Lot of money is moving around but you need first take a look to other stuff and and activities rather than coding/refcatoring.
Try see other people activities and have a look how much they spend for basic services you could improve. If you suck at UX/UI, give some money to someone else who could do it for you
what matters is how fast you can release something, do not speed time in courses or fancy optimisations
Also do not focus on a side project alone, let create 3 or 4 project a year
https://github.com/martensson/nixy