Please welcome back Shaunta Grimes of Going Reno with another great guest post about how she side hustles as a writer. If you missed it, be sure to check out her other guest post on how she turned grocery shopping into a legit side hustle as well. 

Last time I wrote a guest post for brokeGIRLrich, I wrote about frugal grocery shopping as a side hustle. Today I’d like to talk about how all kinds of frugal living has helped me be able to pursue a creative career.

I have what I consider to be the best day job in the world. It’s something I spent a lot of time and energy, and money through education, to achieve—and something I’m really proud of. I write novels for a big, traditional book publisher (Penguin.) It’s the job I’ve dreamed about for as long as I can remember.

Here’s the thing about having any sort of creative career goals. You never know if you’re ever going to make money doing it. And you have to do it a lot (like, a lot a lot) before you’re good enough to even hope to get paid. Deciding to be a writer meant I had to spend my education dollars on learning how to do something that I couldn’t have known at the outset I would be successfully employed doing.

And even though I’ve sold books to a major publisher, I still have no real job security. Only a very few writers (or musicians or artists or . . .) have that luxury. The rest of us keep plugging along hoping that we’ll sell just enough to—keep plugging along.

Pursuing a career in the arts is not for the faint of heart. You have to be willing to be a starving artist (unless you’re otherwise financially solvent.) I’m very lucky to have a husband who is understanding about things like my strong desire not to have a 9 to 5 desk job. (Lots of writers have those. Some very successful writers had them when they wrote their popular books. It’s called ‘quitting your day job’ for a reason!)

My solution to not wanting to give up my writing time in favor of a job that will give me a regular pay check in exchange for the time and energy I’m not spending on my creative work is to get even more creative. Being frugal is fun to me, on my levels, but it has a special place in my heart because it what lets me have the kind of creative career that I really want.

I didn’t always have a supportive husband. I was a single mother pursuing that creative career for a long time. I took my first job as a writer when I was 26 years old, and I sold my first novel when I was 40. That’s fourteen years of juggling and praying and working and hoping. I do believe it’s possible to develop a lifestyle that is conducive to being a ‘starving artist’ without actually starving.

Here are some ideas for how to do just that.

Make the Right Sacrifices

The way I see it, I can drive a fancy car or I can be a writer. Maybe someday one of my books will take off and I’ll be able to do both, but I’m not holding my breath. Instead, I drive a 10-year-old paid off minivan with a dent in the back where my daughter backed into a pole when she was learning to drive. (She’s 22 years old now, which gives you some idea of how long I’ve been driving this thing.)

We’re getting rid of cable in favor of Netflix and Hulu Plus this month, which was a difficult decision. (I’m a story junkie. I watch what is probably an appalling amount of television.) We’re also letting go of our gym membership. It isn’t so much that we don’t use these things or enjoy them, and it isn’t all about me being able to not get a regular day job, either. We want to buy a house. These two things are going to save us $250 a month—which is a good chunk of money that can be used toward that goal.

If I had a fancier car or wanted to keep paying for things like cable and a gym membership, I’d have to sacrifice the time I have now to write. I think we made the right choice.

Turn Your Creativity Into a Side Hustle

I’ve earned money writing since that first job when I was 26. I wrote an article for Dog Fancy Magazine about dog friendly restaurants in Las Vegas. It’s been more than fifteen years, and I still remember opening the envelope my $10 check came in.

I often freelance as a writer or editor, teach classes at my local community college, I make some money (and growing) off my blog. I’ve worked as a journalist and I’ve owned a little business doing legal writing. I routinely earn $500 a month writing, outside of writing books.

The great thing about having a creative talent is that you have something that other people A) don’t have and B) recognize as valuable. So if you can turn out pretty ebook covers or play your guitar at a wedding or produce awesome art in some other way, put yourself out there. Someone will be willing to pay you for it.

Take Yourself Seriously

Not long after I got that first $10 freelance writing check, my daughter (the one who is now 22) started kindergarten. I stood in the school office filling out her registration paperwork and wrote ‘Writer’ in the space where it asked what her mother did for work.

That remains one of the most audacious things I’ve ever done. At the time I was working part time answering phones at my dad’s office. I could have written ‘receptionist’ on that line. It probably would have been more honest, anyway. I started telling people I was a writer years (and years and years) before any of them would have agreed with me.

I think it’s super important to own your goals. If you want to be an artist, and someone is paying you to create even the smallest amount of art, you are an artist. I’d say there’s probably even an argument for saying that you’re an artist even if no one is paying you—but for me, that paycheck (and the others that came in after it) were the difference.

Considering yourself an artist will make it easier for you to invest the time and energy it takes to become a good artist. It will make those sacrifices you will inevitably make worthwhile. So say it as often as you need to. You’ll feel like a fraud at first, but that’s okay. This is the ultimate faking it until you make it.