It's hard. Doubly so if you really tick some of the boxes of people's preconceptions, like not being able to sustain yourself doing the thing you identify yourself with. In my case, I'm a musician, but I have a day job plus I do sound engineering which in terms of the income is in between.

What do you tell other people in this situation? It depends on the person, but telling others you're a musician either means you trust them enough not to roll their eyes (lots of people don't, merely being polite), or you just don't care, in which case it can be a kind of a challenge (k, let's see how you react).

Also, personally I suspect this can be a huge barrier to ever getting a job in tech.