If you make $400,000 a year, you'd be proud, right?

Well, not if you’re real estate tycoon and social media influencer Grant Cardone.

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“If I made $400 grand a year, I would be embarrassed with myself as a husband, a father, basically as a human being,” Cardone said in a video on his YouTube channel.

“$400 grand. How do you make sense of $35,000/month? You guys haven’t done the math. You have not done the math because you cannot live on $400 grand a year.”

The motivational speaker, who goes by the nickname of Uncle G, also says that he can’t even live on $2.7 million a year because his plane “eats $2.7 million a year.”

Most people don’t have a private jet in their budgets. And according to the Census Bureau, the median household income in the U.S. was $70,784 in 2021 — so there’s probably no need to be “embarrassed” if you're making just $400,000 a year.

Still, the motivational speaker has one thing right: we could all use some extra cash.

So here’s three ways for how you can boost your income, because in this economic climate, every bit counts.

Change jobs

Switching jobs may seem daunting given the massive layoffs all over the news these days.

Yet, analysis from the Pew Research Center reveals that switching jobs could be a clever way to boost your income. The data suggests that half of workers who changed jobs from April 2021 to March 2022 saw a real increase of 9.7% or more in their pay compared to a year earlier. A real increase is an increase after taking into account how inflation erodes the value of money.

At the same time, the median worker who stayed in the same job saw their real earnings decline by 1.7% over this period.

This means if you’re looking to bring home more bacon, leaving your current role or employer for better opportunities may be a good bet at getting the salary increase you’re hoping for.

Read more: Ben Affleck says he and Matt Damon blew through the $110K they made from Good Will Hunting on jeeps, 'party house' — 4 tips to make your money last

Get a side hustle

If you want to stick with your day job, consider getting a side hustle — something you get paid for doing in addition to your full-time job. It allows you to earn extra income — and could even be a way of testing the entrepreneurial waters before you dive in.

In fact, side gigs have already become popular. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that as of November, 4.5 million people were working a primary job full-time and a secondary job part-time. Moreover, 336,000 people were working two full-time jobs simultaneously.

If you are considering a side hustle, there’s no need to start big.

A simple gig like tutoring could be worth $75-$90 an hour, while dog walking could net you as much as $1,000 a month. Consider your passions and your skills that could be valuable to someone else.

Invest with passive income in mind

To become a real high earner like Cardone, you’d probably have to do more than just dog walking. One way to achieve true wealth is to invest for passive income.

“It took me 20 years of trial and error before I achieved a multimillion-dollar net worth. I had to exercise tremendous discipline and invest as much money as possible into income-generating assets,” Cardone writes in an article for CNBC Make It.

“Now, I draw income from the 18 companies I started, and the 12,000 apartment units I own that make passive income.”

Indeed, well-chosen real estate assets can provide investors with a steady stream of rental income.

Real estate is also a well-known hedge against inflation. As the price of raw materials and labor goes up, new properties are more expensive to build. And that drives up the price of existing real estate.

On top of that, prime commercial real estate, for example, has outperformed the S&P 500 over a 25-year period. Of course, while we all like the idea of collecting passive income, being a landlord does come with its hassles, like fixing leaky faucets and dealing with difficult tenants.

But these days, you don’t need to be a landlord to start investing in real estate. With the help of new platforms, these kinds of opportunities are now available to retail investors. Not just the ultra rich.

With a single investment, investors can own institutional-quality properties leased by brands like CVS, Kroger and Walmart — and collect stable grocery store-anchored income on a quarterly basis.

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.