How did you increase your income?

Between holding out for a raise, switching companies or industries, or starting a side hustle, I can’t seem to decide what the right move is

It's probably wise to pursue at least 2 of the 4 options you're considering.

To start with, of course as long as you're at this company, it makes sense to aim for higher income opportunities, if those are anticipatable down the road.

As others have said (and you have experienced), these are not always realistically available in any given employment situation. Make an honest assessment of what your future there can look like. And sometimes this takes patience – a relatively new low-level employee isn't going to be in the running for management positions, etc. You've got to prove yourself first.

There's also absolutely no reason not to apply for other jobs while you're working your current one. In fact that's the preferred way to do it. You don't need to be certain that you want to leave, to test the waters and see how easy it would be to get another job that you think you'd like more/that pays better. It might turn out you're already in a good situation considering your skillset, credentials, and job history, but you won't know until you check what else is out there.

It's worth noting that often you need some amount of employment history/experience to be interesting to other employers. So part of the answser may be to just hang in there.

If you're ultimately unsatisfied with your type of work, your field, or your career prospects, obviously in order to change this you'd need to seek out and/or become qualified for a different type of work. The decisions and sacrifices involved aren't easy, but plenty of folks have done it.

And you can always pursue side hustles / small business opportunities while working full time (and while applying to other full time jobs). In the end of course you only have so much time, and trying to spend time with your family while working full time, interviewing elsewhere, retraining/getting more credentials or education, and trying to start a business is a lot to manage. So you'll have to decide what is most likely to get you where you want to go, and doggedly pursue it, even though it's not always fun. And like I said, you can mix and match to an extent, see what works out for you. No need to abandon a stable job until you've got something else to go to as a replacement.

I did a lot of side hustling early in my career when my main job salary was small (all sorts of side gigs including reselling, tutoring, coding). The biggest mistake made in those early years was not negotiating my salary upfront. Not being a good negotiator has cost me a lot of $$.

As my skills and confidence grew, I would say that leaving jobs to get another one has provided the biggest return for me. Growing your skills (all aspects, including writing, communication, tech, psychology) help too.

It sounds like a bit of research is in order.

Before thinking about switching industries altogether (unless you hate it) and starting completely from scratch, consider how you can leverage your existing skills and career capital. IF you were to move up at this company or somewhere doing similar work, what's the potential upside? What are people 1-3 steps or roles ahead/above you making? And don't forget benefits and other factors like work hours and culture around taking time off. If the best you can hope for is a move from "mediocre" to "just okay", maybe this isn't the path for you long term.

I would start there as a first step.

Early career professional here, 10 years in the workforce. I’ve changed up my career path twice already to optimize for personal enjoyment and financial sustainability. Job hopping has brought me the largest raises but more practically, figuring out how to better leverage my skills in to what the market is demanding. For me, this is moving from finance to business systems and will likely lead me to a combo of the two one day depending on what the market is paying for. I have failed starting 2 different side businesses and used to have side jobs doing cleaning before I had a kid but personally didn’t feel worth losing out on more time with my daughter for a couple hundred bucks. Figuring out how to leverage my skills while not doing something I hate has been the best for me thus far in my career but still have a lot more to go.

This has been tricky for me and I've had to add side jobs. My main job is for a school district as a software dev. I don't get the giant software salaries you hear about. There is not a lot of opportunity to make more at the district but I may have a chance if I stick around. Benefits are good and there is a pension.

What I've done is just work part time jobs. A job at the mall. A job for a plumbing company doing lead generation. A job at Taco Bell. It all sucks but I'm single and every dollar moves the needle for my savings. I'm usually saving in the 4k - 7.5k range but it is a grind to do this.

Like you said many people get a big salary jump by switching companies. So you could be strategic. For me I'm happy to stay put awhile longer since it's tough to get a software job and I'm not a coding all star. If you are more long term focused I've heard people who do well starting a side business but that could take some time and you could see ideas fail. I'm on the short term trying to get to Lean FI fast so spending 4 hours at a job after I leave my main job is a good idea for me.

I wish I had a huge salary but I don't so I'm just trying to do whatever I can for an extra buck. It does kind of suck though working extra jobs.