September 17, 2024 • 30 mins
Today we explore the rich world of FI or Financial Independence. We show the various strategies you can apply from this way of life to ease your stress and improve your money habits, allowing you more freedom.
THE ALLIANCE FOR LIFETIME INCOME is a non-profit educational organization based in Washington, D.C., that creates awareness and educates Americans about the value and importance of having protected lifetime income in retirement.. The Alliance provides consumers and financial professionals with educational resources, interactive tools, and actionable research and insights to use in building retirement income strategies and plans.
The Alliance was Elton’s first and only non‐profit tour partner and the sole presenting partner of his 2022 Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in North America last year.Together, the Alliance, Elton and his husband David Furnish, CEO of Rocket Entertainment and chairman of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, heard from hundreds of thousands of fans along tour stops. The message was clear – financial security and planning for the next phase in life are hugely important to them. The couple plans to continue working with the Alliance to have these vital conversations throughout 2023.“It’s important that we all take the steps needed to ensure financial freedom in our lives, to follow our own yellow brick road,” said Furnish. “Though Elton and I have been fortunate, the need to save, protect and plan for the future are universal principles and the same for all of us. Our continued partnership with the Alliance for Lifetime Income furthers our mission to stand for human dignity at every stage of life.”Learn more at https://www.protectedincome.org/
What if part of the problem or perhaps the biggest challenge we face as musicians isn’t the money we struggle to bring, but what's happening with the money we do have and how it can build foundations when not wasted on pickle shots and designer jeans? What if you're putting too much energy into the wrong areas of your business? What if you could achieve a status not about making millions but simply of Financially independent? Let's dive into this cult-culture movement and see what nuggets are there for us musicians! Let's go.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/musicians-tip-jar--4698023/support.
THE ALLIANCE FOR LIFETIME INCOME is a non-profit educational organization based in Washington, D.C., that creates awareness and educates Americans about the value and importance of having protected lifetime income in retirement.. The Alliance provides consumers and financial professionals with educational resources, interactive tools, and actionable research and insights to use in building retirement income strategies and plans.
The Alliance was Elton’s first and only non‐profit tour partner and the sole presenting partner of his 2022 Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in North America last year.Together, the Alliance, Elton and his husband David Furnish, CEO of Rocket Entertainment and chairman of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, heard from hundreds of thousands of fans along tour stops. The message was clear – financial security and planning for the next phase in life are hugely important to them. The couple plans to continue working with the Alliance to have these vital conversations throughout 2023.“It’s important that we all take the steps needed to ensure financial freedom in our lives, to follow our own yellow brick road,” said Furnish. “Though Elton and I have been fortunate, the need to save, protect and plan for the future are universal principles and the same for all of us. Our continued partnership with the Alliance for Lifetime Income furthers our mission to stand for human dignity at every stage of life.”Learn more at https://www.protectedincome.org/
What if part of the problem or perhaps the biggest challenge we face as musicians isn’t the money we struggle to bring, but what's happening with the money we do have and how it can build foundations when not wasted on pickle shots and designer jeans? What if you're putting too much energy into the wrong areas of your business? What if you could achieve a status not about making millions but simply of Financially independent? Let's dive into this cult-culture movement and see what nuggets are there for us musicians! Let's go.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/musicians-tip-jar--4698023/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the show that explores the methods and strategies
on rocking the financial side of your music business. With
over forty years combined experience, here are your hosts, Chris
Webb and Dave Tamkin.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to Musicians Tipshaw, where we talk about musicians and money.
Here we want every musician who chooses this career path
to be free to choose art over money. I'm Chris Webb,
joined by my co host Dave Tampkin, who got his
mind on his money and his money on his mind.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Chris, thanks for having me back now that I got
me some Seagram's gin. Everyone got that cups and they
ain't chipping in now. This type of shit happens all
the time. You gotta get yours, but full gotta.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Get mine, Well said Dave. Your quotes are amazing.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Giving them on my own.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Today we explore the rich world of FI, or financial independence.
We show the various strategies you can apply from this
way of life to ease your stress and improve your
money habits, allowing you more freedom. Today's quote comes from
Farah Gray. Build your own dreams or someone else will
(01:09):
hire you to build theirs.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
This week's nonprofit is the Alliance for Lifetime Income, the
nonprofit educational organization based in Washington, d C. They create
awareness and educate Americans about the value and importance of
having protected lifetime income and retirement. The Alliance provides consumers
and financial professionals with educational resources, interactive tools, and actionable
research and insights to use the building retirement income strategies
(01:33):
and plans. I know Chris that we usually do a
music nonprofit, but.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Elton John brought this up.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
The Alliance was Elton's first and only nonprofit tour partner
and the sole present the partner for his twenty twenty
two Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in North America. Together
the Alliance, Elton and his husband David COEO of Rocket
and Entertainment and chairman of the Elton John's AIDS Foundation,
heard from hundreds of thousands of fans along their stops.
The message was clear financial security and planning for the
(01:59):
next phase in life are hugely important to them. The
couple plans to continue working with the Alliance to have
these vital conversations throughout twenty twenty three. David said it's
important that we all take the steps needed to ensure
financial freedom in our lives to follow our own yellow
brick road. Though Elton and I have been fortunate, the
need to say protecting plan for the future are universal
principles and the same for all of us. Our continued
(02:19):
partnership with the Alliance for Lifetime furthers our mission to
stand for human need at every stage of life. Learn
more at Protected Income dot org.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
We need to align with the Alliance.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Yeah, what if part.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Of the problem, or perhaps the biggest challenge we face
as musicians isn't the money we struggle to bring in,
but what's happening with the money we do have and
how it can build foundations when not wasted on pickle
shots and designer genes. What if you're putting too much
energy into the wrong areas of your business. What if
(02:55):
you could achieve a status not about making millions, but
simply a financial independence. Let's dive into the cult culture
movement that is FI and see what nuggets are there
for us musicians.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
Let's go.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Before we get into this.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
I think that statement can only come from someone who
has not hadis because you would put that as a
priority as far as especially in a retirement, Plenty of
pickle shots in a retirement.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
We'll see for everyone that helps me with my first definition,
which is financial independence itself as a definition, is not retirement.
It is a state where an individual or household has
accumulated sufficient financial resources to cover all its living expenses.
So you're still working, but by choice. FI doesn't mean
(04:17):
being uber rich or so flushed with cash that you're
burying it in the backyard. It's also not the scene
of a musician working so hard that they're falling apart
or they're burning out. What this means is that you
should be working towards high FI, not low FI.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Huh, nice job there, Chris, I like what you did.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Financial independence or FI for musicians means having enough stable
and diverse income streams to cover all your living expenses
without relying on a traditional job or external financial support.
It typically involves achieving consistent financial security from one's music
career and associate ad ventures swing the musician to focus
(05:01):
fully on being creative their creative pursuits and without worry
about money. So we did our best here to break
down what financial impendance might look like for musicians. This
is not an extensive list, and certainly this is not
meant to tell you what you should be doing in
the sense of income streams. But what I want to
establish is how many different ways that we have in
(05:23):
the current marketplace in the music business to make regular
passive income as well as build financial stability through other methods.
So let's first talk about regular passive income streams. Now,
we've covered a lot of these past episodes, so we
won't spend much time on them, but we do need
to give each of them a little bit of a
spotlight because it's going to reflect where you are headed
(05:44):
as an artist, and everyone individually has to make choices
which ones will more organically fit within their current goals.
So number one of these is streaming royalties income platforms
like Spotify and Apple Music and YouTube. They can generate
money for listeners. Now everyone here knows this, but we
also know that it takes about a million streams to
get about four thousand dollars. You cannot rely on this
(06:06):
as your main income stream. We've said that over and
over again, and I think everyone agrees on that. But
you cannot also dismiss it as being unimportant because it
is a passive income for me.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
It supplements my gumball addiction that I am able to
get the change every month, go over to kmart and
you know, spin that dial. Not sure what color I'm
going to get, but thank you to streaming Royalties for
making that happen for me.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
First of all, you eat gumballs, Second of all, kmart
exists still, and third of all, you can still put
change into a gumball home seet. I have a lot
of questions moving on.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
I was gonna say coals, but I didn't want to
put down Coles because my cole's cash is very important
to me.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Another one is licensing fees, money earned from licensing music
for film commercials, video games, TV shows, and merging markets.
I teach a class on this at the University of Colorado, Denver,
and we go through all of these very extensively. And
these are long term income goals, So you don't just
dive into licensing fees, but it is part of your
(07:08):
plan if you're making a long term plan to build
that part of your resources, because they can be very
passive after you've established them. Using publishing royalties, this is
income from songwriting credits when you co write with other people.
This is a great way to diversify through that. This
also includes performance royalties from radio play and live performances, the.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
First three which I really don't experience any income from
because I'm still learning, and that's why I show up
to this podcast every week to learn about these things.
So hopefully one day I will have those three as
a regular passive income. But what changed the game for
me was the online merchandise sales. Once I was able
to sign up for print Tofi and be able to
(07:51):
make hats and cups and T shirts everything on demand
so that I didn't have to pay upfront costs. That
just last week promoting Arlington Heights Show, people were buying sweatshirts.
I'm like, do I have sweatshirts online? And I forgot
that made a few hundred dollars with something that is
not even made yet. But at least I have that
(08:12):
option to have that store working for itself while I'm
not even paying attention to it.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
And then we want to kind of move towards diversifying
your active income streams. Right, passive income streams we listed previous,
now we're talking about active income streams. These don't have
to be taken when you don't want to take them.
That is a part of the FI concept is that
you're choosing to say yes to these, and there can
be various reasons why you say yes. It can be
the money. It could also be the opportunity. It can
(08:39):
be your values, it can be whatever you decide, but
you're choosing to say yes to these. The first one,
of course, is going to be live performances earning money
from gigs and tours and concerts and private shows. These
can be traditional live shows, so they can even be
virtual performances.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
So as you're saying, you know diverse active income streams,
you're choosing. Show merchandise sales is whether.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
You're prepared for that or not.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
And if you could make an investment in yourself to
get that before each show and have enough supply your
regular sales of physical items like T shirts, poster albums,
coasters like CDs, larger coasters like vinyls, and all the
fan merchandise, well, put a pretty penny in your pocket.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And I think we can attach to that one. Having
a tip opportunity of some sort, whether it's on stage
with you or by your merch table, you should never
dismiss somebody's just simple generosity and want to support if that.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
QR code made too for your virtual tip jar as well.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Another one is teaching and consulting. Income can come from
teaching music lessons, offering courses, or providing consultations for other
music productions, songwriting, and other industry skills. We are doing
this within musicians tip jar now as well as at
universities and online.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Cloudfunding and fan support consists support through platforms like pitcheon,
where fans pay for exclusive content, access or other pricks monthly, weekly,
depending on what you set up.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So what's the value here? Right? We want to kind
of just reiterate the reason we're talking about financial independence
because it's kind of come to light that it's required
for the best artists to be as good as they
can be because we talk about stress all the time.
We talk about the stress that money brings into our
lives and debt's everyone, but as artists, we feel a
(10:27):
unique type of stress because we also have a fear
that what we want to pursue isn't possible. So when
we're talking about getting it to a place of financial independence,
what we're talking about is reducing financial stress. This is
no need for a day job, right. A musician can
focus entirely on their art and their career without needing
(10:49):
to supplement their income from non music related jobs unless
they choose to.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Debt free or minimal debt. Financial independence often involves either
being debt free or having managed low interest that doesn't
impact day to day living.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And we will talk about that here a little bit
at the end. But obviously we want everyone to be
aware that your debt is going to cause a lot
of financial stress. So staying out of it is the
easiest choice, but getting rid of it is the next best.
And of course now we're putting this in a teeny
tiny little bullet here on this episode, but savings and
investments are the critical part to create financial freedom for
(11:26):
every American, every person in the world that can get
access to these options. Having savings for emergencies, having investments
that provide additional income or grow over time. These can
reduce your reliance that makes you solely reliant on performing
or any of these active income stream options.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
We should do an episode on this, even talking about
Vanguard ETFs, where you know, year over year it's grown
twelve percent, whether you take five percent of your income
and put it into that and have different options, just
to talk about it, and if our listeners want to
ask questions or invest their time to research more about it.
(12:12):
It might be something worth doing. I know some friends
that don't even put their savings in a high interest
savings count. They're losing four percent every month on that.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, the basics like that, and then deeper into it
of just knowing where to start investing is a lot
to learn at the first kind of wave of figuring
this stuff out. Yeah, and I agree we can make
this simpler for everybody. It's just that we never want
to be the ones we don't want to give financial advice.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
You're giving financial advice, Chris.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
On actual investments. But we do want everyone to be
aware that it isn't as complicated as it appears, and
there are easier and easier platforms now to get started,
and maybe we can provide those and talk about those
options now. We will talk at the end of this
about references of great books and resources for you to
learn more about this stuff. And in those resources they
(13:02):
do give specific investment options for you to get started
that are very low cost they call them low load
index funds and different places that you can start with
very very affordable rates to just begin the process of
investing into the stock market. So another area of this
that needs to be highlighted is sustainability, because sustaining living
(13:25):
expenses through the music process can be a daunting experience
being able to afford all those basic living expenses like rent, mortgage,
and food and healthcare and insurance, all of these things,
they're non negotiable for a safe, healthy experience in this life,
and you need to learn how to go through those
(13:48):
while earning a livable wage from music and all of
your other related activities. So when we talk about sustainability,
the FI approach builds a sustainable budget for you to
be able to control those expenses. And again we'll talk
about our approach to that here at the end. But
another one is growing wealth over time. You have to
(14:11):
have a long term view on this. Again, this is
in our financial scale, but it's not just about covering
immediate expenses. That's why we talk about investments and then
establishing a long term plan with some of your passive
income streams, because although you have the ability to make
money today, we want to have an ability to have
a long term financial goal as well. Those can also
(14:32):
include things like buying property, planning for retirement, and expanding
your businesses to be more passive.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
And having your money work for you, you know, paying out dividends,
having compounding interest, You're only going to make more money
having it grow itself.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, And all of this kind of comes to that
point of being able to control have control over your
career choices. This is creative freedom. This is the greatest
joy and artist gets right. When financial independent, a musician
has the freedom to pursue the projects that they're passionate
about without being pressured to take on work solely for
(15:08):
those financial reasons. I mean, this can sometimes be reflected
in signing a bad contractor overturing when you're exhausted, right,
taking too many gigs in a week, when you really
are tired, And that might be a reality at the
beginning for you, but hopefully that's also when you have
the most motivation or energy in you as well. And
(15:29):
if you are taking steps towards planning these kind of
this financial independent concept, you should get to a point
where that work life balance exists for you and you
can make these choices and have that financial creative freedom.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
With work life balance, financial independence allows a musician to
choose when and how much they work avoiding burnout, ensuring
time for both creative growth and personal life. I had
a friend talk to me about some open dates they
had on the way back from Chicago back to Denver,
and that has White mentioned. Maybe you can donate some
(16:03):
of your music time, see if there's a senior living
on the way home, and give back, not so much
worrying about how much money you can make or take
yourself like, what's that the artist's way. Take yourself on
a date, you know, go see a movie on your
day off, and re energize and be creative in your
own way. So having that money there opens up time
(16:25):
to give your time back to your community and to
other people for what you started playing music for in
the first place.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
All of this kind of leads towards that long term security,
that feeling that you're gonna be okay. Right. Honestly, statistically,
most people within the United States are not doing enough
to plan for their long term security. And that's not
just the artist world, that's all categories of different types
of occupations. Retirement planning is so critical to just get
(16:53):
started on a matter where you are. You may be
a little behind, you might be way ahead, but it
doesn't matter The point is only that you're being active
with it. Having some sort of income or investments that
help plan for a future financial security give you that
ability to stop performing when you're tired or when you
simply just may change how you feel about doing it,
(17:13):
and that will happen. People change, and that's the only
thing that we're sure of is that you will continually
change how you feel about this stuff. And creating some
sort of standard of living that you can sustain yourself
even when making those changes is really an incredible gift
to give yourself and your futureself.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
We learned a lot of that even through the pandemic.
Diversifying your assets financial independence means not relying entirely on
one source of income like touring, but having multiple income
streams such as royalties, investments, and business ventures like we
talked about earlier. Not so much royalties for me, but
you know, pocket change for Kmart Dumbles.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
You're gonna be real disappointing when you try to go
back to kmart.
Speaker 6 (17:55):
Yeah it's gone, yes, But we are saying that you
should also keep your heart and interests open to non
music options.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
So if you need to open up a new gumball
machine location maybe that's a good way for you to
pursue an extra interest and see how you might support
yourself and your happiness. I mean, that's you talked about
the merch and that is something that you've kind of
diverted off to as a non music but it's still
connected to music. But they're separate, right and for us
this musician's tip jar, it's separate, but it's connected. Teaching
(18:28):
I feel like sometimes can be separate. I'm teaching business
classes now that they're music business, but they're not music.
You know, they're talking about the industry. So there's a
lot of ways to diversify yourself into your non music interest.
And there are plenty of ways that you can create
other satisfying pursuits in this world that maybe give you
(18:48):
just as much joy as writing music and creating music.
A lot of artists start clothing lines or makeup companies,
or alcohol brands or restaurants or smoothie bars. It's like
you can really do a lot of other ideas and
pursue them simultaneously.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
It's an entrepreneurial idea.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
We were talking, I believe the last episode about personas
on stage and being able to have a creative identity
that's different from.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Who you are every day.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Well, musicians should consider themselves as entrepreneurs. Every album, tour
and merchandise sales are part of a business venture.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
This mindset helps.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Create more strategic and financially sound decisions, but also can
be a different hat. It doesn't have to get in
the way of who you are creatively. So just put
the hat on when it's time to do the numbers,
and then when it's time to create an album, you're
not thinking about the numbers. You're thinking about creating art.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
So you're saying you should be thinking like a CEO
all the time.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Yeah, I mean we've talked about reinvesting our profits, you know,
into high quality gear, marketing, professional development, networking, and partnerships.
I mean, you talk about that all the time.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
We need to be building relationships with our brands and
our artists and our industry professionals. That is the only
and the most sure way to open up new revenue streams.
And that comes from collaboration. It comes from partnerships, good
healthy relationships and sponsors.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
Yeah, and protect your assets.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
This is something I just told you about a dream
on a Saturday morning, you know, think of protect your
assets as protector asks ensuring your intellectual property such as
copyrights and trademarks is protected, and insurance to cover your gear, tours,
and health. I you know, I sent a text to
Chris saying I had this dream about my like house.
(20:42):
He was doing a show for a corporate event there,
and the house started on fire and all this stuff.
And the guy came out and talked to Chris and
I and said, oh, hope you guys have insurance.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Why am I thinking about this stuff in my dream?
Why am I dreaming about Chris? More question? But we
talked about this stuff so much.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
It's like, well, are there areas in my life that
I need to protect my ass?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
And there are so Scaling your business, you have to
be aware of these things. That's why we're just talking
about them. It doesn't mean you need to feel overwhelmed
by any of this, but you have to think of
ways to scale your brand, whether through exclusive releases, digital products, ebooks,
music production tools, leveraging your personal brand, and you can
do speaking engagements, workshops. There's so many different ways that
(21:27):
you can continue to expand your thought of how your
business can grow.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Last, but not least, is plan for the unexpected, and
for me, it makes me think of health.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
You know, we have been given this one.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Body to last as long as we can, So make
sure you have health insurance.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
Make sure you have insurance for your gear.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Invest in the right type of insurance, liability insurance for performances,
which Chris is the only person I've known to make
me sign up for that just to be sure he's covered,
which is smart. Might be expensive, but not as expensive
as something really tragic happening to you if your health
goes the wrong way, or your gear starts and fire
(22:09):
in your leg home and you don't have insurance.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
And that is what we're trying to do here at
musicians tip Jar is we're working hard at giving our
music community an easy, step by step process to follow
that we've followed and created to help us reach this
FI landmark as fast as possible. Because above all these
concepts are these pillars of our financial scale that we've
(22:35):
structured to help create elements of this program, and we
feel like we could just kind of give a quick
review of it here so that we can cover the
basics of what the Musician's tip Jar financial scale is
and how it directly enables you to reach and sustain FI. Now,
we also want to remind everyone that this is our
second to last episode of this season, season four, and
(22:56):
we've had a wonderful time doing this, and next week's
episode be about our highlights for this. But today we
just also wanted to mention again that we are releasing
an online course here the end of twenty twenty four
that we're very excited everyone is going to get their
hands on, and we hope that you all will reach
out and be engaged with us on our first draft
(23:16):
of that release. So I'm just going to do a
quick review of what our financial scale includes. Now, this
is notes A through G right seven notes scale, just
like a musical note, except we've designed these to each
represent different aspects of your financial wealth. A for advance
is planning expenses in advance. This is what we call
(23:39):
putting in the money for your monthly expenses in your
checking account. B for budget is creating a monthly budget,
and that template is reviewed often to make sure that
you stay on budget and helps you track how much
you're spending and how much of your hard earned cash
is being left. C is clarity. This note is about
(24:02):
giving you more financial peace so that you don't have
to do all of the little things yourself. It's like
having a house cleaner for your finances, because they're the
ones who will make sure that everything is moved and
not left in the wrong places. And so we set
up these auto transfers in these auto adjustments to help
you keep all that in order with less work. D
(24:24):
is for debt. We talk about getting rid of bad debt.
We also help you understand what good debt is and
how to leverage it. E is for Emergency fund, which
is a separate savings account that we have you keep
two to five months of your hard earned money in
to have for emergencies if there's ever one, and there
(24:44):
will be. F is for forecast. That's about your yearly
predictions and your forecasting how much you're going to make
per quarter and keeping track of it. This is the
best way we have found for musicians to increase their
bottom line every year over year. And then our final
note is G for growth. And this is about investing
(25:05):
in your future. This is about dreaming bigger. This is
about making sure that your future you is taken care
of and financially independent by the actions you're taking now.
So that's just a quick overview of what it is.
But please keep an eye out for our first release
of an online course helping you learn how to do
(25:26):
all those things. For musicians, financial independence is about being
in control of both your artistic career and your financial future,
allowing you to live both comfortably and continue pursuing music
on your own terms. I wanted to take a quick
quote out of a book that that really has inspired me.
I've read it multiple times. It's called Your Money or
(25:47):
Your Life. This is by Vicki Robbins and Joe Domingoz.
They talk about in the book Life Energy. Right, this
concept of the most valuable thing you have is not
necessarily your time, but the life energy spent in that time. Right,
time is obviously the other most important and valuable thing
you have. And both of these trump money because they're
(26:08):
both things that you cannot make more of. And so
we talk about what earnings are versus life energy, and
we want you to find out what your real hourly wages.
So what they make you do is take a basic job.
Say you're working forty hours a week and you're getting
paid one thousand dollars a week, and you're you know
your dollars kind of equate then to twenty five dollars
(26:29):
an hour. That's the basic math that we usually use
for that type of figure. Now, what they make you
do is to take into account the life energy expenses.
This is including commuting, you know, your clothes, your meals, decompressing,
escaping to get some entertainment, vacation, job related illness. All
(26:52):
of that is time and money, and that's spent on
maintaining your job as well. So you have to equate
that in and when they do that with their calculations
in the book, it adds thirty more hours of work,
which you're reducing how much you're making. Then you also
have to adjust the actual job adjustments and taxes and
all that stuff. So then bottom line, what your hourly
wage is for a job working forty hours a week
(27:15):
at one thousand dollars a week in income, which you
thought was twenty five dollars an hour, is actually only
ten dollars an hour. Now is that really worth your
life energy, especially if you're building someone else's dream with
that time. It's a very important question to ask yourself
and a reason to look into more ways to increase
your own sources of income. Versus working for someone else's.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Put this chart on a website too, Chris, so they
can come to musicians tipjar dot com and just type
in life energy and I'll bring it to a small
blog for.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
This excellent and so our action step for y'all is
to take some time to learn more about the FI movement.
You also might see it as the acronym fire, which
is financial independence retire early. I want you to dig
more into them, into these movements and find ways that
it might help you live more comfortably. You very well
(28:11):
might find that you are in a better place than
you realize. So here are two things that we recommend
for resources. Mister money mustache, he's a local here in Denver. Well,
he's a local in Colorado in longmant and somebody that
we followed for a long time. He has wonderful blogs
online and some book resources for you on his website.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
And no more mustache because it wasn't cost effective to
get that trimmed. That's so he took off the mustache.
That's how serious it is about it.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Well, he does drive a nice Tesla SUV, so that
is true. So it's again like we're not saying you
have to sacrifice all your joys and happiness. That is
never the case. It is really just what people get
defensive about and think when they first hear this stuff.
But you live wonderfully by doing these choices. The second
resource that I recommend is the book that I referred
(29:02):
to earlier by Vicki Robbins and Joe Dimengez called Your
Money or Your Life. This is really the book that
started this whole movement, and those will be on our
book club page on musicians tipcart dot com. We know
how valuable your time is. We appreciate you spending this
time with us and being a part of this community.
It's our hope that you feel that sense of community
here and that you help spread the word make us
(29:24):
all stronger. If you'd like to get a hold of us,
what's the best way to do that?
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Send us an email Musicians tipchart at Gmail and musicians
tipchart dot com, where you can check out all the
resources and discounts we'll collected just for you, and check
out all our episodes now on our YouTube channel you
find this information use soul, Please rate, subscribe to the
podcast and slam like button if you're on YouTube so
it can help keep you up on the finance side
of your music business.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
As always, thank you for joining us, and remember there
is already enough for everyone, You just need to know
how to get it. Until next time, I'm behalfy Dave
Tamkin and myself stay happy, healthy and wealthy. The goal
is not more money. The goal is living life to
your own science. This is musician's tip.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Jake, Somebody somebody.
Speaker 7 (30:20):
Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or
professional advice. Please consultant appropriate tax, legal, business, or financial
professional for individualized advice. Individual results not guaranteed, and all
discussed strategies have the potential profits. Suppose they're operating on
behalf of the musician's temp job LLC exclusively to support
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Support
Welcome to the show that explores the methods and strategies
on rocking the financial side of your music business. With
over forty years combined experience, here are your hosts, Chris
Webb and Dave Tamkin.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to Musicians Tipshaw, where we talk about musicians and money.
Here we want every musician who chooses this career path
to be free to choose art over money. I'm Chris Webb,
joined by my co host Dave Tampkin, who got his
mind on his money and his money on his mind.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Chris, thanks for having me back now that I got
me some Seagram's gin. Everyone got that cups and they
ain't chipping in now. This type of shit happens all
the time. You gotta get yours, but full gotta.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Get mine, Well said Dave. Your quotes are amazing.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Giving them on my own.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Today we explore the rich world of FI, or financial independence.
We show the various strategies you can apply from this
way of life to ease your stress and improve your
money habits, allowing you more freedom. Today's quote comes from
Farah Gray. Build your own dreams or someone else will
(01:09):
hire you to build theirs.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
This week's nonprofit is the Alliance for Lifetime Income, the
nonprofit educational organization based in Washington, d C. They create
awareness and educate Americans about the value and importance of
having protected lifetime income and retirement. The Alliance provides consumers
and financial professionals with educational resources, interactive tools, and actionable
research and insights to use the building retirement income strategies
(01:33):
and plans. I know Chris that we usually do a
music nonprofit, but.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Elton John brought this up.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
The Alliance was Elton's first and only nonprofit tour partner
and the sole present the partner for his twenty twenty
two Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in North America. Together
the Alliance, Elton and his husband David COEO of Rocket
and Entertainment and chairman of the Elton John's AIDS Foundation,
heard from hundreds of thousands of fans along their stops.
The message was clear financial security and planning for the
(01:59):
next phase in life are hugely important to them. The
couple plans to continue working with the Alliance to have
these vital conversations throughout twenty twenty three. David said it's
important that we all take the steps needed to ensure
financial freedom in our lives to follow our own yellow
brick road. Though Elton and I have been fortunate, the
need to say protecting plan for the future are universal
principles and the same for all of us. Our continued
(02:19):
partnership with the Alliance for Lifetime furthers our mission to
stand for human need at every stage of life. Learn
more at Protected Income dot org.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
We need to align with the Alliance.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Yeah, what if part.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Of the problem, or perhaps the biggest challenge we face
as musicians isn't the money we struggle to bring in,
but what's happening with the money we do have and
how it can build foundations when not wasted on pickle
shots and designer genes. What if you're putting too much
energy into the wrong areas of your business. What if
(02:55):
you could achieve a status not about making millions, but
simply a financial independence. Let's dive into the cult culture
movement that is FI and see what nuggets are there
for us musicians.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
Let's go.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Before we get into this.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
I think that statement can only come from someone who
has not hadis because you would put that as a
priority as far as especially in a retirement, Plenty of
pickle shots in a retirement.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
We'll see for everyone that helps me with my first definition,
which is financial independence itself as a definition, is not retirement.
It is a state where an individual or household has
accumulated sufficient financial resources to cover all its living expenses.
So you're still working, but by choice. FI doesn't mean
(04:17):
being uber rich or so flushed with cash that you're
burying it in the backyard. It's also not the scene
of a musician working so hard that they're falling apart
or they're burning out. What this means is that you
should be working towards high FI, not low FI.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Huh, nice job there, Chris, I like what you did.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Financial independence or FI for musicians means having enough stable
and diverse income streams to cover all your living expenses
without relying on a traditional job or external financial support.
It typically involves achieving consistent financial security from one's music
career and associate ad ventures swing the musician to focus
(05:01):
fully on being creative their creative pursuits and without worry
about money. So we did our best here to break
down what financial impendance might look like for musicians. This
is not an extensive list, and certainly this is not
meant to tell you what you should be doing in
the sense of income streams. But what I want to
establish is how many different ways that we have in
(05:23):
the current marketplace in the music business to make regular
passive income as well as build financial stability through other methods.
So let's first talk about regular passive income streams. Now,
we've covered a lot of these past episodes, so we
won't spend much time on them, but we do need
to give each of them a little bit of a
spotlight because it's going to reflect where you are headed
(05:44):
as an artist, and everyone individually has to make choices
which ones will more organically fit within their current goals.
So number one of these is streaming royalties income platforms
like Spotify and Apple Music and YouTube. They can generate
money for listeners. Now everyone here knows this, but we
also know that it takes about a million streams to
get about four thousand dollars. You cannot rely on this
(06:06):
as your main income stream. We've said that over and
over again, and I think everyone agrees on that. But
you cannot also dismiss it as being unimportant because it
is a passive income for me.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
It supplements my gumball addiction that I am able to
get the change every month, go over to kmart and
you know, spin that dial. Not sure what color I'm
going to get, but thank you to streaming Royalties for
making that happen for me.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
First of all, you eat gumballs, Second of all, kmart
exists still, and third of all, you can still put
change into a gumball home seet. I have a lot
of questions moving on.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
I was gonna say coals, but I didn't want to
put down Coles because my cole's cash is very important
to me.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Another one is licensing fees, money earned from licensing music
for film commercials, video games, TV shows, and merging markets.
I teach a class on this at the University of Colorado, Denver,
and we go through all of these very extensively. And
these are long term income goals, So you don't just
dive into licensing fees, but it is part of your
(07:08):
plan if you're making a long term plan to build
that part of your resources, because they can be very
passive after you've established them. Using publishing royalties, this is
income from songwriting credits when you co write with other people.
This is a great way to diversify through that. This
also includes performance royalties from radio play and live performances, the.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
First three which I really don't experience any income from
because I'm still learning, and that's why I show up
to this podcast every week to learn about these things.
So hopefully one day I will have those three as
a regular passive income. But what changed the game for
me was the online merchandise sales. Once I was able
to sign up for print Tofi and be able to
(07:51):
make hats and cups and T shirts everything on demand
so that I didn't have to pay upfront costs. That
just last week promoting Arlington Heights Show, people were buying sweatshirts.
I'm like, do I have sweatshirts online? And I forgot
that made a few hundred dollars with something that is
not even made yet. But at least I have that
(08:12):
option to have that store working for itself while I'm
not even paying attention to it.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
And then we want to kind of move towards diversifying
your active income streams. Right, passive income streams we listed previous,
now we're talking about active income streams. These don't have
to be taken when you don't want to take them.
That is a part of the FI concept is that
you're choosing to say yes to these, and there can
be various reasons why you say yes. It can be
the money. It could also be the opportunity. It can
(08:39):
be your values, it can be whatever you decide, but
you're choosing to say yes to these. The first one,
of course, is going to be live performances earning money
from gigs and tours and concerts and private shows. These
can be traditional live shows, so they can even be
virtual performances.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
So as you're saying, you know diverse active income streams,
you're choosing. Show merchandise sales is whether.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
You're prepared for that or not.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
And if you could make an investment in yourself to
get that before each show and have enough supply your
regular sales of physical items like T shirts, poster albums,
coasters like CDs, larger coasters like vinyls, and all the
fan merchandise, well, put a pretty penny in your pocket.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And I think we can attach to that one. Having
a tip opportunity of some sort, whether it's on stage
with you or by your merch table, you should never
dismiss somebody's just simple generosity and want to support if that.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
QR code made too for your virtual tip jar as well.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Another one is teaching and consulting. Income can come from
teaching music lessons, offering courses, or providing consultations for other
music productions, songwriting, and other industry skills. We are doing
this within musicians tip jar now as well as at
universities and online.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Cloudfunding and fan support consists support through platforms like pitcheon,
where fans pay for exclusive content, access or other pricks monthly, weekly,
depending on what you set up.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So what's the value here? Right? We want to kind
of just reiterate the reason we're talking about financial independence
because it's kind of come to light that it's required
for the best artists to be as good as they
can be because we talk about stress all the time.
We talk about the stress that money brings into our
lives and debt's everyone, but as artists, we feel a
(10:27):
unique type of stress because we also have a fear
that what we want to pursue isn't possible. So when
we're talking about getting it to a place of financial independence,
what we're talking about is reducing financial stress. This is
no need for a day job, right. A musician can
focus entirely on their art and their career without needing
(10:49):
to supplement their income from non music related jobs unless
they choose to.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Debt free or minimal debt. Financial independence often involves either
being debt free or having managed low interest that doesn't
impact day to day living.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And we will talk about that here a little bit
at the end. But obviously we want everyone to be
aware that your debt is going to cause a lot
of financial stress. So staying out of it is the
easiest choice, but getting rid of it is the next best.
And of course now we're putting this in a teeny
tiny little bullet here on this episode, but savings and
investments are the critical part to create financial freedom for
(11:26):
every American, every person in the world that can get
access to these options. Having savings for emergencies, having investments
that provide additional income or grow over time. These can
reduce your reliance that makes you solely reliant on performing
or any of these active income stream options.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
We should do an episode on this, even talking about
Vanguard ETFs, where you know, year over year it's grown
twelve percent, whether you take five percent of your income
and put it into that and have different options, just
to talk about it, and if our listeners want to
ask questions or invest their time to research more about it.
(12:12):
It might be something worth doing. I know some friends
that don't even put their savings in a high interest
savings count. They're losing four percent every month on that.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, the basics like that, and then deeper into it
of just knowing where to start investing is a lot
to learn at the first kind of wave of figuring
this stuff out. Yeah, and I agree we can make
this simpler for everybody. It's just that we never want
to be the ones we don't want to give financial advice.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
You're giving financial advice, Chris.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
On actual investments. But we do want everyone to be
aware that it isn't as complicated as it appears, and
there are easier and easier platforms now to get started,
and maybe we can provide those and talk about those
options now. We will talk at the end of this
about references of great books and resources for you to
learn more about this stuff. And in those resources they
(13:02):
do give specific investment options for you to get started
that are very low cost they call them low load
index funds and different places that you can start with
very very affordable rates to just begin the process of
investing into the stock market. So another area of this
that needs to be highlighted is sustainability, because sustaining living
(13:25):
expenses through the music process can be a daunting experience
being able to afford all those basic living expenses like rent, mortgage,
and food and healthcare and insurance, all of these things,
they're non negotiable for a safe, healthy experience in this life,
and you need to learn how to go through those
(13:48):
while earning a livable wage from music and all of
your other related activities. So when we talk about sustainability,
the FI approach builds a sustainable budget for you to
be able to control those expenses. And again we'll talk
about our approach to that here at the end. But
another one is growing wealth over time. You have to
(14:11):
have a long term view on this. Again, this is
in our financial scale, but it's not just about covering
immediate expenses. That's why we talk about investments and then
establishing a long term plan with some of your passive
income streams, because although you have the ability to make
money today, we want to have an ability to have
a long term financial goal as well. Those can also
(14:32):
include things like buying property, planning for retirement, and expanding
your businesses to be more passive.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
And having your money work for you, you know, paying out dividends,
having compounding interest, You're only going to make more money
having it grow itself.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, And all of this kind of comes to that
point of being able to control have control over your
career choices. This is creative freedom. This is the greatest
joy and artist gets right. When financial independent, a musician
has the freedom to pursue the projects that they're passionate
about without being pressured to take on work solely for
(15:08):
those financial reasons. I mean, this can sometimes be reflected
in signing a bad contractor overturing when you're exhausted, right,
taking too many gigs in a week, when you really
are tired, And that might be a reality at the
beginning for you, but hopefully that's also when you have
the most motivation or energy in you as well. And
(15:29):
if you are taking steps towards planning these kind of
this financial independent concept, you should get to a point
where that work life balance exists for you and you
can make these choices and have that financial creative freedom.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
With work life balance, financial independence allows a musician to
choose when and how much they work avoiding burnout, ensuring
time for both creative growth and personal life. I had
a friend talk to me about some open dates they
had on the way back from Chicago back to Denver,
and that has White mentioned. Maybe you can donate some
(16:03):
of your music time, see if there's a senior living
on the way home, and give back, not so much
worrying about how much money you can make or take
yourself like, what's that the artist's way. Take yourself on
a date, you know, go see a movie on your
day off, and re energize and be creative in your
own way. So having that money there opens up time
(16:25):
to give your time back to your community and to
other people for what you started playing music for in
the first place.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
All of this kind of leads towards that long term security,
that feeling that you're gonna be okay. Right. Honestly, statistically,
most people within the United States are not doing enough
to plan for their long term security. And that's not
just the artist world, that's all categories of different types
of occupations. Retirement planning is so critical to just get
(16:53):
started on a matter where you are. You may be
a little behind, you might be way ahead, but it
doesn't matter The point is only that you're being active
with it. Having some sort of income or investments that
help plan for a future financial security give you that
ability to stop performing when you're tired or when you
simply just may change how you feel about doing it,
(17:13):
and that will happen. People change, and that's the only
thing that we're sure of is that you will continually
change how you feel about this stuff. And creating some
sort of standard of living that you can sustain yourself
even when making those changes is really an incredible gift
to give yourself and your futureself.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
We learned a lot of that even through the pandemic.
Diversifying your assets financial independence means not relying entirely on
one source of income like touring, but having multiple income
streams such as royalties, investments, and business ventures like we
talked about earlier. Not so much royalties for me, but
you know, pocket change for Kmart Dumbles.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
You're gonna be real disappointing when you try to go
back to kmart.
Speaker 6 (17:55):
Yeah it's gone, yes, But we are saying that you
should also keep your heart and interests open to non
music options.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
So if you need to open up a new gumball
machine location maybe that's a good way for you to
pursue an extra interest and see how you might support
yourself and your happiness. I mean, that's you talked about
the merch and that is something that you've kind of
diverted off to as a non music but it's still
connected to music. But they're separate, right and for us
this musician's tip jar, it's separate, but it's connected. Teaching
(18:28):
I feel like sometimes can be separate. I'm teaching business
classes now that they're music business, but they're not music.
You know, they're talking about the industry. So there's a
lot of ways to diversify yourself into your non music interest.
And there are plenty of ways that you can create
other satisfying pursuits in this world that maybe give you
(18:48):
just as much joy as writing music and creating music.
A lot of artists start clothing lines or makeup companies,
or alcohol brands or restaurants or smoothie bars. It's like
you can really do a lot of other ideas and
pursue them simultaneously.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
It's an entrepreneurial idea.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
We were talking, I believe the last episode about personas
on stage and being able to have a creative identity
that's different from.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Who you are every day.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Well, musicians should consider themselves as entrepreneurs. Every album, tour
and merchandise sales are part of a business venture.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
This mindset helps.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Create more strategic and financially sound decisions, but also can
be a different hat. It doesn't have to get in
the way of who you are creatively. So just put
the hat on when it's time to do the numbers,
and then when it's time to create an album, you're
not thinking about the numbers. You're thinking about creating art.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
So you're saying you should be thinking like a CEO
all the time.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Yeah, I mean we've talked about reinvesting our profits, you know,
into high quality gear, marketing, professional development, networking, and partnerships.
I mean, you talk about that all the time.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
We need to be building relationships with our brands and
our artists and our industry professionals. That is the only
and the most sure way to open up new revenue streams.
And that comes from collaboration. It comes from partnerships, good
healthy relationships and sponsors.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
Yeah, and protect your assets.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
This is something I just told you about a dream
on a Saturday morning, you know, think of protect your
assets as protector asks ensuring your intellectual property such as
copyrights and trademarks is protected, and insurance to cover your gear, tours,
and health. I you know, I sent a text to
Chris saying I had this dream about my like house.
(20:42):
He was doing a show for a corporate event there,
and the house started on fire and all this stuff.
And the guy came out and talked to Chris and
I and said, oh, hope you guys have insurance.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Why am I thinking about this stuff in my dream?
Why am I dreaming about Chris? More question? But we
talked about this stuff so much.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
It's like, well, are there areas in my life that
I need to protect my ass?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
And there are so Scaling your business, you have to
be aware of these things. That's why we're just talking
about them. It doesn't mean you need to feel overwhelmed
by any of this, but you have to think of
ways to scale your brand, whether through exclusive releases, digital products, ebooks,
music production tools, leveraging your personal brand, and you can
do speaking engagements, workshops. There's so many different ways that
(21:27):
you can continue to expand your thought of how your
business can grow.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Last, but not least, is plan for the unexpected, and
for me, it makes me think of health.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
You know, we have been given this one.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Body to last as long as we can, So make
sure you have health insurance.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
Make sure you have insurance for your gear.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Invest in the right type of insurance, liability insurance for performances,
which Chris is the only person I've known to make
me sign up for that just to be sure he's covered,
which is smart. Might be expensive, but not as expensive
as something really tragic happening to you if your health
goes the wrong way, or your gear starts and fire
(22:09):
in your leg home and you don't have insurance.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
And that is what we're trying to do here at
musicians tip Jar is we're working hard at giving our
music community an easy, step by step process to follow
that we've followed and created to help us reach this
FI landmark as fast as possible. Because above all these
concepts are these pillars of our financial scale that we've
(22:35):
structured to help create elements of this program, and we
feel like we could just kind of give a quick
review of it here so that we can cover the
basics of what the Musician's tip Jar financial scale is
and how it directly enables you to reach and sustain FI. Now,
we also want to remind everyone that this is our
second to last episode of this season, season four, and
(22:56):
we've had a wonderful time doing this, and next week's
episode be about our highlights for this. But today we
just also wanted to mention again that we are releasing
an online course here the end of twenty twenty four
that we're very excited everyone is going to get their
hands on, and we hope that you all will reach
out and be engaged with us on our first draft
(23:16):
of that release. So I'm just going to do a
quick review of what our financial scale includes. Now, this
is notes A through G right seven notes scale, just
like a musical note, except we've designed these to each
represent different aspects of your financial wealth. A for advance
is planning expenses in advance. This is what we call
(23:39):
putting in the money for your monthly expenses in your
checking account. B for budget is creating a monthly budget,
and that template is reviewed often to make sure that
you stay on budget and helps you track how much
you're spending and how much of your hard earned cash
is being left. C is clarity. This note is about
(24:02):
giving you more financial peace so that you don't have
to do all of the little things yourself. It's like
having a house cleaner for your finances, because they're the
ones who will make sure that everything is moved and
not left in the wrong places. And so we set
up these auto transfers in these auto adjustments to help
you keep all that in order with less work. D
(24:24):
is for debt. We talk about getting rid of bad debt.
We also help you understand what good debt is and
how to leverage it. E is for Emergency fund, which
is a separate savings account that we have you keep
two to five months of your hard earned money in
to have for emergencies if there's ever one, and there
(24:44):
will be. F is for forecast. That's about your yearly
predictions and your forecasting how much you're going to make
per quarter and keeping track of it. This is the
best way we have found for musicians to increase their
bottom line every year over year. And then our final
note is G for growth. And this is about investing
(25:05):
in your future. This is about dreaming bigger. This is
about making sure that your future you is taken care
of and financially independent by the actions you're taking now.
So that's just a quick overview of what it is.
But please keep an eye out for our first release
of an online course helping you learn how to do
(25:26):
all those things. For musicians, financial independence is about being
in control of both your artistic career and your financial future,
allowing you to live both comfortably and continue pursuing music
on your own terms. I wanted to take a quick
quote out of a book that that really has inspired me.
I've read it multiple times. It's called Your Money or
(25:47):
Your Life. This is by Vicki Robbins and Joe Domingoz.
They talk about in the book Life Energy. Right, this
concept of the most valuable thing you have is not
necessarily your time, but the life energy spent in that time. Right,
time is obviously the other most important and valuable thing
you have. And both of these trump money because they're
(26:08):
both things that you cannot make more of. And so
we talk about what earnings are versus life energy, and
we want you to find out what your real hourly wages.
So what they make you do is take a basic job.
Say you're working forty hours a week and you're getting
paid one thousand dollars a week, and you're you know
your dollars kind of equate then to twenty five dollars
(26:29):
an hour. That's the basic math that we usually use
for that type of figure. Now, what they make you
do is to take into account the life energy expenses.
This is including commuting, you know, your clothes, your meals, decompressing,
escaping to get some entertainment, vacation, job related illness. All
(26:52):
of that is time and money, and that's spent on
maintaining your job as well. So you have to equate
that in and when they do that with their calculations
in the book, it adds thirty more hours of work,
which you're reducing how much you're making. Then you also
have to adjust the actual job adjustments and taxes and
all that stuff. So then bottom line, what your hourly
wage is for a job working forty hours a week
(27:15):
at one thousand dollars a week in income, which you
thought was twenty five dollars an hour, is actually only
ten dollars an hour. Now is that really worth your
life energy, especially if you're building someone else's dream with
that time. It's a very important question to ask yourself
and a reason to look into more ways to increase
your own sources of income. Versus working for someone else's.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Put this chart on a website too, Chris, so they
can come to musicians tipjar dot com and just type
in life energy and I'll bring it to a small
blog for.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
This excellent and so our action step for y'all is
to take some time to learn more about the FI movement.
You also might see it as the acronym fire, which
is financial independence retire early. I want you to dig
more into them, into these movements and find ways that
it might help you live more comfortably. You very well
(28:11):
might find that you are in a better place than
you realize. So here are two things that we recommend
for resources. Mister money mustache, he's a local here in Denver. Well,
he's a local in Colorado in longmant and somebody that
we followed for a long time. He has wonderful blogs
online and some book resources for you on his website.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
And no more mustache because it wasn't cost effective to
get that trimmed. That's so he took off the mustache.
That's how serious it is about it.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Well, he does drive a nice Tesla SUV, so that
is true. So it's again like we're not saying you
have to sacrifice all your joys and happiness. That is
never the case. It is really just what people get
defensive about and think when they first hear this stuff.
But you live wonderfully by doing these choices. The second
resource that I recommend is the book that I referred
(29:02):
to earlier by Vicki Robbins and Joe Dimengez called Your
Money or Your Life. This is really the book that
started this whole movement, and those will be on our
book club page on musicians tipcart dot com. We know
how valuable your time is. We appreciate you spending this
time with us and being a part of this community.
It's our hope that you feel that sense of community
here and that you help spread the word make us
(29:24):
all stronger. If you'd like to get a hold of us,
what's the best way to do that?
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Send us an email Musicians tipchart at Gmail and musicians
tipchart dot com, where you can check out all the
resources and discounts we'll collected just for you, and check
out all our episodes now on our YouTube channel you
find this information use soul, Please rate, subscribe to the
podcast and slam like button if you're on YouTube so
it can help keep you up on the finance side
of your music business.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
As always, thank you for joining us, and remember there
is already enough for everyone, You just need to know
how to get it. Until next time, I'm behalfy Dave
Tamkin and myself stay happy, healthy and wealthy. The goal
is not more money. The goal is living life to
your own science. This is musician's tip.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Jake, Somebody somebody.
Speaker 7 (30:20):
Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or
professional advice. Please consultant appropriate tax, legal, business, or financial
professional for individualized advice. Individual results not guaranteed, and all
discussed strategies have the potential profits. Suppose they're operating on
behalf of the musician's temp job LLC exclusively to support
Speaker 2 (30:46):
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