How Spending Seasons Help Your Finances as an Actor
As an actor, your money was meant to be managed cyclically—in seasons. For creative freelancers and self-employed artists, life does not lend itself to a linear and consistent trajectory, which means your money management strategy should not be structured linearly and consistently.
When you have fluctuating income, you won’t be able to consistently save all the time. Throughout the year, you are going to need more money skills than just “save more, spend less.” You are going to need three different money skills: spending, sustaining and saving, and you need to learn how to flex these skills using the following spending seasons throughout the year.
Seasons of saving: Putting money toward the future you.
Seasons of sustaining: Vibing with the month-to-month money that’s coming in.
Seasons of spending: Using the money you set aside for current you.
This mimics life. Life fluctuates. So do you. So should your money. When you book a three-month regional theater contract, or that co-star paycheck hits the bank, that’s when you will flex your saving muscle. You have more money coming in, so you can set some aside for the future you in the bank.
And when you are off-contract, you are going to use the money that you saved while you were on-contract to support you until your next gig (or to help supplement you while you work your side job and have to take days off to go on auditions). This is called a spending season.
Spending seasons tend to be the most difficult for actors to lean into because you have been taught that if you aren’t saving, something is going wrong.
Creative freelancers and self-employed artists don’t have a bi-weekly paycheck to “percentage out,” like someone with a 9 to 5 who can consistently save month after month after month. Your income fluctuates, and that means so will your style of saving.
Spending is not a problem child. It is not a necessary evil. It’s not something you need to cut back on. Fear of spending keeps you from signing up for that acting class or getting that headshot refresh your agent recommended or booking a weekend getaway during EPA season to avoid burnout. You need to learn how to spend well, and how to spend in ways that make you feel good. You need to learn how to spend in ways that support present and future you.
You need to learn how to use your intuition to make spending decisions. And this doesn’t mean you drain your savings account every time you enter a season of spending. This just means you aren’t afraid to utilize the money past you set aside for current you and you aren’t spending it on things that won’t improve your life.
To learn more about how to implement saving and spending seasons without draining your bank accounts, check out this article that outlines the 4 steps to create a money plan with fluctuating income.
Saving money becomes so much easier when you master the skill of spending. This is because you’ll be excited about giving money to future you to spend, rather than feeling like you have to or it’s the “responsible” thing that adults do. When you release the pressure to always be saving money, it will become so much easier to do so. Saving money will come from desire, not “shoulds” or sheer willpower.
When you lean into spending seasons, you can accelerate your artistic career and have more joy in the process. You’ll have so much fun in your spending seasons that you won’t feel deprived in your saving seasons. Money works differently for artists, and it’s time you start managing it that way.
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Brooke Tyler Benson, Money Coach + AEA Actor, is the founder of Not Starving Artists. She is bringing financial education and empowerment to creatives to create a new generation of wealthy artists living lives of luxury and purpose (no budgeting or bi-weekly paycheck required). After graduating with a BFA in Acting, it became her mission to destroy the “starving artist” trope once and for all. She is your financial cheerleader, bringing you accessible money education and coaching specifically for creative freelancers and small business owners.
