Making money vs. not spending money

Just started looking at this sub because I've been trying to save money etc etc. so sorry if this is a common post I haven't actively looked.

Why does everyone spend so much time and energy into making 50 bucks a week when it'd probably be equally as easy to save the money in the first place? I'm not including apps that only take a few minutes to save some money that's going to be spent anyways and not asking people who make a second career out of this. I mostly am asking people who spend a few hours a week to earn a couple hundred dollars a month.

I've tried user interviews, buying/reselling on eBay, ibotta, ebates, etc. The whole shebang. I've also tried couponing, comparing deals, cutting back on unnecessary purchases, etc.

It seems like a lot of people spend time doing menial surveys or that the beer money comes from spending money in the first place. I can understand ebates and ibotta because they're obviously easy ways to save money you're going to spend regardless. But I've even done user interviews and it seemed like the time I spent filling out countless surveys wasn't worth the money. Sure it ended up being more money than most of the other places so its a great option but I invested so much time into reading posts, checking for new ones, etc. Ebay was solid until the economy crashed. But I felt like it was most time efficient to make a meal at home vs eating out or skip coffee or put something back at the grocery store that I knew I didn't need. I spent more time looking around for deals rather than impulse buying or even comparing prices at grocery stores or planning meals out better, etc. Maybe this is something everyone here does already but if you're in your 20s/30s I really doubt it.

Tldr: where does everyone draw the line in regards to spending your time earning extra money vs trying to save your money before you spend it?