As a CPA and financial counselor, I work with some 1,200 creative professionals each year in a variety of creative fields, and at all stages in their careers. One constant for those who are just starting out, and particularly for those who are starting out on their own, is that what you may have learned about money in school is hard to really put into practice until you are really running your own creative business.

Then, like it or not, it matters—a lot. It matters for the health and security of you and your loved ones. It matters for your ability to support the causes you believe in. And it matters for your art. If you can master the financial side of your creative practice, the barriers created by money fade. You don’t have to say yes to something you’d rather refuse, just for the pay. That is total creative empowerment. 

Today’s economic landscape is undoubtedly challenging, and particularly so for those who work in the arts. But if you have a plan, a way of approaching your finances, it can help carry you through even the tougher times.

Let's take as an example a former client, a young artist whom we’ll call C.

One of the first questions I ask new clients is how much it costs them to exist as humans each month. Most people I work with don’t have spending problems; they have awareness and earnings problems.

C. estimated her monthly expenses as $1,800, including rent, utilities, food, clothes and a few incidentals. She knew she made more than that, and she was careful about spending—she shared her Internet with roommates, ate mostly at home and tried to pay attention to her social costs. But she never seemed to have money left over. 

That’s because, on closer inspection, C. actually spent closer to $2,200 per month. There were student loans, her annual renter’s insurance and occasional gifts. She also spent money on art supplies, maintaining her professional website and attending events and workshops for her career. Many of these events were free, but some included a fee—and most included transportation and dinner on the run. She didn’t think to count these toward her cost of living; they were business related. But she also didn’t have a good sense of what she spent on her practice.①

C. wasn’t spending irresponsibly; $1,800 per month just wasn’t the “right” number for her—it excluded too many important expenses. Neither, it turns out, was the $2,200—it included things she didn’t really need or even want (a free trial of a streaming service that turned into a monthly charge, for example). 

Instead, her “right” monthly number was around $2,300: $2,050 in expenses and $250 set aside for savings. 

When calculating monthly expenses, include saving as a routine “cost,” not as an extra for when you have cash left over. (There will never be enough left over.)  

C. set up a savings account② to which she could make regular, automated contributions from her checking. This savings account would serve as an emergency fund, in which she would build enough savings to cover three, then six, then finally 12 months of expenses. Once that one-year goal was reached, she would aim to maximize her annual retirement contributions.③

How did we determine $250 in monthly savings? A good rule of thumb is to try saving 10 percent to 15 percent of what you earn each month. Of course, everyone’s situation is different, so if you can’t afford that now, start with less. What’s most important is to establish the routine.

Once you know your real costs, you can then figure out how to pay for them. For self-employed creatives, particularly those who are early in their careers, this often means finding supplemental income sources.

My favorite strategy for this is the “portfolio career.” In the portfolio career framework, there are three “buckets” of income: starring role, supporting-cast roles and production assistance. 

The starring role is what you would do if you could do anything you want. For C., it was making the large-scale paintings she sold online until she found reliable representation. These occasional sales weren’t covering her costs: the estimated $3,000 she earned from them throughout the year wasn’t reliable and, when accounting for expenses, only amounted to a net gain of about $1,500. 

But that’s not all that C. did. She also had supporting-cast roles. These provide connections, experience, training or something else that supports the starring role—plus, crucially, money.

Using an online vendor,④ C. sold totes and journals printed with images of her work, an enterprise she saw as free money, since setting up the products took little time, and the site handled the manufacturing and delivery. 

She also worked 30 hours per week as an administrative assistant for a theater company, where she learned QuickBooks, an accounting software, as well as grant writing and donor management—all skills relevant to her starring role. 

C. didn’t have any production-assistance work at the time, but she’d had plenty in the past: temporary, repeatable, stable jobs you can add to your income mix if and when you need them, such as working in a (non-creative) office or tutoring. These jobs don’t necessarily support your starring role, but as long as you know what you are getting out of the work—pay, schedule stability, maybe even benefits⑤—it can really help.

Remember, this is a framework. You decide what makes the most sense for your life. How do you want to spend your time? How do you want to earn money? Talk with your peers and mentors to find out what’s worked for them. By learning about the realities of your industry, plus your own preferences, you can make intentional choices about what you say yes to—including making sure you say yes to enough things to reach your target earnings number. 

C. wasn’t quite there. Her total monthly income was about $2,200, which covered her living and working expenses, but left only $150 for savings—$100 shy of our goal. Plus, some of that income was unpredictable. 

But she had options. The theater company almost always needed extra help during September, December and March for its three biggest shows. C. offered to work extra hours during those months, an estimated $600 for each month of overtime. 

She also canceled $35 worth of subscriptions and set up an automatic $35 monthly bank transfer from checking to savings account. Since she was already spending that money, spending it on herself was an easy switch to make. Those two changes added up to $2,220 over the year.

Lastly, C. started paying closer attention to her website. By revising her profile to increase her visibility in searches and engaging more often with other sellers so she was showing up on the “recommended” lists for their customers, she was able to increase her sales. Not by much—about $100 a month—but enough to add some cushion to her checking account, so she was able to avoid overdraft fees and the stress of waiting for payday.

C. didn’t need magical solutions. She needed permission to pay attention to her spending in a way that felt empowering, rather than punitive. She needed a nudge to say yes to overtime with the express purpose of using that income for her emergency fund. She wasn’t on a constant quest for more money; she just needed to make a few tangible changes that worked with her current lifestyle. 

The best part? Without the underlying financial stress adding pressure to every brush stroke, C. was able to focus more on her art—and it was better for it. 

You can do this, too. Write down what you think it costs to exist as a human and an artist. Then check that number against your own spending history. Add 10 to 15% to it to account for a healthy savings goal. Then see if you can use your creativity to find ways to cover that amount. 

You’ve got this. Let me know how it goes. ✦

• SVA Career Development offers a range of job-seeking and professional-development resources for all SVA alumni and degree-seeking students, as well as one-on-one career counseling for alumni up to four years after graduation.

• State and city arts councils offer free webinars, trainings and other means of assistance. Though monetary support at the state level usually goes to organizations, most major cities’ arts councils provide funds to individual artists, usually through grants. Plus, state and city councils are always looking for artists to serve on committees and panels—a great way to effect change in your community and build your network as you do it. 

• Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts groups provide pro bono legal support for creative individuals and organizations—though membership fees may apply. There are a number of VLAs across the country, but if there isn’t one near you, online support is available. 

• Small Business Administration and Small Business Development Centers offer support (especially with entity formation paperwork and sales-tax registration) and training for small-business owners. The trainings aren’t specific to creative businesses, but the resources are there if you need them. Bonus: You’ll meet lots of fellow entrepreneurs at SBA and SBDC events. 

• Your own financial institution should employ relationship managers; even if you do all of your banking online, getting to know one of them is worth the effort. It’s always helpful to have a human available to answer questions and make complicated processes easier. Plus, most financial institutions have funding available to sponsor or provide grants for creative projects. Relationships help foster that support. ▪︎

Elaine Grogan Luttrull, CPA-PFS, is the principal and founder of Minerva Financial Arts, a finance and tax consultancy, and author of Arts & Numbers (Agate Publishing, 2013). She has written and taught on finance for creative entrepreneurs for a variety of publications and institutions.

Alfonso de Anda (MFA 2018 Illustration as Visual Essay) is an illustrator and comics artist based in Mexico City. For more information, visit aldeanda.com.