I was just visiting a friend for the weekend and we were chatting about the state of our careers coming out of the pandemic (we both work in the arts – he’s a musician). I mentioned that I had several job offers but that since I’m hoping to go back to school soon, I’ve had to turn most of them down.

One of them was from the cruise line we both worked for years ago and he wanted to know how much they were offering to pay me.

I told him I didn’t even ask, since I knew I didn’t want to do the job.

And he told me he couldn’t believe I didn’t even ask. He was flabbergasted.

I feel like that was the clearest moment in my life so far when I saw that money isn’t my 100% guiding factor anymore. And it is incredibly liberating.

Especially since it’s felt like money is 100% my guiding factor the last few months as I save like a lunatic to go back to school and make sure I’ve got a large buffer of cash in case I can’t fully fund my studies with scholarships and teaching stipends.

In reality though, I think I’m finding a happy place on the spectrum between broke and rich where money is very much just a tool.

And the main way I’ve found that spot on the spectrum is through savings.

And the way I’ve built up all these savings is setting clear goals and then doing whatever I could to prioritize hitting them.

That didn’t pan out every year, but with that mindset, there’s always been some sort of progress.

I’ve found that these goals were a better way to move forward with variable income than the set it and forget it that folks with regular income streams can do.

It’s helped keep me from ever thinking any money is “extra” until it legitimately is. Some years were really good and I would actually hit all the goals and find I had extra money.

Some years I would find I couldn’t even achieve my number one savings goal of maxing out my IRA.

It also made me conscious of when I was falling short and pushed me to find more ways to make money – apply for higher paying gigs, find a side hustle to knock off a specific goal, etc.

That’s clearly a little bit of an oversimplification. “Oh, I just realized I needed more money, so I just made it happen.” There are some reasons you totally may not be able to do that. But sometimes it can be motivating to look at your savings goals and realize you’re only like $1,000 sort of hitting your emergency savings goal for the year and if you could just find a hustle that brings in like $100 a month, you’ll be able to hit it.

Over enough time, you get the magic effects of the savings snowball too. Eventually, your emergency fund is funded. Eventually you may be able to clear up enough money to drop your full IRA contribution for the year into the account on January 1^st.

Eventually, you find yourself in a lousy work position and think why am I doing this? And realize you don’t have to! If you just up and quit, you have enough of a financial cushion to get you though for a few weeks until you find another job.

Sometimes just knowing you could leave is enough to get you through a rough contract.

Also knowing you don’t have to say yes to another contract with a company from hell is a pretty awesome feeling too.

(To be clear, there are also possible repercussions to your career in just walking away from a gig that you should consider, this is just covering the financial aspect. Though I would advocate that if the gig is that bad and someone asks why you just walked in the future – just tell them. Also, it’s a tiny industry, I’ll tell you that if someone showed up with one or two of my former employers on their resume and they had just walked off, I’d probably think “good for you” and just continue on with the interview.)

Here’s an example of early career Mel’s savings goals:

1. Add $1,000 to Emergency Fund (eventual goal 1 year of salary)
2. Max out IRA
3. Pay off an extra $1,000 in Student Loans (eventual goal totally out of debt)

I had an immediate goal that I hoped to achieve within a year and a long term goal I knew I was going for.

The long term goals were sort of just vague guideposts until I started making more money. The first year I knocked all the goals out of the park, I knew where I could put extra money to give myself a further boost towards my goals.

It also helped me use windfalls in a more useful way.

There’s nothing wrong with earmarking some money for fun. I don’t think we talk enough about how personal finance is a marathon and not a sprint, so you do totally need to prioritize some spending on life now.

But it helped me keep a balance.

Tax returns could bump me closer to any of those goals and fund a small trip or fun night out.

A random extra gig squeezed in unexpectedly could go to those goals.

Honestly, my biggest bump ever was an inheritance (such a lousy reason for a financial bump), but it knocked out several large goals for me.

An example of my mid-career savings goals now (which I track each month when I do my net worth updates too) include:

1. Max out IRA
2. Max out HSA
3. Invest $2,000
4. Add $1,000 to emergency savings (notice it’s been 8 years and I’m still working on that goal of a full year’s salary in there)
5. Add $2,000 to new car account

My savings goals also adapt a bit depending on my living situation. If you’ve been following the blog for a while, you know I often bounce back to my dad’s house between contracts, or live on a cruise ship, or live in a show supplied RV – the main point is you know I often manage to avoid paying rent.

That’s a massive saving each year. On years when I am paying rent, my savings goals are lower and those are often the years I don’t hit them all.

But I moved in with my dad during the pandemic, so it seems super irresponsible to me to not use that advantage he’s giving me in a way that puts me in a more secure financial position. So while I have the advantage, I try to not only hit but exceed any of those goals, so if I can’t hit them next year, I have a buffer to keep me on track towards the overall goal.

Which is largely to not starve to death in retirement. Or wind up homeless someday.

Maybe using goal setting can help you do the same.