Interesting thread topic!!
Right now, here's what I do in life.
For money, I work at the Sam Ash store out on eastern Long Island. Unfortunately, they stuck me at the front desk when they hired me, and I have no idea if I'll ever be given a promotion. But I get employee discounts on music stuff, so it's not so bad. Except I don't make much money; enough to save up progressively for good equipment that I can purchase with an employee discount, but still, it's pretty terrible. At least it's not a torturous job.
Other than working, I mostly mooch off my mom
I used to do some live sound gigs for two summers, but that didn't work out for whatever reasons. Mostly because I hate live shows compared to recording in a studio. But that's just because I'm a jerk. And also feedback and shitty performers who don't know how to sing into a mic.
I do freelance studio-style pro-sumer level recording in my basement, and I just finished recording the tracks for an album that my friend is sending out to L.A. to be mixed by my teacher from audio school, who actually did a lot of final mixes for Whitney Houston and a bunch of other famous people.
I have a professional certificate in Audio Engineering from S.A.E. Institute in New York City, and I'm trying to become a professional engineer and open my own high end recording studio some day.
But this might throw a wrench in that plan for a while. I recently joined a band too. Not sure if I should talk about it too much right now, but I'm absolutely stoked to be playing for this band and I definitely enjoy the music that I'll be playing. I'm working very hard to learn and rehearse the material, I want to be ready for the upcoming shows.
I'm not really sure how much money I'll make from playing in the band, but I'm really not concerned about that.
