Book Review- Hustle Away Debt

Similar to the previous book I reviewed, Hustle Away Debt: Eliminate Your Debt by Making More Money by David Carlson is the product of a blog. In this case, the blog is Young Adult Money, a millennial-focused website about saving money and, more importantly, making more of it. The central conceit of the book is making more money through “side-hustles”, which is pretty loosely defined. Specifically, it’s “anything that makes money that is not your day job”, or to use his phrasing, your “9-to-5”.

Interestingly, even though the book is primarily about “side hustles”, one of the first things Carlson advocates is “See if you can get more money at your 9-to-5”. After exhausting that option, Carlson then goes into various sorts of potential side hustles of varying “hustleness”, for lack of a better term. He starts by mentioning various potential part-time jobs you can take on (Which is less a “side hustle” and more just “A reality for an increasing portion of the US”, if you ask me), before going into things like starting a blog, using some of your 9-5 skills in a freelance capacity, and so on.

The book’s biggest strength is also its biggest weakness. There are no get-rich-quick promises here–Carlson acknowledges that in the case of some side-hustles, such as the blog, it may take awhile to actually make money. Indeed, you may never make money becoming, EG, a Youtube personality. Yet it’s a bit disingenuous to claim you can hustle away debt (Or make any money at all) with some of the side hustles mentioned in the book. To me, the book’s main value is less in the specifics of some of the suggestions, and more in the general way it makes you think about being able to monetize skills you may not have thought of in that capacity before.

I mentioned on Facebook that if I took one or two concepts from each book I read, I’ll have considered said book a worthy investment. And as I mentioned above, the book did get me to think about ways I might make money outside of either of my two jobs (I guess I’m side hustling already!). But truthfully, of the three books in the Humble Win at Work Bundle I’ve read so far, this was the one I enjoyed the least, and found the least useful. If nothing else, though, the Young Adult Money blog is now something I know about, which isn’t nothing.

-EE