Had a video meeting with our financial advisor today.

Obviously 2020 has not gone as planned, but our goals and retirement plan are still mostly on track.

If you're a freelance creative, make sure you think about the future. It's never too early (or late) to look at the numbers

Tallying up all your bills for a year, having those real expenses laid out in front of you, can be really eye opening.

It immediately shows you what your needs are and how you've prioritized your money.

Rent or mortgage, bills, food (groceries or restaurant), clothes, upkeep, work supplies, entertainment, etc. It's not exciting, but knowing how those costs roll out from month to month and year to year is incredibly useful.

If you're in a position where you can auto-deposit money for savings or investments, even better. Set it and forget it.

Ideally you adjust to what's in your account and that nest egg grows all on its own.

2019 was our best year ever (and before that 2018 was) so we felt confident about 2020, but not to a point where we over extended ourselves.

When the pandemic hit, we put the brakes on a lot of optional stuff in our budget until we could see how choppy the waters would get.

Plan for the worst.
Hope for the best.

Our minimum living expenses budget assumes a steady freelance income that's less than half our current reality. That gave us a huge buffer in case my career hit the skids for whatever reason.

In this case that "whatever" was Covid.

I hear way too many freelancers being darkly sarcastic about working until they're dead. I get the sentiment, but you should still do some planning.

Creatively I want to write for a good long time and probably won't stop, but financially I want to have options.

People romanticize the starving artist, but it's bullshit.

It's WAY easier to be consistently creative when you have stability now and into the future.

That's a huge reason why so many of us have struggled with productivity during this pandemic - the uncertainty eats away at us