable silence. If you anticipate that it will be awkward, you can be prepared for it. Let them say what they would like to say.

This is harder than it sounds. I’ve tried it a couple times myself, and it goes against my interpersonal instincts every time. But go in with a plan. You’re going to make the ask and then zip it. And it really works.

At a higher level, what are some things you can watch out for when you’re looking for a job and you don’t want to get stuck in a workplace that’s going to underpay you?
Some of this is inextricably tied to labor rights. Women in unions make 22 percent more than women in comparable positions that aren’t unionized. So one way to increase your income is to unionize your workplace, or try to work somewhere that has a union. That’s not something that we typically think about in terms of personal choices advice, but it is something that is far more within your control than, say, whether the United States finally gets universal parental leave or child care.

Let’s say you’ve exhausted all the options for a raise at your job. When should you try to pursue a side hustle or additional income stream?
In certain fields, there really isn’t a path to higher income. And there are a couple questions that I recommend asking yourself if you think you might be in that boat. Number one is, do you love what you do? Are you happy in this profession? And if so, are you comfortable building a financial life within those limits?

Number two is, can you see any path to higher pay? Are people senior to you paid substantially more, or is that salary progression probably going to be flat?

Number three is, would entrepreneurship change your financial outcomes? For example, if you’re a physical therapist, you might find that your salary is capped if you’re working in a hospital. But if you go independent and take the more concierge medicine route, you might be able to attract more high-paying clients. Look around and see if anyone in your field is earning the type of money you want to earn. Finally, are you willing to do other work that is more lucrative, or has more upside to fill in the gaps? This might look like a public school teacher tutoring ACT classes in the summer or becoming a private tutor for one month a year.

I don’t think that these questions have easy answers. But I do think that they can help guide you toward either an acceptance of the financial limits of the career that you’ve chosen and want to continue, or a decision to try something else. Maybe the limits are real and you’re not okay with them.

Speaking of side hustles: When would you say they are not worth the effort?
I think side hustles can be oversold. Sometimes a side hustle is positive and empowering, particularly if it becomes a business and that’s your goal. But not all side hustles are created equal. A lot of them are simply trading time for money — like if you’re driving Uber, that’s something you’re doing in your spare hours. And while that might be good in the short term if you really need cash, it can also lead to burnout. So before you start working longer hours doing additional things, I think it’s worth exploring the limits of the career path you’re already on. Are you being paid as much as possible for the work you’re already doing? Could doing it in a different capacity allow you to make even more?

Also, it’s worth being discerning with your energy. For most people, the best use of their time is going to be bolstering their main hustle, figuring out ways to turn that into a higher-paid job. For example, I was an advertising copywriter after college, and I realized that there was a hierarchy of payment that depended on what type of project you worked on. If you were a public relations writer, drafting press releases, you earned less than if you worked on the advertising side. And beyond that, if you were writing the e-commerce flows and user experience copy, which could be directly linked to revenue, you could make even more. Once someone tipped me off to the fact that I could be making $15,000 more per year if I wrote for the checkout flow, then I went and did that. Sometimes those internal pivots can be really powerful. Ultimately, just by repositioning myself within the company, I was able to qualify for a different job and double my salary. I think people underestimate how much a little shuffling can pay off.

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