How Being ‘Time Poor’ Can Keep You From Getting Control of Your Money

How Being ‘Time Poor’ Can Keep You From Getting Control of Your Money

by | Oct 12, 2017 | Getting Started with your Money, Money Meditations

You know that thing where none of us seem to have enough money? Well, turns out that’s not the biggest issue when you’re trying to get control of your finances… 

I’ve been working with a bunch of people lately, both as clients and through office hours, and one thing keeps coming up over and over again… the first block in the process of gaining control is not a lack of money… it’s a lack of time.

How to find the time to track spending?
How to find the time to meet with a partner and chat about money?
How to create time to dig into financial records and documents? 

People are crazy busy, and so it’s really really hard to fit a new thing into the schedule.

So I figure if it’s happening to almost everyone I’m talking to… it might be happening to you, too (maybe concerning the upcoming tax deadline… just a thought).

Finding extra time is just as hard as (if not harder than) finding ‘extra’ money

From the outside it’s easy to talk about how simple it is to ‘just’ find 10 minutes a day… but anyone who’s actually tried to do that on a consistent basis knows it’s not nearly that easy.

I’ve tried to find just-ten-minutes to learn new languages, become a better runner, write more for the blog and work on a dozen other dream-versions of myself.

But it’s not easy.

Because ‘extra’ time doesn’t exist, just like ‘extra’ money doesn’t really exist. And the worst thing is that no amount of side hustling will create extra time.

There are only 24 hours in the day.

The only way to create more time is to take time away from something that you’re already doing.

And that’s hard.

So how the &$#% do you solve that problem?

This is what I’ve been thinking about for a week, and I think that some of the principles of budgeting can be applied to this same problem.

You can’t budget bullshit, and you can’t budget ‘vague estimates’.

If you accept the statement: “Spending time with your money is essential, if you want to get control of your cash”… then building in some really deliberate time planning is important for the majority of us.

So after you make the list of things that need doing, it’s time to take a look and be really honest about how long each item is going to take you (YOU… not the ‘average’ person… but YOU). If you’re not sure, overestimate… what would definitely be enough time to completely that task? Is it something that needs repeating for a few weeks or something that’s possible to do in just one day?

That could look a bit like this:

Then you have to sit down and plan when you’re going to find that time.

For most of us variable income earners… our time is just as variable… but once we have an idea of what we’re looking for we can start finding slots of time and committing to setting them aside.

I’m not sure if that’s the solution to the problem, but I do know that it is a problem. For those of you who really want to make some financial changes happen… finding the time to start that process is going to be the first major challenge.

You need to know that all your time is currently spoken for… and if you want to free some up for finance …. you’re going to have to make a really deliberate decision about it.

Emily Nixon

Emily Nixon

Rags to Reasonable Community Outreach Coordinator

Emily Nixon is an actor/writer/director/filmmaking Swiss Army Knife. She is also a big money nerd and Community Outreach Coordinator for Rags to Reasonable.

She came to this work after becoming completely fed up with living paycheque-to-paycheque and being too afraid to look in her chequing account. She is passionate about empowering other artists and variable income earners to keep doing what they love and feel confident about their finances.

Email Emily at emily@ragstoreasonable.com

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Diversify your income they said…. it will be great they said…

Diversify your income they said…. it will be great they said…

by | Oct 10, 2017 | Money Meditations

It’s so easy to throw around words that sound positive. Not only is it easy… but it makes you feel good.

When I say a word like ‘diversification’ I feel great. Especially when I’m talking about finance to a bunch of creative people.

It’s just such a good word. It’s such a good idea.

And when you tell someone else to do it, you get all the good feelings with none of the complicated realities.

… when you do it yourself…. cue complicated realities.

 

Splitting myself between worlds

After about 4 months of purely focusing on finance (and a little bit of vacation) I’m back in the opera world.
Except it’s not that simple.

I’m in the opera world… doing 6 hours of rehearsals, practising, trying to memorize and character study and all that stuff.

But I’m also still in the finance world… doing client work, making appointments, and trying to grow my practise.

And the more diversified I’ve become, the more I evenly spilt myself between these two income streams (and, let’s be honest, sources of identity)… the more difficult it becomes to balance things.

I’m not saying it’s impossible.
I don’t believe that at all.

But it is more complicated than I would have thought, and it deserves mentioning because I often throw the world ‘diversification’ around for all it’s glowing benefits, and forget to mention the fact that, especially for creatives, it’s hard.

 

Less risk. Less time.

I get a ton of benefit from this spilt. I love working with two different sides of my brain. I love meeting people in very different fields.

And I love the fact that I feel better about my financial future, knowing that I have more options to support me and my family.

My diversification has muted the riskiness of my future.

But I also have less time.
Less time to really spend in the creative process.

Less time to challenge myself to the excellence that the operatic craft demands.

And that’s been frustrating lately.

Can you split your focus and still be excellent?

I’m not a very egotistical man.

But I have an immense pressure (which I put on myself) to be excellent. As excellent as I can be in any field or pursuit I attach myself to.

It’s one of the things that drew me to opera.

It’s how I’ve felt in studying finance.

And the question that drives me crazy right now, is whether you can be diversified in the way that I am right now and still be excellent.

I think I can be. I think there’s a way to make my time more efficient and my study and practise more precise.

But maybe that’s hopefully naive.

Time will tell.

Emily Nixon

Emily Nixon

Rags to Reasonable Community Outreach Coordinator

Emily Nixon is an actor/writer/director/filmmaking Swiss Army Knife. She is also a big money nerd and Community Outreach Coordinator for Rags to Reasonable.

She came to this work after becoming completely fed up with living paycheque-to-paycheque and being too afraid to look in her chequing account. She is passionate about empowering other artists and variable income earners to keep doing what they love and feel confident about their finances.

Email Emily at emily@ragstoreasonable.com

Want to start getting control of your money? How can I help?

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More Money Won’t Solve Anything

More Money Won’t Solve Anything

by | Sep 5, 2017 | Money Meditations

I spent most of last week being disappointed in myself, and so it shouldn’t be a huge shock that come Saturday… I was so ready for the week to be over. 

I just hadn’t done enough. 

I told myself that next week I had to buckle down and do more. 

But here’s the problem with that entire line of thought… ‘enough’ and ‘more’ are goals that are just begging for another Saturday of disappointment. 

What is ‘enough’?

How much ‘more’? 

I can do ‘more’ but still have it not be nearly ‘enough’. That happens all the time. 

I was talking to someone about this last week during office hours… that so much of life is about managing expectations… and so much of finance is about the question of ‘enough’. 

How long did I walk around assuming that the answer to all of my financial problems was more money? 

And still, I end every week assuming that ‘more work’ is the one thing that I need to do in order to be more fulfilled. 

But it’s not… at least it’s not in a vacuum.

More is great, more than enough is even better… but it’s absolutely useless if you don’t have an idea of what enough is.

What’s your enough? 

At this point I feel like I’m writing a terrible version of an E.E. Cummings poem: more is the lesser of less’s enough…. so let’s cut the poetry and bring on the prose…

  • How much money would be enough to get you through this month? Do you know?
  • How much money would be enough to float you through the whole year…?
  • How much do you need in the next 5 years? 

I used to answer all of these questions with a laugh and a snide… ‘more than I have right now’….

But now I have real numbers, and so I know when I’m making enough… and when I’m not. I know when it’s been a good week, and when it’s been a bad one. I know when I need to cut back, and when there’s actually some extra money to spend on fun stuff.

I don’t know how to do that with my weekly workload yet. 

My work attitude is still the blanket pursuit of more: more writing, more work, more contacts, more social media reach, more traffic, more income. 

…and more disappointment at the end of every week when I fall short of a finish line that keeps moving further down the road. 

Thought for the week…


If more money were the solution, than doctors, lawyers, and investment bankers would be the most financially stable people on the planet. 

They’re not. 

Many of them have the same problems that we in the creative class have… they don’t have enough. 

And they never will until they figure out what ENOUGH actually is. 

This week I want you to think about how much is ‘enough’ for you. What does it mean financially? What does it mean for your weekly work? However that question rings true for you….

Have a great week.

Emily Nixon

Emily Nixon

Rags to Reasonable Community Outreach Coordinator

Emily Nixon is an actor/writer/director/filmmaking Swiss Army Knife. She is also a big money nerd and Community Outreach Coordinator for Rags to Reasonable.

She came to this work after becoming completely fed up with living paycheque-to-paycheque and being too afraid to look in her chequing account. She is passionate about empowering other artists and variable income earners to keep doing what they love and feel confident about their finances.

Email Emily at emily@ragstoreasonable.com

Want to start getting control of your money? How can I help?

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It’s not too late to start fighting (even if you might not win)

It’s not too late to start fighting (even if you might not win)

by | Aug 22, 2017 | Money Meditations, Retirement

I’ve never found the delivering ‘hard truth’ part of this job easy. I’m not really a tough love kind of guy.

But it’s important. 

And there’s nothing more difficult for me than sitting across from someone who’s just been hit with a heavy dose of financial truth… and who honestly believes it’s too late to do anything about it.

“I’m almost 70, there’s nothing I can do about this now…”

“I’ve made so many mistakes, the damage is done…”

“I am so screwed.”

It’s hard because they’re not necessarily wrong.

The cold hard truth of the numbers

One of the big questions people have when they come to talk to a financial planner is about retirement.

Do I have enough? Am I doing okay? Am I on track?

So, you go through their numbers, and see how much they’ll probably need to fund the lifestyle they want in retirement. Then you see what resources they have available – governmental and personal.

And even though that’s a pretty simplistic way to look at the problem, it gives you a good overview of whether they’re in the ballpark or not.

But let’s imagine you’re in your late 60s and have a potential need for over a million dollars in your retirement, but only have 50,000 saved … what are you supposed to do?

What if you’re also staring in the face of some pretty serious health concerns?

Without the benefit of years of income coming in, or time for COMPOUND INTEREST to help you… it’s hard not to agree that it’s actually too late to do anything that will fix everything.

It’s worth fighting even if it’s too late to win

We always want things to be simpler, to divide the world into a series of yes or no questions.

Can I fund my retirement?

Yes or no.

But if the answer ends up being ‘no’… what then? What next?

The common sense answer is that you adjust expectations. You change your needs in the future. You make the formula balance.

But I’m not talking about the people that can make that work.

I’m talking about the people that feel like they can’t. I’m talking about the ones who see a retirement ratio (needs : available resources) and who feel like making those two sides meet is a fairy tale.

I’m talking about the people who won’t even go talk to a financial planner because they’re convinced that their future is set. That they’ve made too many mistakes. That’s it’s absolutely too late.

To those people I say:

Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is too late to win this financial fight.

Fight anyway.

Fight because inevitability can go %$#& itself

I am only 32.

But when I look back at the last 10 years there are many things that happened and that I did that would have seemed absolutely impossible to my younger self.

Clearly the word ‘impossible’ (or at least things that ‘feel’ impossible) isn’t as absolute as I used to think.

But let’s say you aren’t in the mood for any of that ‘anything can happen’ nonsense.

You should fight anyway.

You should fight because there are never just two choices.

You should fight because your finances are so much more complex and run deeper than just answering the question: will I have a funded retirement or non-funded retirement?

There are so many little things that can be changed.

And I’m sure that those changes will be accompanied by the constant chorus of “if only I would have done this X years ago”. That’s fine. But don’t let it stop you.

Don’t let the feeling that the future is set stop you from trying to change it.

Because then it’ll really be set in stone.

How to start fighting … when the war might be lost…

If the new goal is to jettison inevitability … where do you start?

Well, anywhere is fine.

There’s no perfect beginning because you’ve completely rejected the end.

My friend Kate recently wrote about how CLARITY COMES FROM ACTION NOT THOUGHT, and even though her post isn’t directly related to what we’re talking about, the core statement is bang on.

Fight first. Direction later.

As another friend so often puts it:

“Just do the next good thing.”

Because sometimes the big picture is so insanely overwhelming, any remotely positive outcome so impossible, that that kind of focus becomes counterproductive.

It can’t be about the end anymore.

Honestly, I don’t know if the future is inevitable or not. Poets have been arguing about that for hundreds of years. But I can’t believe that it is. I won’t believe that it is. And I’ll leave you with the last words of one of my favourite poems by Edna St Vincent Millay (she’s talking about another kind of inevitable end (death), but it still rings true to me).

“I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”

I know the numbers.

I see the facts.

I understand the hopelessness.

But I do not approve.

And I am not resigned.

Emily Nixon

Emily Nixon

Rags to Reasonable Community Outreach Coordinator

Emily Nixon is an actor/writer/director/filmmaking Swiss Army Knife. She is also a big money nerd and Community Outreach Coordinator for Rags to Reasonable.

She came to this work after becoming completely fed up with living paycheque-to-paycheque and being too afraid to look in her chequing account. She is passionate about empowering other artists and variable income earners to keep doing what they love and feel confident about their finances.

Email Emily at emily@ragstoreasonable.com

Want to start getting control of your money? How can I help?

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Metrics that don’t matter (or permission to ignore your bank balance)

Metrics that don’t matter (or permission to ignore your bank balance)

by | Aug 15, 2017 | Money Meditations

When I started blogging 2 years ago, I was anything but prepared. 

I didn’t read blogs. I didn’t understand coding… or SEO… or how to use social media… 

Clearly, I was poised for success!!

Except I wasn’t. And you know how I know? 

STATS! The evil and seemingly all-knowing objectivity of cold hard numbers. I was no longer in the realm of the subjective arts… I knew exactly: 

  • How many people came to my site (not many)
  • How long they stayed (not long)
  • Whether they came back (not often)
  • Whether they commented
  • How many chose to follow me on all the social media sites
  • How many chose to join my email list
  • My Alexa ranking
  • My Klout score
  • My Google ranking
  • And of course… HOW MUCH MONEY IT MADE ME (let’s just round that number to 0)

And those were just a few measurements. It seemed like there were dozens of numbers that were screaming for my attention… a hundred metrics I needed to improve… 

The metrics that don’t matter….

Succeeding is tricky. Not just because it’s hard by any conventional standard, but because success is completely subjective. 

And so I think lots of us clammer for concrete things to hang on to. 

Let’s be honest. There are a ton of days when I feel like a complete failure and look for any number that can tell me that, despite what the voices in my head might say, I’m moving forward…

… but moving forward to what? 

Metrics only matter if they’re helping you track progress that you actually care about!

There’s no need to track everything… just the things that you want to work on. 

Goal first…. process second…. track what matters third…. 

Last week I challenged you to set goals before buying into a process. 

This week I want to warn you to not get sucked into metrics that don’t matter. 

There are lots in finance:

In the right context, all of these numbers can help tell you something, but they can also be completely overwhelming and distracting.

Your job is to find the helpful ones and ignore the rest … financial or otherwise. 

Thing to think about this week: 

How do you know you’re being successful? Is success measured by increasing the balance in your savings account…. or in affording to take the weekend off to spend with your kids? 

Which numbers – time, money, or otherwise – can you track to in order to… keep on track? 

Write them down, and try only thinking about those for the next week (and ignore all the other ones). 

Have an amazing week!

Emily Nixon

Emily Nixon

Rags to Reasonable Community Outreach Coordinator

Emily Nixon is an actor/writer/director/filmmaking Swiss Army Knife. She is also a big money nerd and Community Outreach Coordinator for Rags to Reasonable.

She came to this work after becoming completely fed up with living paycheque-to-paycheque and being too afraid to look in her chequing account. She is passionate about empowering other artists and variable income earners to keep doing what they love and feel confident about their finances.

Email Emily at emily@ragstoreasonable.com

Want to start getting control of your money? How can I help?

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Ankle Socks Are Bumming Me Out

Ankle Socks Are Bumming Me Out

by | Aug 10, 2017 | Getting Started, Money Meditations

It’s amazing the excuses I can come up with when I don’t want to do something…

During OFFICE HOURS last week I remembered a story that felt both ridiculous and very true.

It was awhile ago… when I had just moved to Toronto, and was missing the physical activity that living on a farm used to provide by the shovel full.

But I didn’t want to go to the gym.

If I’m being honest, with the benefit of hindsight… I was a little scared to look stupid because I didn’t know what to do at a gym. I didn’t know how the machines worked. I didn’t know what to wear. And I definitely didn’t know what to do on leg day.

But the excuse that kept coming to the front of my brain was… I didn’t have any gym shoes.

Shoes.

That’s the reason I put it off for months… even though I knew that I would feel way better if I went.

2 years later… I bought a pair of shoes… and as I was paying for them, I felt that voice in my head, the one that had been complaining about shoes for the last 2 years, prepping a new excuse…

Ankle socks.

But this time I cut him off at the pass. I bought shoes AND ankle socks that day. Later that week I took my first trip to the gym.

What are your tiny, but powerful, excuses? 

Little excuses can stop us in our tracks.
I’ve talked to so many people who have been meaning to: start a budget, switch banks, dig into that giant pile of receipts … but most of them aren’t doing anything all because of … well… there are actually a thousand reasons (read: excuses).
So, what are yours? What are some of the things that you want to do, but every time you’re about to try a voice in your head throws up an excuse…?

… maybe it’s time to just buy some ankle socks.

If you want to talk about ankle socks, excuses, or anything else… send me an email or sign up for OFFICE HOURS some time.

You also might want to check out this post on how YOU’RE NOT A USELESS PIECE OF $%#& IF YOU CAN’T FIGURE OUT HOW TO BUDGET… it’s one of my favourite things that I’ve written in a long time.

 

Emily Nixon

Emily Nixon

Rags to Reasonable Community Outreach Coordinator

Emily Nixon is an actor/writer/director/filmmaking Swiss Army Knife. She is also a big money nerd and Community Outreach Coordinator for Rags to Reasonable.

She came to this work after becoming completely fed up with living paycheque-to-paycheque and being too afraid to look in her chequing account. She is passionate about empowering other artists and variable income earners to keep doing what they love and feel confident about their finances.

Email Emily at emily@ragstoreasonable.com

Want to start getting control of your money? How can I help?

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