That's very interesting, because my students say the same thing. (I'm a design teacher, not a math teacher, but it still gets discussed) These online gurus are convincing thousands of teens that they're going to do this and teens are getting fed into a sales funnel of courses and books that will leave them broke. Your student doesn't understand margins, market saturation, first mover advantage, or any of the reasons why there is no more money left to be made in dropshipping.

Self employment/what to charge per hour for services, why dropshipping/financial gurus are a scam, bad tiktok advice scams, etc

That's awesome, make sure you subtract boots and gloves and stuff but it seems like you're on track there. Also make sure you're filing taxes properly for it but I assume you know about that.

One thing you should do is subtract all the costs from your side business and then see what the profit is, including gas, travel, subscriptions, quickbooks, etc. I'm guessing 250-1000 is before you subtract all your costs for that business.

Just a heads up, I know what you mean by 'financially independent' but most people on this subreddit use that term to mean that you have so much money you don't have to work a job, just own businesses/get interest from investments. It might be confusing to not understand that so that's why I'm letting you know.

The obvious answer to your question would be owning a house for yourself. If you've done that, then I don't think you want to be a landlord unless you really want to Be A Landlord and deal with all the headache of that, and the responsibility to your tenants, it's a part time job at least.

In reality, the next step is what we call the 'boring middle'. It's the part where you are basically doing everything you can at your income level and you just need to work on your career and your life and not screw up for about 40 years, then retire comfortably. If your goal is to retire early (and have a fixed income while all your friends still work) or join the ownership class and be a boss of businesses and a landlord of tenants (you probably dont make enough to do this and it's quite a lot of work and responsibility, it isn't 'personal finance') then you're all good and you and your friends can keep each other accountable.

Pittsburgh has a famously pretty good transit system, i understand you might be out in the suburbs but you might find that once you've gotten an inexpensive uber into town you can do really well without a car for social events. I split rideshare rides across train rides all the time.