by Chris | Mar 22, 2016 | Artist 2 Artist, Debt, Getting Started
*The following is part 2 of a year-long series. If you want to start from the beginning, learn about who Lindsay is and check out how much debt she’s starting with… check out PART 1.
Alright my friends! The first month of my debt-paying challenge is over, and let me tell you, it’s been a roller coaster.
Like the start of any good financial challenge, it began by my going on a 4-day juice cleanse, and taking a purely personal trip to New York City for my birthday.
Wait… what?! (more…)
by Chris | Feb 16, 2016 | Artist 2 Artist, Debt
*This is a guest post by fellow artist and financial tinkerer, Lindsay. Here’s part one of what will be a 12 part series tracking her debt repayment process throughout the year. Enjoy!*
Hello friends! I’m Lindsay. I’m a singer, and I want to share a huge goal with you: I intend to pay off my credit card and line of credit debt by the time I turn 30. (SIDE NOTE: I turn 29 in like, 2 days.)
Now, this isn’t my first time attempting to pay off debt – I actually knocked out a pretty significant chunk (around 15k) about a year ago, but the way I was doing it just didn’t line up with my values.
I was EXHAUSTED. (more…)
by Chris | Nov 17, 2015 | Artist 2 Artist
Alison Moritz appeared on my Facebook feed when Seattle Opera published a quote of hers:
“Many people probably won’t talk about this honestly, but I think it’s important to be frank about the personal and financial sacrifices that it takes to be an emerging artist, particularly in the United States. There are many wonderful rewards to this life and work, but they are not necessarily financial. It’s a very hard position to be in—when I first started, I often found myself doing work I loved with people I greatly admired, but not getting paid enough to make a living. What if I couldn’t afford to take that kind of risk on myself? What stories and artists are we missing out on because there are people who simply can’t afford to create art for a living?”
You can only imagine how excited that made me… an artist after my own heart!!!
So I pestered her with an email or two and she graciously agreed to answer a few questions about her life as an artist and the broader financial challenges that we all are facing these days.
And man did she deliver: with some great thoughts, a ton of resources, and a few pieces of advice that will be rolling around in my head for months.
Enjoy!
(more…)
by Chris | Nov 12, 2015 | Artist 2 Artist, Students
Way back in April I received a nice note from a lovely singer who hails from Minnesota (which is every prairie boy’s favourite US city… ). She was trying to decide which grad school to go to: the cheaper option, or the more expensive one (which was much more interesting to her).
So I wrote a bit of a response which you can read HERE.
Not too long after that, I found out that she walked away from the whole grad school thing, and took a year off.
It’s a hard choice, to step outside the ‘normal’ path, and so last week I bugged her again with a few questions about her year off, her decision to not go to grad school, and how she was adjusting to the balance of being an artist in the ‘real world.’
Thanks so much, Victoria, for telling your story. (more…)
by Chris | Nov 6, 2015 | Artist 2 Artist
I don’t have kids. Heck.. I don’t even have one kid. But since I recently passed out of my 20s it seems like so many people in my social circle are taking the plunge into parenthood.
When you’re an outsider looking through the window in at parenthood it’s hard to get a read on what’s really happening. One day it seems like complete perfection, but then after a morning of sleeping until 10:30 because I’ve had a late show the night before… I can’t help but wonder… how I could possibly handle being responsible for a whole other life!
It’s another one of those impossible questions to answer: what is my life going to be like when I add the ‘kid’ factor? But like so many of the impossible questions out there, I feel like if you put enough stories together… you usually start to see a pattern.
So I’ve hit the streets to talk to artists.. artists who have started families in the last few years.. to talk about some of the early costs and incredible rewards of kids.
Today, it’s Mel’s turn.. she’s part of a two artist parenting team. They’ve got two beautiful kids, and she was kind enough to take a few moments of her precious time to answer a few of my questions. (more…)
by Chris | Aug 20, 2015 | Artist 2 Artist, Dealing with Debt, Debt
Lots of artists have lots of debt. But tons of those artists are managing to pay it back, all while living this crazy variable life.
I recently put out a call for artist debt stories and got this email that I just had to share.
Meet Charlotte. She’s a Canadian opera/musical theatre singer based in Toronto. This is her debt story…
“It’s an unconventional debt repayment story – I paid off all of my debt by taking on more debt – but it’s worked out beautifully and given me more stability and peace of mind than I ever thought was possible while still pursuing a full-time performing career.
The short version is this: four years ago, I was freelancing and working part-time at a law office – and I felt like I was drowning in dept. In 2008, I graduated from Western with $26,000.00 in student loans. By 2011, my student line was still sitting at $18,000.00 – due largely to the constant strain on my income from continuing to re-invest in my developement i.e. summer program tuitions, lessons, coachings, travel expenses, audition expenses, etc. I also still owed my parents $4,000.00 and my credit card was maxed at $1000.00. Eeek.
So I bought a house.
With ZERO financial backing from any outside source (not even a mortgage co-signer), at 25 years old, with an annual average income of $24,000.00 gross – I bought a rental property.
In four short years, my rental income has paid off the following: my student line, my parents, and all of my consumer debt – not to mention it also pays my mortgage and all operating expenses (property tax, house insurance, utilities, maintenance and updates, etc.)
I wasn’t simple by any means – it took a LOT of creativity and hard work – but really anybody could do it.”
– Charlotte
I was super fired up by her awesome solution to her debt problem… I also had a ton of questions. (more…)
