by Chris | Jan 3, 2015 | Getting Started
Artists suck with their money. I know this to be true; A banker once told me so at a cocktail party.
Well… you know what, random banker that I made up just 5 seconds ago?? You can go suck a lemon! Because I happen to know that artists have everything it takes to be amazing, not only at money, but at personal finance in general.
A former teacher of mine would always remind me that before diving into all the things that you feel terrible at… you have to remember what makes you great. That way you always start the work from a place of strength, rather than a place of weakness.
We, in the artistic business, have so many strengths that we forget about. Or at least we forget how easily they can apply to other, non artistic, parts of our lives.
Seriously… it doesn’t take much digging to find that the same skills that make you successful at your chosen art form, are the ones that can make you successful in your own finances.
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by Chris | Dec 31, 2014 | Debt, Personal Interest, Taxes
So I’d finally made it.
I’d moved out to Toronto a few years previously, survived Opera School, and was heading to a real job! Well… as real as a job wearing a costume and shouting Italian across a room will ever be.
Not only was I going to be performing in a world class hall, and working with world class performers and teachers, I was going to get PAID!
For being an artist.
Living. The. Dream. (more…)
by Chris | Dec 30, 2014 | Personal Interest
Where do you turn to at a time like this? Well, like most of you, I turned to the one sure thing in my life. Google.
“I need a budget”, I told it in faltering keystrokes. I had heard the word before and it seemed like a good place to start for a person in my situation.
“You need a budget?”, it responded. YES! I clicked on its question and that led me to my first step.
You Need a Budget (YNAB)! A wonderful website for people exactly in my situation.
Right away, YNAB did wonders for me by bringing attention to my spending. Ah, the wonders of having to physically see what you’re spending money on. It’s amazing, by the 20th time you’ve recorded a trip to Subway in a month, you are forced to ask yourself… do I actually like Subway that much?
At the same time, I started working with an accountant on my tax problem. I was luckily recommended to a wonderful accountant who works primarily with artists (although the real reason I hired her was the presence of a Crokinole board in her office … 1000 menno points for anyone who understands why that’s a deal clincher.) (more…)
by Chris | Dec 29, 2014 | Personal Interest
So. I finally figured out I have yet another thing in common with Murphy Brown. I want it all. All the variety of an artistic, self-employed life, with all the security of a regular salary and a retirement plan.
Seems impossible.
Well, it probably is. But let’s be honest, when every commencement address, every visiting lecturer, every professor’s first class starts with “You will probably not make it” … you learn to block out people telling you what’s possible and what isn’t.
The budget was the first step for me. Like getting your hands in the dirt and realizing that’s what a potato plant looks like… I started to figure out what my money looked liked. What I was using it for, and re-evaluating every choice to see if it was still a good one. Changing my habits has not been a quick transformation. It’s been years and I still can’t seem to get my grocery spending down … I really like food.
One of the toughest challenges was how do you budget when your income stream is insanely variable. (more…)
by Chris | Dec 15, 2014 | Budgets
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In David Bach’s book Smart Couples Finish Rich he uses an exercise called the Value Circle. At first it sounded a little hokey, every personal finance book needs a hook, so they just find different ways to say the same thing (I’m ignoring what that statement means for this blog), but as I started to go through it I fell in love with it.
He encourages you to define your values, a daunting thing. My values? What do they have to do with personal finance. It’s much easier to set clear goals. Pay off debt. Contribute to my RRSP. Spend less on clothing. But how many times have these “clear goals” left us with nothing. They become things you “should” do. A better version of you would do them, but maybe they’re just not who I am!!
Well. Who are you? What do you want? Your values are the answer to that question. They’re the big words like “Happiness” “Love” “Adventure” “Relationships” “Health” “Fun” “Making a difference”. He has a list of words here. It’s not definitive, but it helped give me an idea of what he was talking about when he said values. You’ll also see on the link above a list of goals. It’s important to make the distinction between two. Goals are active. It’s great to have goals. But the advantage to first defining what your core values are is that you’ll pick the goals that are right for you, and hopefully the ones that you’ll actually stick to. (more…)
Artists suck with their money. I know this to be true; A banker once told me so at a cocktail party.
