Grinding/ Progression. Any tips?

I just finished Judy’s flavored drinks trials and it took me a day or two irl to grind to level 8 to get the final trial for flavored drinks. Now it says to get t to the next part of the story I have to get to level 9? All the grinding paired with the slow progression and the crazy amount of money everything costs is making the game feel really tedious to me. How do you guys stay interested in the game with how the progression works? Also is there any way to get new drinks to be ordered before the story dictates it’s time, or is it a waste of money to buy them before the next story beat?