Another way to "legit" get money in this game is play the casino. The slots. If you run a macro spamming the slots, the odds are in your favor. Not sure why, but it works.
However that requires "some" bank. And initial micro management. It took me about $5000 to start off, and run it at $100-300 per try. then when you have about $30,000 bank, run it at maximum $1000 per try.
Also be aware to NOT run the macro for too long. Apparently "some" in game time eventually passes, albeit very slowly. So if you run the macro for hours on end (real time), you'll end up starving.
I normally run it at about 1 hour sessions, and it seems fine, about 6-8 hours ingame time passes. (As in, if I started playing slots at 12pm ingame, I'll end up at about 6-8pm)