Hi! Thank you for asking -- mostly because I LOVE being open about this topic (meaning career/money woes). I have two answers.
The first answer refers to my personal situation: I actually have a post going up today about the pervasive anxiety that money creates in my life (total coincidence; I hadn't even realized how much I was going on about money until your comment). It's partly my upbringing and personality (must! always! worry! about! money!), but mostly stems from the career I chose, which pulls from a variety of different sources (website, books, real estate, marketing clients, screenplays) on purpose, because all of those sources go up and down -- so the way that I maintain some semblance of stability is via multiple income streams.
Currently, I have a book proposal and two screenplays that will *probably* go forward, but those amount to bulk payments that come in infrequently -- and the past couple of years have been the development stage, meaning they haven't been generating income. Real estate has been tough across the board, but especially tough in my area post-wildfires -- during that incident and in its wake my real estate income was basically $0 for a few months. And the political opinion show I did for a few years -- which brought in good, consistent money -- came to an end right around the same time, because the company got bought. I had savings that had I put aside deliberately, in the event I went through a rough patch, but emotionally it's very hard for me to watch those dwindle. It does feel like a failure, even though I know it's not.
Oh -- and my medical incident in April resulted in a hell of a bill, because my insurance is denying a bunch of the charges. I'm disputing their claims and also applying to get on a payment program, which I *should* qualify for based on my net income after deductions. Shrug. (Truly, I can't even put this particular issue on my plate of stressors; I have to assume I'll sort it out over time.)
The short answer, though, is I'll be fine. I have a home with a reasonable mortgage that has accrued equity quickly. I have a very strong hustler impulse, and pivoting to accommodate market changes is something I've had to do a few times over the course of my career. I also have a condo that I'm trying to sell -- although I wanted to keep that as an income-generating property for the long-term, it got reassessed a couple of years after I bought it and the monthly payments went up so high that it doesn't actually...generate income. But it's really awesome that I have that to sell, and at least I'll get out what I put into it.
The more general answer, though, is that -- again -- I LOVE talking about money, because I find women especially don't often feel comfortable talking about their finances even with their close friends...and we HAVE to. Over the years I've come to talk openly about things like specific numbers and concerns with close friends, and we all share information and support and suggestions and it's truly awesome.
I've always written about the "business side of blogging" because I think that it'd be a failure on my part to skip over the topic. It feels to me like that would amount to gatekeeping for an industry that is one of the few where women reliably make more money than their male counterparts, and one of the few that (theoretically) accommodates things like raising children alongside making money.
I've never been on the 9-to-five job track both because I don't want to and because I truly don't know how I could have done that and also raised my kids (childcare is obviously BEYOND pricey) without the kind of flexibility that my career affords. There are cons to what I do -- big ones, obviously, that include the aforementioned income-insecurity in addition to things, like, ya know, paying insane amounts of money for private healthcare -- but I made my choices and, on balance, I am happy with them.
New post is going up shortly; I'll link back to this comment in case anyone else is wondering wtf is going on with me and if I'm ok. I am. (Probably :)
Looks FAB!
Jordan. I'm worried about you. What's going on with your finances? Is it from the fires? Do you qualify for any assistance?
Hi! Thank you for asking -- mostly because I LOVE being open about this topic (meaning career/money woes). I have two answers.
The first answer refers to my personal situation: I actually have a post going up today about the pervasive anxiety that money creates in my life (total coincidence; I hadn't even realized how much I was going on about money until your comment). It's partly my upbringing and personality (must! always! worry! about! money!), but mostly stems from the career I chose, which pulls from a variety of different sources (website, books, real estate, marketing clients, screenplays) on purpose, because all of those sources go up and down -- so the way that I maintain some semblance of stability is via multiple income streams.
Currently, I have a book proposal and two screenplays that will *probably* go forward, but those amount to bulk payments that come in infrequently -- and the past couple of years have been the development stage, meaning they haven't been generating income. Real estate has been tough across the board, but especially tough in my area post-wildfires -- during that incident and in its wake my real estate income was basically $0 for a few months. And the political opinion show I did for a few years -- which brought in good, consistent money -- came to an end right around the same time, because the company got bought. I had savings that had I put aside deliberately, in the event I went through a rough patch, but emotionally it's very hard for me to watch those dwindle. It does feel like a failure, even though I know it's not.
Oh -- and my medical incident in April resulted in a hell of a bill, because my insurance is denying a bunch of the charges. I'm disputing their claims and also applying to get on a payment program, which I *should* qualify for based on my net income after deductions. Shrug. (Truly, I can't even put this particular issue on my plate of stressors; I have to assume I'll sort it out over time.)
The short answer, though, is I'll be fine. I have a home with a reasonable mortgage that has accrued equity quickly. I have a very strong hustler impulse, and pivoting to accommodate market changes is something I've had to do a few times over the course of my career. I also have a condo that I'm trying to sell -- although I wanted to keep that as an income-generating property for the long-term, it got reassessed a couple of years after I bought it and the monthly payments went up so high that it doesn't actually...generate income. But it's really awesome that I have that to sell, and at least I'll get out what I put into it.
The more general answer, though, is that -- again -- I LOVE talking about money, because I find women especially don't often feel comfortable talking about their finances even with their close friends...and we HAVE to. Over the years I've come to talk openly about things like specific numbers and concerns with close friends, and we all share information and support and suggestions and it's truly awesome.
I've always written about the "business side of blogging" because I think that it'd be a failure on my part to skip over the topic. It feels to me like that would amount to gatekeeping for an industry that is one of the few where women reliably make more money than their male counterparts, and one of the few that (theoretically) accommodates things like raising children alongside making money.
I've never been on the 9-to-five job track both because I don't want to and because I truly don't know how I could have done that and also raised my kids (childcare is obviously BEYOND pricey) without the kind of flexibility that my career affords. There are cons to what I do -- big ones, obviously, that include the aforementioned income-insecurity in addition to things, like, ya know, paying insane amounts of money for private healthcare -- but I made my choices and, on balance, I am happy with them.
New post is going up shortly; I'll link back to this comment in case anyone else is wondering wtf is going on with me and if I'm ok. I am. (Probably :)
ALL of this. My comment would be 508 books of yessing each word. Bingo, Jordan. Bee-eye-en-gee-oh.