When I first started this blog, I wrote a lot of posts about debt and flailing around, trying to make ends meet, because that was where I was.

Lately, I seem to write more travel tips and worth the splurge articles because that’s where I am. On the broke to rich spectrum, I’m firmly in the middle, edging closer to the rich side.

It doesn’t feel super secure or anything, but right now, everything is swell. I pay all the bills. I have some serious savings set aside for some big purchases. My retirement and investing accounts are not only doing well, I’m roughly on track to retire around 50, if things keep going well.

Because I’m largely a job-hopping, contract worker though, there’s no guarantees in that retirement number.

But, if you’re starting out in stage management, or some other possibly low paying arts career, here are some steps that worked for me to get to financially secure by my mid-thirties while still writing stage manager in that occupation box on my taxes for more than a decade.

I Follow the Work

I would love to say you can have everything you want in life, but I’ve never actually thought that. My grandfather used to say, “you can be anything you want to be when you grow up” and my parents managed to instill that mentality while adding “as long as you work hard.”

I genuinely think you can achieve anything, but you can’t achieve everything. So when I decided to be a stage manager, I didn’t put limits on it, like I wanted to live near my family or stay in New Jersey or even settle down and have a family anytime soon.

Especially at the beginning of my career, I went wherever the work was, which set me apart from a large amount of applicants (though the applicant pools were still large for these jobs too). So I spent five years at sea at the beginning of my career.

I Prioritized Applying for Job that Pay for Housing & Got Rid of My Debts

I stayed on ships longer than I wanted to because cruise ships are a ridiculously good way to pay off student loans and build a nest egg, while actually still getting to do some fun things in your free time.

Then I toured a bunch and worked for some circuses that provided housing.

When I wasn’t doing that, I often lived at home with my parents. Since I graduated college, I’ve only paid about three and a half years of rent out of the last twelve.

Even if you can’t make it that long, the longer you can avoid paying rent and redirecting that money to either paying off debt or investing or saving up for a big payment like a house down payment, the further ahead you’ll be.

I Spent About Three Years on a Crazy Strict Budget

I was on a crazy strict budget from about 26-30. Any splurge was super carefully planned for (and usually travel related), but I put a lot of effort into figuring out all sorts of frugal hacks back then so I could just throw money at my student debt and then build up an emergency fund.

Because of the crazy, constantly changing contract life, I wanted at least $10,000 in my emergency fund.

I can also 100% say that the first time I felt ok about my finances, like I could take a deep breath, was when I hit that number. It was probably my second most emotionally satisfying financial win (second only to sending in my last loan repayment check).

They weren’t fun years. They were actually at times kind of miserable. And I think I was fairly depressed during those years too because I cut back so much (among several other totally unrelated to money reasons). I’m glad it pushed me so far ahead, because it was a big thing that made a big difference, but if I was doing it again, I might loosen the reigns at least a little.

What I do recommend though is going hard with the frugal lifestyle and banking as much as you can for as long as you can. Literally hit your breaking point, and then stop and reassess and rebalance your spending. Over time that extra saving, especially if you invest it, can really add up.

I Opened an IRA at 25

At 25, I opened a Roth IRA and made it a priority to max it out each year. $5,500 a year then ($6,000 now), seemed like a crazy high amount at times, but I somehow got it done every year, no matter what.

I trained myself to think of the IRA as more important than any “extra” purchase in my life. I also thought of it like a purchase and for some reason that mindset helped. I also knew I had to figure out any budgets to include about $500 a month in savings.

Fortunately, this is even easier now, because when I opened mine, you needed $2,000 to invest to open it, which was kind of crazy. Now there are lots of IRAs that let open one without a large initial investment.

Extra Windfalls Pay for Savings & Investment Goals First

Whenever I received “extra” money – birthday and holiday gifts, side hustle income, tax refunds, etc. – if I was short on a financial goal, it would go to that before it was used as any kind of fun money. So I got an $800 tax refund and my IRA wasn’t maxed out yet (which was always really likely at the beginning of the year), that money would go into there.

I Start with Super Attainable Goals and Build from There

I used to date this guy who would decide something like he was going to get in shape and then he would go for a run till he vomited and try to push even past that. I used to think he was out of his mind.

If I decide I’m going to get in shape, I jump in a pool and swim till I’m tired and track how many laps that is.

The next day I try to swim one extra lap.

The day after that I add a lap.

There is no world in which I’m going to decide to get into shape and then swim till I vomit.

Folks are different.

With my money goals, it was the same. When I was thinking about my emergency fund and reading up on it, everything suggested having at least three months of expenses, preferably six, and if you’re a freelancer like I generally consider myself, a year is best.

I laughed. On that day, aiming for $10,000 in my emergency fund would’ve been like running until I vomited. I just would’ve quit.

But I had enough in my checking account to move over $100 and open a separate savings account. So I double checked that wasn’t going to make me overdraft, and transferred the money. Then I set my first emergency savings goal for $500 by the end of the year.

It was pretty easy and personally, I really love checking goals off my list, so that made it even easier to prioritize putting money toward that.

The next year I bumped the goal up to $1,000 in my savings account. And I built up my saving discipline muscle.

The next year, I reached for $5,000. I didn’t make it. That took two years.

After achieving that, I finally set the goal at $10,000 and managed to achieve it by the end of that year.

I’ve done the same thing with my other financial goals since then that have included saving up for a new car, a down payment, a certain goal amount to invest in the stock market each year, etc.

State Your Goals

Every year, when most folks do New Year’s Resolutions, I update my goals. I usually have a list of about 20 things I want to achieve each year.

Some are financial, some are health, some are professional, and some are fun.

At the end of the year, I see whether I achieved them, or at least made progress on them, and I update them or set a new goal and start again.

Over time, I found some things I thought of as priorities aren’t, because for two or three years I’d put them on the list and never get them done. So I knew it was time to take them off the list because they weren’t really a priority.

But financial goals with set numbers next to them almost always get done, or they at least get progress made on them. Some years I’m too optimistic and realize that I need to set the goal a little lower the next year. Some years I destroy the goal really early and realize I could set it a little higher the following year.

Each month I check my goal list and see if I’m making progress and think about what I need to change or do to make some progress.

I Track My Net Worth

Since I set a lot of savings and investing goals, the most motivating thing I’ve done is to start tracking my net worth.

At the end of every month, I go through and do an update on the same easy spreadsheet I’ve been using for about five years.

This has made saving soooooooo much easier because I see the effects of it every month. Even when my net worth was much lower, I could still see it creeping up. After it crossed $100,000, I see a noticeable change every month – and yes, sometimes the stock market effs me up and I see a drop, but overall, the effects of those investments are kind of crazy and I’m often surprised to see that I’ve made almost as much from my investments in a month as from some of my jobs.

Someday this bull market will end and then we’ll really see if I have investor nerves of steel or not, but it’s been going well so far.

I Have a Side Hustle

I read a book ages ago called Multiple Streams of Income and learned that most millionaires have at least seven streams of income. The freelancer in me also liked the idea of building a financial safety net under my stage management goals.

Some of these streams of income I already mentioned, like investment income, which I’ve been building with my slow and steady contributions to my retirement accounts and investment accounts.

However, one of the biggest financial helps has been blogging and freelance writing. When I was on a crazy, crazy strict budget (as mentioned above) and my side hustle income was still pretty small, it was my splurging money.

To do fun things or go buy something I wanted, I just had to earn the money from a source other than my main job. Then I could use my main job income for set expenses like rent and utilities and have a good idea how much I had left over to save.

Over time, I’ve been able to build my side hustle and now it can cover my most of my splurges and expenses and most or all of my regular job income can go into investments and savings.

I Plan Ahead

This seems like a really natural skill for stage managers, but if I see an upcoming layoff or know I hate working somewhere and really want to leave, I buckle down and start a separate savings account to get me through that period, so I don’t have to touch anything I already have.

I also try to build little buffers in addition to my emergency savings like paying rent a month ahead when possible, paying my car insurance for the year in one go, even stocking up my Starbucks app when I have some extra cash so that when I’m more strapped I don’t feel bad about the occasional coffee treat.

I Keep Learning

On that goal list I talked about, the last few years has always included “build two resume skills,” which is a little weird and vague. Some years, one of those skills is super easy because it’s renewing my CPR certification, sometimes it’s not as clear cut as that.

Some stage management related things I’ve done that I’ve counted as part of that list include:

• CPR & First Aid Training
• Notary Training
• Pyrotechnic Training
• Music Lessons

Additionally, I read stage management, technical theater, management and psychology books when I come across them.

I attend symposiums and conferences when I can.

And from a financial standpoint, I also keep learning about things not at all related to stage management like personal finance and blogging.

I’ve also been taking accounting classes with the goal of opening my own tiny tax firm that does taxes for people in the arts. A lot of what I try to learn has the possibility of helping me make more money in the future.

I Have the Christopher Lee Approach of Stage Management

I pretty much just want to work, I don’t always care what the gig is exactly. Christopher Lee was in more than 122 films. Sometimes he was Sarumon in an epic movie likeLord of the Rings and sometimes he was horror monster #12 in a B-movie no one has ever seen.

He just always kept working.

My goal is to never lose money working, which sounds crazy, but we all know can happen on some gigs in the arts. I also try to set up most of my year doing things that pay well.

But if I’m in New Jersey for a month or two between gigs, I might take some random little nothing in New York City that at least pays me enough to not lose money taking the train in and just do the thing anyway.

Also, stage managing is so diverse. If you just keep doing the same thing, with the same company, all your other skills are going to get rusty. There is literally a world of difference between how I stage manage a show that part of a large entertainment company with a big, competent team of professionals to how I stage manage at week long $500 stipend show in a really questionable venue in NYC without any crew at all.

But sometimes strengthening those “guerilla stage management” skills pays off on the bigger gigs too when something takes an unexpected turn.

The little projects are also sometimes passion projects for directors, musical directors, choreographers, and performers who have connections to much bigger organizations and future gigs. It never hurts to widen your network.

But You Do Have to Pay Me

There is a careful balance to the Christopher Lee method though where I don’t take piles of chronically underpaying, crappy jobs.

Back to that whole willing to go anywhere thing, most of my year is spent making a minimum of $700/week and honestly, the last like three years my minimum has been more like double or triple that. It’s really reaching a point where I should stop saying $700 is my minimum, because on a longer contract, it’s not.

When it was, then anything that didn’t lose money that fit in the gaps was acceptable, especially if it was easy and part time, like the summer I worked on Ziegfeld’s Midnight Frolic (which was the furthest thing possible from easy but was just on weekends).

However, even with that job, when additional duties were piled onto stage managing, I spoke up and asked for more money, and I got it.

I only volunteer if I specifically want to volunteer – which is usually only for my church, but I would possibly make some concessions for a few other good causes too.

Do not let some director or writer try to pressure you into making their passion project your passion project. If you’re a professional, then it’s a job and they should pay you. And while experience doesn’t pay the bills, some experiences can help you pay the bills in the long run, so balance that carefully too. A quick job might just meet your minimum of not losing money, but you’re going to work with some crazy technology and build a good resume skill, it might actually be worth it – and it’s ok to take those kind of gigs sometimes, but not all the time.

Balance, balance, balance.

These are just some of the key things I’ve noticed over the last 10 years that in retrospect have made a big difference in my bank accounts and led to my fairly solid financial state.

The craziest thing to me is that while a few of them are very actionable goals (open an IRA, research and try a few side hustles, track your net worth), the majority are mindset goals:

• Don’t take chronically low paying jobs.
• Decide how much you feel you need to make each week and apply for jobs that meet or exceed it.
• Think about what your financial goals are and write them down.

I really think if you can believe it, you can achieve it, as hokey as that sounds, but evidence is starting to prove that may be true.

What money tip has helped you get ahead?