NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast - How to Navigate Income Swings in a Creative Career

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

Discover how to navigate financial uncertainty in a creative career with insights from a jazz saxophonist's personal journey. How can creative professionals manage financial uncertainty in their careers?  What are the essential financial strategies for artists dealing with fluctuating income? Hosts Sean Pyles and Abby Badach Doyle discuss the financial challenges in creative careers and strategies for overcoming them to help you understand how to thrive financially while pursuing your passion. They begin with a discussion of the unique financial hurdles faced by musicians, artists and writers, with tips and tricks on managing unpredictable income, the importance of saving and maintaining mental health amidst financial instability.  Then, jazz saxophonist Roger Romero joins Abby to discuss his personal journey to a full-time music career. They discuss the support systems needed for a successful creative career, the logistics of managing seasonal income and advice for aspiring artists who are considering full-time careers pursuing their passions. Romero's insights provide valuable lessons on building a supportive community, continuously learning and developing skills, and the importance of financial planning for long-term success.  In their conversation, the Nerds discuss: thriving in the arts, creative careers, music industry, financial stability, navigating income swings, student debt, pursuing passion, artistic ambition, financial balance, creative journey, performing and teaching, continuous learning, music gigs, financial planning, supportive community, building a reputation, managing unpredictable income, mental health, financial challenges, seasonal income, saving money, tax season, professionalism, creative fulfillment, careers in music, supportive family, engineering to music, odd jobs, wedding band gigs, social media networking, music production, gear investments, teaching music, networking in music, and financial unpredictability. To send the Nerds your money questions, call or text the Nerd hotline at 901-730-6373 or email [e-mail]. Like what you hear? Please leave us a review and tell a friend.

Trying to make money in a creative pursuit is not easy. Just ask any actor, writer, painter, or musician, and they'll likely tell you a story of starting out with little money and ending up with, well, probably still not a lot of money. Today, we're going to talk about some of the financial challenges

that are unique to creatives, and a few ideas for meeting those challenges. Welcome to NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast. I'm Sean Piles. And I'm Abby Badak-Doyle. Welcome to the Smart Money host chair, Abby. Delighted to be here, Sean. So today we are exploring what it takes to succeed in a creative endeavor and hopefully make some money at it too. Pursuing the creative arts is not an easy career path,

but if you're in the creative industry, you're probably not doing it for the money. You're doing it for the absolute love of it. Whether it's photography, music, theater, writing, or beyond, these are pursuits that come from the soul. That's right, Sean. But it doesn't mean that you don't need to make a living. Pardon the double negative.

So today we're going to talk with a musician who's experienced the financial ups and downs of pursuing a professional career with his saxophone. Love it. And it's not like it's impossible to make a living as a musical artist. According to the career site Indeed.com, the average salary for a musician in the U.S. is just shy of $53,000 a year. Another career site, Zippia.com, put the average salary for a pro musician at between $25,000 and $127,000 a year. So quite the range there. But it can be a long road to significant financial success. So Abby, you brought this idea to us. What prompted it for you? Are you a musician? I am, Sean. I'm a songwriter and a performer, mostly violin, and I play a little guitar. I grew up in a family of musicians, and I actually met my husband at an open mic 14 years ago,

and we've been playing gigs together ever since. Oh, that's great. Well, I grooved out with the sax when I was in sixth grade, and that was the extent of my musical career, but I did enjoy it. I just feel bad for my mom, who had to listen to me practice hot cross buns over and over after school. I'm sure your mom loved every minute of it, but she's probably not surprised you didn't go into music for a career. Yeah, she does enjoy the podcast. So at least there's that. Well, listener, we want to hear what you think too. Are you trying to make it as a musician or any other artist type career?

We would love to hear about it or anything else you'd like to share about your money lives. Leave us a voicemail or text the Nerd Hotline at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730-NERD or email a voice memo to podcast at nerdwallet.com. So Abby, who are we hearing from today? Today, I'm talking with Roger Romero, who also goes by the stage name Feral Cat. He's a musician, artist, composer, and educator based in Pittsburgh. Roger plays jazz saxophone, and he calls himself a DIY emo musician. We're going to hear the story of his early beginnings in music and how he created a career for himself. And all

of the music you'll hear in this interview is composed and played by Roger. That's coming up in just a moment. Stay with us. Roger, welcome to Smart Money. Thanks for joining us. Hey, yeah, thanks for having me. How was your day? And what have you been up to? I spent the majority of my morning doing like video editing for a music release I'll have. And is that a typical day for you? Or does every day kind of look a little bit different? Every day does look a little bit different. I have a rehearsal later this evening, but there's plenty of time during the daytime for me to just kind of get other work done and chill sometimes.

Chilling is important. So tell us a little bit about where and how you grew up. What originally sparked your interest in music? First off, I grew up in a relatively musical family. I feel like relatively is definitely downplaying it. My grandfather was a composer and both of my parents met in their college band in the Dominican Republic. So I've always had it around. Music has been a deep part of just the culture of what's happening in the house. My parents saw that I was doing well in music pretty early on, and eventually we even moved schools to a space where the music program was

stronger, played clarinet to start in fourth grade, went on to play saxophone in sixth grade. It was handed to me by my band director. I then moved schools and changed from playing a soprano saxophone to a tenor saxophone. I grew up enough to be able to hold the instrument, which is kind of important when you're small. Some of these instruments are too big. And even like in middle school, I had a saxophone trio called Fluid Jazz. It's corny and dorky to look back, but I just love that little piece of myself. Developed a sax trio. It was me on tenor and then a friend of mine on alto and another friend of mine on bari. And we had gigs like seventh or eighth grade. I don't know how much they paid. I don't remember that at all. So it took a little while to start getting the paid gigs.

I mean, it took a little while even as an adult. There was like a dip in the middle of it where it was like, no, nothing's paying me. And then suddenly things pay me again. So coming from a family of musicians, were they supportive of your decision to pursue music professionally or did it take a little bit of work for them to understand. My parents specifically wanted to support what I was doing. I was fortunate that they gave me reins to basically decide what I wanted to do with my life. I went to college for engineering at Carnegie Mellon. And in doing that, I was creating a safety net for myself that was encouraged for sure by my parents and by outside forces, the economy. Yeah, and all those thoughts were spinning through my head when I was 17. Like, how do I actually sustain this? How do I create this career?

And so at first I decided that I would go for engineering, get a real job, and work through music either on the side or in whatever capacity I was afforded. And then after college, I got a real job and I got laid off from that real job after about a year and some change. And within that, there was kind of like a deciding point whether or not I choose to pursue grad school in my major or in whatever I was studying in school, or do I decidedly just go for it? And at that point in time, I decided I was going to go for it. And I took odd jobs. I was a server. I was like a blog writer, whatever could fill out and pad out the rest of it. And I started working. Do you have student loans still from your undergrad degree?

I do. How does that fit into the mix for you? Well, when it comes to my student loans, I spent a lot of time deferring them. And at some points, there was like a natural deferment, which was good. You know, like I didn't actually have to pay attention to my student loans for about a couple of years. But the interest continues to accrue. And this may be called the Smart Money Podcast, but I do not personally think that when it comes to my student loans, I am doing an intelligent job. So thinking about your first day job and that layoff experience, and you were thinking about that being a jumping off point to pursue music full time. Did you consider finances in that decision? What was that

decision making experience like? Yeah, finances were probably the major concern. I was unemployed for six months directly after being laid off for the job or I collected unemployment. I didn't get like a severance or anything like that, but I was flat broke. I was losing money consistently because unemployment wasn't quite covering all of the bills and I couldn't work at the time. But then once I found work, it still wasn't quite enough, at least to start because I was largely just server or working this odd job. And then once some music gigs, some professional paid hired gun gigs started to come through, I remember I was working at a speakeasy that had live music. I met musicians and I met someone that introduced me to this like wedding band cycle. And so I

started to get kind of gigging work through that. But really, it started to be that me both playing with my friends and playing in a couple of these professional networks started to build out my actual career. Financially, it really was just it just sucked for a good year, at least. I'm not really sure how I even managed it. I took on credit debt that I still have. Well, not the same debt. I don't know. I feel like debt just kind of rolls around for me. It's there. It is an active part of my life and is usually a part

of my decision-making when it comes to whether or not I can take these risks, whether or not I can create a jumping off point. I found my way towards making an amount of income through music, but it never quite filled all of the financial gaps and still doesn't. This is a long game and it's a lot of investing in yourself. And for the most part, talking yourself out of, are you continuously stupid for trying? You're battling a lot of different sides of this. There's finance, but there's also like mental health. And there's also just anything else that you can think of in life that might feed into you whether or not you decide to take a risk. So can you walk us through the nuts and bolts of your sources of income right now and what kind of gigs you're stringing together?

So especially since I started taking a lot more professional music work, the seasons determine a lot of when I'm busy. So between December and February, for example, I don't do a lot of performances. But when March through October rolls around, and especially during the summer, I'm usually or typically booked out. Sometimes it depends on the month, but I could be working five to 15 gigs a month during the summer. And so that provides an amount of income. My W-2 work is teaching. So I make up some of the income working at an after school program, teaching production and also doing private lessons. How do you balance the seasonal income that might be a little bit

unpredictable? How does that flow into your household day-to-day expenses? You learn how to save in a certain way. And I don't always follow through in the way that I expect to year to year. But being busy during the summer means I am net positive. And whereas in December, January, February, I will be net negative. So the three months typically balance themselves out to where I'm usually in the same financial space every year. I think I'm going to die somewhere between December and February. And in June, I'm like, I don't know if I need to, I don't wanna work this much, but I do. I love it every time I get on the stage,

but just looking at the schedule sometimes freaks you out. And I know musicians who are 10 times busier than I am. I know there's a way to make music the end-all be-all financially, but I've also found some amount of solace in teaching. I enjoy it. I enjoy the work of it and I enjoy connecting with students. And so some piece of me likes the balance and the balance is what has allowed me to get through because I still have income during those winter months because of teaching, but I use and dip into some of the savings I've created during the summer. Yeah. So with most of your income coming from these unpredictable gigs, how do you tap your network to find work, whether it's a new place to play or someone who's looking for lessons,

that kind of stuff. Social media, typically. Let's say if I look ahead a couple of months and see fewer gigs than I actually would have hoped for, then first of all, in working for a number of years, at least at this point, I have relationships with certain spaces where I can reach out and say, hey, um, are you interested in me coming in a couple of times this summer to play? And I feel like a number of the folks that I've met for my work are either through social media or through word of mouth. A lot of the groups that I create, or a lot of the bands that I've made are through meeting people at a jam session or meeting people at an open mic. So a lot of these spaces are like school almost. You go there and you learn from the elders that are performing, but you're also sitting there with your classmates taking notes. But the act

of sitting there with your classmates and talking about these things is what develops you and you start to build your own network through these folks and through the folks that they're connected to. So when you took that leap to pursuing music full time, did you have any big startup costs like home studio or investing in additional gear, that kind of thing? To start, there were a couple of gear investments. For example, I wanted to have a microphone to clip on, but that wasn't as necessary as it was just something that I felt was a good investment for myself. But no, when I started as a saxophone player, I had already had this instrument since I was like 15

years old. But at some point during my career, I decidedly did a lot more music production. So at that point in time, the kind of gear costs started to go up. I had to buy computers, monitors, audio equipment, microphones, cables. So over the last four or five years, I've kind of built up my studio space. I didn't have to do any crazy investments at the beginning. But as my career moved forward, I wanted more professional equipment. I wanted a better case for myself because I was moving around a lot. In general, I spaced out a lot of these purchases because I felt like that was the only way I could really do it. And it wasn't necessarily intentionally that way. It's just, this is the time I'm going

to get a case. This is the time I'm going to get a new computer. And that was over a few years. I definitely spend somewhere between $3,000 and $5,000 a year on musical equipment. I also have repair costs for my saxophone. I get it tuned up every six months. And now I have multiple saxophones, so that's multiple tune-ups. And in terms of your day-to-day expenses, what are the biggest day-to-day expenses that you incur as a musician? One thing that definitely I feel like noting is the cost of being out, the cost of actually going to network. And there is often like a $20 to $30 ticket price here in Pittsburgh. It's more expensive in most other cities for like

a bar low ticket price and also buying a drink, being social. So there's often those day-to-day expenses depending on where you are at the gig. Like I will also have to eat. If you're fortunate enough, the venue or the promoter or someone will have some means of you to eat during the performance or before the performance or after the performance. But just as often as not, you have to figure out your own way, which I guess for most people that doesn't really seem that bad. But sometimes you're just not making that much during the gig. And it's helpful to have just different means of people, different means of hospitality. It really does help more times than not for there to just be like a pizza there. But outside of that, like they're the bigger costs, but really it's the

cost of being out. And, you know, my office becomes the bar or wherever else I'm working. And I have office expenses, the bar. So with all of these assorted business expenses, what does tax season look like for you? I do keep a couple of different Excel spreadsheets of my expenses. So there's usually like just a separate spreadsheet for hospitality expenses, so my drinks and stuff like that. As a composer though, I take a lot of

liberty with being a composer here because I write and I seek inspiration for writing. So a lot of the time I treat things like video games, television as expenses because I'm actively learning from them. Sometimes I'm passively learning from them. I mean, everyone else is mostly passively learning from them, but I will often take something from the video game and it is deeply inspirational to me. That's where a lot of my musical prowess comes from and a lot of the things that I learned from. And so that's there. My car, having a vehicle is like entirely necessary as a musician. Depending on what instrument you play and what city you're in, you might get away with like a backpack with your instrument. Like I've seen in New York, at least like a keyboardist will have this giant keyboard backpack, just like hanging behind them. But no, most of the time you should have a car

and that's always going to be several expenses, you know, insurance, the car payment, if you still haven't finished it off and maintenance repairs, which are more expensive than the sax phone. So those are just a few I can think of off the top of my head. But yeah, I keep expense reports for everything and I keep my receipts. And generally speaking, when it comes to tax time, I gather all these 1099s. I gather my W-2. I spend probably a full day's worth, like 8 to 12 hours just looking through everything and making sure that

I inputted all the information that I have, if there's receipts still left in my car or anything like that. And yeah, tax season is pretty brutal. I get super jealous because my partner has one job and so tax season is 15 minutes. And for me, I'm like, no, this is a whole event. What was the best advice that someone gave you about pursuing a career in music? Don't do it. I feel like a lot of the best advice I've gotten in reality has nothing to do with how well you play and everything to do with how you come off and how you present yourself within a space. I have been guilty of being just like insular, either if the art or if the music is looking for performance. Like when I say performance, I mean someone really like being showy or showing off on stage.

It's about how you present yourself. But the best advice is just be nice and learn your stuff. Like know what you're doing before and after you get on stage. Are you ever tempted to just have a normal job that you don't have to stress about the financial aspects so much or are the trade-offs worth it? I'm tempted constantly. It's not off the table yet for me to have a completely normal job. But what is kind of off the table is me not making music or me not playing music. It's, I'm addicted to this drug. I love performing. I love being on stage. I love telling a crowd what to do, you know, in a, in a fun way. I don't like, I love

expressing myself with a crowd and having that feedback. And there was a point in time where I was, you know, afraid of the stage. I had stage fright. And now I'm more nearly afraid of like the bar. Like I'm so confident and comfortable on a stage that being off stage is a little bit harder for me. And the idea that I take a normal job, no matter what, is always just going to be towards this other goal. And I think that's hurt me in hiring for sure and actually trying to get a job because it's hard to convey, yes, I want work. I want to survive. But also my passions are over there, like way over there. And to sum it up, I would love a normal job, but also there's no way I can give up the way I feel about music.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find any musician or creative who chooses that path because they love the unpredictability of the financial aspect of it. No. I also know folks who have found those very, very small percentages of steady income music jobs where you work six hours, four nights a week, and you make, you know, some upper five figure salary or something like that. And so it's doable, it's livable, it's comfortable. And that's like that exists for some, but that is so few and far in between. How do you balance having creative artistic goals and then also having financial goals? Like, do you envision yourself paying off the student loans or buying a house? What are your financial goals that you're working toward? I'm so deeply millennial. I have no idea

how I would ever get a house. Not in this day and age, not the way I look at my finances. I'm working towards beating down the White House until they decidedly get rid of my student loans so that financially I could decide on anything else. I would love to own a home or a condo or an apartment in a city. big part of it. But the other part is I think my biggest financial goal is to comfortably retire my parents because they just put so much into me and my brothers who, spoiler alert, my younger brothers, two of them are both musicians and active and incredible at this work as well. So we're all kind of in on this together. We're like, we got all this support from our parents and we are crazy fortunate for that because that is not typically the story. It's usually, they will tell you,

no, it makes no financial sense. Go get a better job. Like, what do you mean? Why would you do this to yourself? And instead my parents are like, no, I see it. You guys are good and you believe in yourselves and this is important. So I want to get them a nice big

house and, you know, have the capability to just let them rest and they can come watch us on tour whenever they want. What would you say has been the most rewarding part about your career in music thus far? Like it has something to do with like continuous learning like this. The most rewarding part of it for me actually just feels like the journey. It just sucks that it's so hard to pay for the journey. But I like learning new skills. I like that music constantly kind of pushes me into new spaces that I wouldn't necessarily think of. It forces me to learn how to market. It forces me to learn how to create. It forces me to learn how to

create things on my computer and on my phone. It forces a lot of different skills and whether or not you do them exceptionally. Some people are just not interested in these pieces and they're more interested in the full music of it. And even then, I love that part of it where you continue to grow as a musician and you develop your skills technically and your ear. And there is a, the reward for me is creating something great and to continue making something great and to hopefully have other people respond in a way that is wholesome and is genuine to them. Has that creative fulfillment been worth the trade-off of that unpredictability? It has to be, for me at least. I still think that there might be a future for me

where I am creating and decidedly making financial stability and then having music, if not through music, then through some other means. But financial stability is very much the goal. And there are some avenues of it through music, like if and when more people listen to it. So you could technically create passive income through streaming websites like YouTube and Spotify and things like that. It might have been easier 40 years ago for me to say, this is how I will keep making money is royalties or something like this. But no, it's just to continue making work so that at some level, some part of it is passive income enough for me to be financially stable. What advice would you give to someone who's crunching the numbers and thinking about

taking that leap and pursuing a career in music like you did all those years ago? Some part of me is like, don't have a backup plan. Because if you need to do this, you will do it. And for me, kind of weaving around the backup plan for most of my life feels like perhaps I could have spent that time really diving into making it work. But for someone who's about to take a financial risk enough to be a musician, you should really be sure because yeah, there's not really a lot of room for, for the maybe now it's not that you can't play and you can't enjoy yourself. But yeah, if you really want to make that risk, just be really sure you want to make that risk.

Because there is no financial guarantee. And have a support system of some kind, friends, family. Someone that you can just crash on their couch if things get bad. Don't go at it alone, for sure. Try and find either a community of like-minded people or just a space where you can feel safe. Roger Romero, thank you so much for talking through your life with us today.

Oh, well, thanks for having me. Abby, I can't help but wonder if my life might look a little bit more like Roger's if I had stuck with the sax like he did. But what Roger said about a creative career being a long game and that investing in yourself is one of the most important parts really rings true for me. Whether you are a musician or a painter or even a podcaster, getting what you want from your passions takes diligence, hard work, and also no small amount of financial planning. For sure. And if you're looking to make a living

doing this, it's not just about your chops as a musician. It's about building a reputation, right? Being genuine and being kind goes a long way. I loved Roger's advice about finding a community of like-minded people, but you kind of have to stick your neck out there a little bit to find those folks. So for musicians and artists in particular, what Roger said about the cost of being out is really big. Like you're getting out there, you're networking, you're spending money to eventually make money. And it's great that he has a system to keep track of all of those expenses because that little stuff really adds up. And a well-organized system makes things so much easier for gig workers during tax season.

So the message here for anyone hoping to pursue a career in the creative arts, including music, is don't give up. It is possible to make a living doing the thing that you love. Might take a while to get there and the journey might be a twisty one, but it is possible. And since you're a creative, think creatively about what you can do with your skills to make money while you're trying to become the best at what you're doing. So like Roger, maybe you teach while you're gigging. But it's like you said, Sean, if it's something you really love and you want to spend your life doing, don't give up. Find a way. Because clearly Roger went through it a few times, but he's a professional saxophone player. He did it.

Well, Abby, thank you so much for bringing the story to us. My pleasure. That's all we have for this episode. Do you have a money question of your own? Turn to the nerds and call or text us your questions at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730-NERD. You can also email us at podcast at nerdwallet.com. Also visit nerdwallet.com slash podcast for more info on this episode. And remember to follow, rate, and review us wherever you're getting this podcast. This episode was produced by Tess Viglin. I helped with editing. Kevin Berry helped with fact-checking. Sarah Brink mixed our audio. And a big thank you to NerdWallet's editors for all their help. And here's our brief disclaimer. We are not financial or investment advisors.

This nerdy info is provided for general educational and entertainment purposes and may not apply to your specific circumstances. And with that said, until next time, turn to the nerds.