“Money is not as important as everyone makes it seem.”

+ is writing a real job?

Following last week’s post, someone commented¹ asking (nicely, I wasn’t offended!) what’s stopping me from getting a job, perhaps a part-time one that would still give me time to write?

It’s a good question. My first thought was, shit, why don’t I? My second thought was, er, I already have a job. Two jobs (writing and transcribing). And then a whole series of thoughts:

My boys are still at home and the youngest is home educated.

I don’t have a car so any job would need to be local.

What would I even do?

No one is going to hire a 52yo who hasn’t worked outside the home for 15 years.

And then, eventually, I landed on this:

I don’t want to.

Writing is my job. Writing has been my job for about fifteen years now. Yes, unless you’re very lucky, the pay is rubbish. Yes, you have to do the work first and the money comes last (and sometimes not at all! Such fun).

But it’s still a job.

I’m currently reading The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer and she writes:

When are you going to grow up, get a real job, and stop fucking around?

What makes you think you deserve money playing your little songs to people?

What gives you the right to think people should give one shit about your art?

If you take those questions and turn them into statements, they look like this:

Grown-ups art not artists.

Artists do not deserve to make money from their art.

“Artist” is not a real job.

I know I’m lucky that I can make enough from it that I can just about stay afloat. And yes it takes lots of support. But it’s still a job. It’s still my job. And I really don’t want another one.

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PSA…

A reader asked me recently about pensions for freelancers - the question was basically “WTF do I do?” I’m going to try to speak to someone about this, but in the meantime, this podcast is pretty good.

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If you would like a paid sub, but can’t afford it right now, email me and I’ll sort it.

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An interview with… Dana Miranda

Dana Miranda is a Certified Educator in Personal Finance® (CEPF®), an author and a personal finance journalist. She writes Healthy Rich, a newsletter about how capitalism impacts the ways we think, teach and talk about money. She offers training and resources for financial educators, coaches and advisors who want to deliver personal finance guidance without restriction, shame or greed.

Dana has contributed to Forbes, Insider, Culture Study, the New York Times, CNBC, Money magazine, NextAdvisor, USA Today and Inc. magazine, among others.

What is your relationship with money currently?

I’m coming off of three years of freelancing full time, two of those earning more than $100,000 revenue, and this year I let go of all of my freelance work to focus on writing a book and growing my newsletter.

I'm grateful to have saved money in advance to maintain some cash flow. But it’s been an adjustment to spend my days doing work that doesn't immediately and directly earn money, because I’ve been so influenced by our culture that ties self-worth to what we do “for a living.” So, my relationship is basically: comfortable, but still battling my programming.

What’s your earliest money memory?

I remember my stepdad joking about his daughter sharing a Snickers bar and asking if she could have “the bigger half” (which is mathematically impossible). It was a cute, funny story; it also implanted in my little brain some ideas about the perception of value and ownership. Why the urge to have just a little more than someone else? Why do kids tend to feel like life isn't “fair” if someone else has something they don't?

My brain has collected little moments like this since childhood, and I see them through a personal finance lens now. Now I know to call this a “scarcity mindset,” and I watch it play out over and over again in the new generation of kids in my family, even as my sisters have gained greater economic stability than we experienced growing up.

What advice would you give your younger self about money?

Money is not as important as everyone makes it seem. People will tell you “the world revolves around money,” but money is just one tool at your disposal. It’s equally important to cultivate things like ease, joy, connection, autonomy, love and health that feed all dimensions of wellness.

Don't be afraid of the institutions that control the money, and don't contort yourself to the will of employers. Find balance in everything, and a balanced relationship with money will fall into place.

What’s the biggest money mistake you've made?

Not taking advantage of more public benefits when I was struggling to earn money as a green writer. I did use a food bank a couple of times, but that was it. If I had figured out how to qualify for SNAP (food assistance), housing vouchers, cash assistance or other benefits, I might have been more comfortable during those starving-artist years and more able to devote my focus to developing my career.

The U.S. doesn't have a strong social safety net, but I’d like to have made better use of anything that was available, especially with the expanded offerings in the state of California, where I lived for my first year writing full time.

What’s the best thing you've ever spent money on?

When I lived in the city, I hired people to clean my house once a month. I don't have kids, and my schedule isn't overwhelmed with work or activities; many people might not think I earned this luxury. But I've never been more at peace than when I would come home to that freshly cleaned house, so much cleaner than I'd ever get it myself.

Do you have a retirement fund? If not, do you have a plan?

Nope. This year, I emptied my meager retirement savings to buy my first house, and I'm happy with that decision. In addition to needing that resource, I was eager to get my money out of the stock market, because I'm apprehensive about the ethics of investing.

Some of my retirement plan rests on hope for the future I'll face in 30 years (is that very different from relying on an investment account…?). I hope to maintain my ability to write, think and speak to earn money well into the late years of my life. I hope the work many people are doing now in politics and government will help secure a better social safety net so no one has to worry about how to pay for food, health or shelter in old age (or any time).

I'm also continuing to work, run a business and save money, but I'm not worried about retirement. My working life so far has looked nothing like my parents’ did, and I don't expect it to in the future, so why would I rely on my parents’ style of retirement plan?

What would you do with $10,000?

A $10,000 windfall? Give it away in, like, $500 cash gifts. I became very generous in 2020, with the combination of the election and COVID relief efforts and my income going up with freelancing. After a lot of years of relying on kindness and generosity from others, I appreciated being able to give money away, especially to individuals through virtual tip jars or just Venmo to someone who expressed a bad day on social media. Changing my work and buying a house this year means I haven't had that kind of abundance in a while, so I don't give so haphazardly right now. I'd love to get back to that!

If you were me, what would you want to ask women about money?

How much do you trust yourself around financial decisions? I think a lot of what’s wrong in our cultural relationship with money is the internalized belief that we can't be trusted to make the “right” financial decisions. That message is compounded for people socialized as women, because we’re trained not to trust anything our inner voice says. This belief leaves us looking outside of ourselves for the right money goals to set, and for rules, methods and guidance to achieve them. We can find a lot of peace with money (and radically transform our economy) if we can recognize when we're doing that and learn to trust that inner voice instead — it’s not likely to tell you you're a monster for buying a latte every day or that it feels good to hoard resources you're not using!

There’s more coming up from Dana for paid subscribers on Thursday. In the meantime, I highly recommend her newsletter:

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I really like this post about generosity and abundance.

Lughnasadh, Happy Money, abundance, the Full Moon, generosity, choice and journal prompts

1. I think maybe they deleted it or Substack ate it, but either way it disappeared.