We musicians are peculiarly creative and foolishly impulsive, and the bank account balances could read single-digit figures and be at ease until eternity.
You wait for a project to walk by, poach it – get it, then get exploited, produce, perform, and submit the music, and then – you wait – wait until money comes in. And before you can console yourself with ‘that things will get better’, the bald-headed money gushes out from your claws, leaving behind no trace at all.
Zero – that’s what ‘most’ musicians live with.
This is serious.
Many good musicians who get paid well are rowing a sinking boat of debt and liabilities – by choice. Not that they can’t change it – but they find it too non-creative.
Finance and money handling are not for me – is what they say. And that is exactly what you could be unknowingly promoting by being a musician, singer, or sound engineer. It’s not bad to have no money, but it’s too bad not to have a financial plan.
And when you get some money, you pounce on that latest gear that’s available at half price, that’s been lying as a bookmark in your browser. This action is foolish impulsiveness, and this is ‘zero’.
Financial planning is crucial to building a strong career in music. It’s the real-world ‘fuel’. Money is non-poetic. Money is the real green.
Money is the ‘money’ for that new string to fix your guitar. But money is also the future that you’d want to build for your family and you.
Music videos, new gear, new software, new costumes… blah and blah can wait. Start saving!
And – Zero is a good figure to begin with.