A few weeks ago, I read a really great post about how lousy a lot of personal finance blogs are and how we all follow pretty much the same arc of get interested in personal finance, write a bunch of posts as we try to sort out our own thoughts about money, learn about side hustling, monetize you blog, get your finances actually sorted, and then…

the boring middle.

What a good phrase. Thanks, Beards and Money.

This really sums up how I’ve been feeling about personal finance for the last few years.

I think it was really easy to start a personal finance blog. I had no idea what I was doing so every new thing was worth a blog post or ten (depending on how helpful or how badly I messed up each step), even more so to help me sort out my thoughts than really to help anyone else.

I didn’t realize that when I named the blog brokeGIRLrich that I would spend so much time just in GIRL. And that as soon as I shook the broke part of the equation that it all gets quite boring.

Set goals, contribute money towards goals, repeat for 30-40 years. Make extra money, contribute extra towards the goals, repeat for maybe 20-30 instead.

Though, let’s be honest, I work in the arts, so we’re probably looking at that later time frame.

And so it’s the boring middle.

Sometimes I find a cool new tool or service to write about, but mostly I find myself rambling about boredom, how to figure out when it’s good to actually spend money, and less tangible things like thoughts and goals.

Unlike some of the folks who blog from high earning backgrounds, I do still find that the income my blog brings in makes a notable difference in my financial state, so it’s likely brokeGIRLrich will continue to function for years to come, but I am often left wondering about how to really dive into content in this boring middle state.

Sometimes it feels super braggy because when I talk about money now, it’s lost a lot of its initial urgency, but documenting that also seems important because it acts as proof that it’s at least possible to be a stage manager and wind up financially secure.

I’ve also found the last two years to be… like I don’t even know what. I don’t feel like I am who I was in many ways, and an awful lot of those ways relate back to my identity in the arts. So I guess I do still write about that a bit too but even my career feels very boring middle these days

I find a lot of times in life that when I see problems in things, I call them out, if we can fix them, great, if I assess we are unlikely to fix them and my life will be quite unpleasant because of this – I think life is too short and I walk away (if it’s a contract, I finish the contract, but then I walk away).

I see so much in the arts that does not feel fixable to me and it often feels like it’s dumped on us at boots on the ground level to sort out and make work and we do (which is also in many ways problematic), but these problems really come from the money side of things, that no matter how much positive attitude and hard work we put in, it’s not going to get better because we are just cogs for producers to work until we break and then replace.

There was so much talk of it getting better during the pandemic and every single thing I’ve worked on in the last seven months in the arts sphere is not better. As a matter of fact, several were worse because “you know, pandemic, funding,” blah, blah, blah. Then you weren’t ready to reopen theatre company. Do better. Figure out how to raise money properly. Stop cutting corners. Stop jumping three jobs of work on one person.

And I control none of that other than just by removing myself from these lousy situations.

Wow. I have no idea how my thoughts on how I’m in the boring middle of my personal finance journey just devolved into my angry thoughts about the arts industry. But here we are.

So – boring middle of finances, boring middle of career, maybe just boring middle of life? I did read something about how your life satisfaction just plummets in your 30s and 40s until it starts to head back in the right direction again in your 50s. If I’m still blogging in 20 years, I’ll give you an update about whether or not it’s true.