 |
| "Danae and the Shower of Gold," Orazio Gentileschi, 1621-1623. Digital Image Courtesy of the Getty Open Content Program. |
Hello friends,
I recognize that finances and budgeting are not the first things that come to mind when we think of factors informing the creative process. But the reality is that monetary considerations are intrinsically linked with the creative process, whether we like it or not. There's the obvious, concrete aspect of needing to be able to pay for our creative endeavors: supplies, space, time. But there's also a profound psychological impact that financial concerns can have on us and the mental state that financial worry creates can easily translate over into our art. We've all heard the sorrowful stories of professional artists having to compromise their vision to make their work more marketable, rather than having the financial security, and thus the artistic freedom, to be uncompromising with their work. And financial worry can drive hobbyists to view their creative endeavors as potential sources of side income and treat them like stressful business obligations rather than enjoying them for fun, relaxation, and creative expression.
But beyond the greater cloud of financial worry itself, there's also the mental energy that pretty much of all of us, financially secure or not, have to expend on mundane financial concerns. Budgeting, paying bills, saving where we can, investing if you are lucky enough to be one of the privileged people who have money left to invest after covering your everyday expenses. All of this takes away from mental energy we could otherwise be spending delighting in our creative pursuits, and always creates a little bit of a crack in the ethereal serenity of creative bliss.
What I have discovered over the past few years is that there is an elegant solution to be found in pre-paid subscription services, or in apps and services that otherwise automate financial decision-making. The joy of pre-paid subscriptions is that budgeting is a cinch. You know exactly what it will cost each month and can factor it into your monthly expenses the same way you would rent or car payments. It takes the consternation and comparison shopping and uncertainty out of the picture. And as long as you do the work and research on the front end - making sure you're getting the right subscription service for your needs and that it really is cost effective as opposed to buying as you go - it can be a very responsible choice. If you're skeptical, remember your Netflix/HBOgo/AmazonPrime/Hulu/Spotify subscription and how simple and easy it is.
Admittedly, pre-paid services pose their own problems. What if you don't end up using it? Then you just wasted a bunch of money. And there's also a cash-flow issue that gets at the larger fact that it's expensive to be poor. Let's say you want to purchase a thingermajig and you use one thingermajig a month. If you only have $100 to spend right now, and a year long monthly thingermajig subscription is $110, but a buying a single thingermajig is $20, you're clearly going to just buy one thingermajig and forgeo the subscription, even though the subscription would end up saving you $130 in the long run - more than the cost of the subscription itself.
For people who don't have the cash flow to subscribe to everything they'd like to subscribe to, I unfortunately don't have a perfect solution. Other than to call your congresspeople (if you're lucky enough to live in a jurisdiction that isn't D.C. or Puerto Rico or an island territory and actually have meaningful representation in Congress) and tell them to change our economic and tax policy, there's one other thing you can do to make this work. Stagger your subscriptions. Subscribe to one thing first, something that will be a real game changer. Take the money you save over time through that subscription and put it away (below you will see there's an app for that), and then use that to buy the next subscription once you have enough money saved, and repeat.
In any case, below are some of the budget-simplifying discoveries I have found in the past few years that have made all the difference in my energy and worry levels, and freed up my mental energy to be redirected to my work and my creative pursuits. Some of these discoveries have saved me money, but all of them, and this is what I'm really aiming for here, have helped me to simplify my financial life. These, for me, have been game changers. And, just so you know, I have not been paid, or even asked, by any of the companies I'm about to mention here, so you can be sure that if I'm recommending something it's because I use it myself and genuinely believe what I'm saying.
Mealpal
Mealpal is one of three pre-paid products that opened my eyes to the fact that living in a big city + having the Internet means that there are services available to me that can significantly simplify my life and reduce the time and energy I have to expend on mundane spending decisions. Mealpal is a prepaid, monthly lunch plan that allows users to obtain workday lunches from local restaurants at a discounted price. Depending on the plan you select, meals will cost you between $5 and $7. Granted, it might still be cheaper to make and bring your own lunches, but then you would have to make and bring your own lunches, a habit I kept promising to get into but never actually got into. It's significantly cheaper than just going out and buying lunch, which in DC can easily cost between $10 and $15 or more.
But more than just saving money, it saves time and mental energy. You pre-select your meal the night before, you choose only between participating restaurants, and each restaurant puts out one meal each day. You can use the search filters to further refine your options, and then you select your meal and a time window. Mealpal also lets you skip the line to order and go straight to the pickup window, where your meal should be waiting for you if you show up during your set time window. Now, it's not perfect - this approach creates limitations. But to me that's what makes it appealing. Before Mealpal I would spend a ridiculous amount of my workday debating where to go for lunch, and then thinking about how much I would end up spending to get what I actually wanted, and worrying about how far I would walk and when in my day I should go. Now, by the time I start my workday, that decision has been made. Granted, the limited selection led me to eventually switch from the 20-meal-per-month plan to the 12 meal plan, especially because I'm pescetarian and the vegetarian and fish options are especially limited. This also saves room for days when I do feel like splurging, am out sick, or have a work-related lunch event.
One final note on Mealpal is that, now that I have been using Mealpal for a while, my habits have changed. I don't look at lunch the same way. I would like to think that if I ever stopped using it (like let's say if I moved to an area where it wasn't available) I would still retain the good habits I've developed of not spending so much time and energy on figuring out where to grab lunch.
Qapital
This is the other product that made me realize the Internet is magic and can do things for me automatically. Qapital certainly isn't the only app that does this, but it's the one I use and am most familiar with. Qapital is a smartphone app that you give access to your banking account and credit card history (which you may not be thrilled with, but Qapital is affiliated with well known financial and banking institutions, which you may also not be thrilled with (heh) but at least it means that federal banking regulations are in place to protect you). You tell Qapital your savings goals, and can have as many as you want, and then you can set rules based on your own spending patterns which in turn remove money from your bank account and put that money in a separate banking account where it is earmarked toward the goals you have set. So, for instance, let's say your goals are "save up for art classes," "rainy day fund," and "trip to Morocco." You set a rule that if you spend less than $20 on Uber or Starbucks in any given week the difference is removed from your account and earmarked toward art classes, a rule that $70 a month automatically goes into your rainy day fund, and a rule that the app will round up to the next dollar on all your credit card transactions and place that money in savings toward your Morocco trip. You can set caps on the goals or not. And it's easy to transfer money back to your bank if you need to.
The best thing about Qapital is it's automatic and you can do it in small increments so you literally don't even notice it happening (just make sure to monitor your checking account balance, which you would presumably be doing anyway). And then after a few months all of a sudden you've saved hundreds of dollars and you're like whoa, how did that happen? I saved $2000 in one year using Qapital without noticing. And believe me, I am not rolling in dough. For me $2000 is a lot of money. So to not have even noticed it happening is pretty incredible.
I also like the fact that Qapital (assuming you remember it's even happening) can also encourage good habits. I could go spend $5 on a fancy latte, but I won't because I know that money is going toward my savings. I could take an Uber or I could walk or take the Metro because I know that money will go toward one of my goals. Granted, I personally don't take any of that into account anymore and just let the app work its magic, but if you did take it into account you'd be doing even better.
4pfoods
A third game changer in my life has been a subscription to a local CSA that delivers food to my house every week. There are other CSAs in the DC area, but I chose 4p because it delivers, I enjoy its commitment to local growers, and the customer service people are passionate, available, and super friendly. Like they know me by name when I e-mail them and we have ongoing conversations because it's literally the same three people. If you're in the DC area I highly recommend them and if not then there are likely CSAs in your area with a similar vibe.
What I like about the 4p subscription is that it takes all the work and thinking out of grocery shopping. Once a week they send out a reminder e-mail and, like Mealpal, I log into their system and make my selections. I am presented with a limited but sufficient selection of local, seasonal produce items to include in my bag - I also have the dairy and egg subscription (and there's a meat subscription available if you're carnivorous, and if you must eat meat I'd rather you ate meat from these folks than big corporate farms) - and the ability to skip that week if I so like, I decide what I want, and then all I have to do is wait for delivery. It's subscription style and they keep my card on file so I get a weekly automatic charge for weeks where I don't skip and I always know what that charge is going to be.
What I enjoy about this is that it exposes me to new vegetables I wouldn't necessarily have worked with before. Rutabaga, parsnip, kohlrabi, actual ginger and tumeric root rather than stuff in a jar, mizuna, varieties of raddish I didn't know existed, sunflower microgreens (which are DELICIOUS who knew), tomatillos, Asian pears, hydroponic lettuce varieties that are way tastier and more nutritious than store variety iceberg. All of this is stuff I never would have considered before and is now a part of my regular repertoire. I literally cannot remember the last time I went to a grocery store. I occasionally go to Trader Joes to pick up non-perishables from time to time (but not wine, as I also have a wine club membership - basically a subscription - at local Virginia winery Hillsborough Vineyards, which has the best rose wines I have ever tasted). Pretty much everything else, including my white bread, I get as needed at CVS, which brings me to...
Target Subscriptions
CVS is everywhere around here but sometimes getting there still takes me out of my way and is a pain in the butt, and I end up paying premium prices on things I could get more affordably at a larger superstore in a more suburban location. I've always considered it worth it to buy my toilet paper there, though, because it's still cheaper than owning a car, which I'd need to schlep out to Target or WalMart - though both are making inroads into the cities, painfully aware of the "reurbanization" (read: gentricifcation) by America's younger middle class. Still, the WalMart and Target locations in D.C. are far out of my way. Target has also begun opening a smaller version of itself in urban areas called Target Express, which is an interesting model, and is clearly geared toward urban millenials. For instance, it has a slimmed down clothing selection with a focus on work clothing and fashion forward selections, with no kids' stuff to be found.
Nonetheless, enter Target subscriptions. Having gotten so much bang for my buck with MealPal, 4p and Qapital I recently began looking for other timesaving and brainsaving prepaid services. And I discovered that I can subscribe to toilet paper. There are many services, in fact, that let you subscribe to toilet paper. I landed on Target because it carries the brand I like with the website functionality and price I like. And with a subscription you receive free shipping plus a 5% discount. So now, for under $20 a month after tax, I receive a massive shipment of Charmin Ultrasoft Mega Plus at my house. This is almost the same price I was paying for half as much at CVS, and, without a car, I would have to go out of my way to walk to CVS on my way home to buy it and then lug two giant packages of toilet paper with me back home.
You can subscribe to other household items from Target, as well, including certain food items like Cliff bars. Unfortunately, I have yet to locate a subscription service that will send me white bread. GoPuff will bring me wheat bread - and apparently also a full sized hookah and an aluminium trash can - but apparently not white bread. *shakes fist*
Membership at the Phillips
So, with my love of subscriptions, it occurred to me that I can apply this same concept to entertainment. Not all memberships are worth it, but they are if they end up paying for themselves. The Phillips Collection is America's oldest modern art museum and is a beautifully curated, small museum located in the Dupont Circle area of Washington D.C. It is a delight and is much more intimate and hidden than the Smithsonians, and honestly I think their collection is nicer than that at several of the Smithsonian art museums. I mean I could go on about the difference between private and public collections but that's a different post. Mostly, their programming is thoughtful, and easier to figure out and access than anything on the Smithsonian calendar, plus it's in a part of DC that Washingtonians actually go to and that isn't spilling over with tourists.
Membership at the Phillips is $60 a year, and offers free admission plus two guest passes plus discounts on concert performances and other ticketed events plus a discount at its cafe (run by Tryst, a DC institution) and its delightful gift shop. Admission is usually $12 so 5 trips makes back the price of membership. And you'll use them because that includes admission to member's only viewings and Phillips After 5, a monthly event in which the museum stays open and allows folks to browse the entire collection, plus enjoy a live music performance. This membership is more than worth the price and once you have already paid it means there will always be something to do in the city that requires no additional spending.
Rosetta Stone Online Subscription
You may know Rosetta Stone from those mall kiosks of yesteryear where they sell you sets of CD-Rom for hundreds of dollars. It has always been an effective language software, and no more expensive than paying for involved language classes. But it has always been cost prohibitive enough that buying it just to dabble in a new language to try it out, or trying to gain a cursory knowledge of multiple languages that interested me was never possible.
I recently discovered, however, that Rosetta Stone has adapted to the fact that few computers today even have disc drives. It now lets you subscribe to an online go-at-your-pace language learning program. Cost varies depending on how many months you subscribe, but I just picked up a one-year Hebrew subscription for a little over $100. I've always wanted to learn Hebrew. I'm really into Jewish liturgical music and the current Israeli music scene (regardless of what my political feelings about Israel may be), especially since in the past several years there has been a surge of amazing Jewish artists of color bringing rich cultural traditions from all over the African and Middle Eastern world to a previously Eurocentric music industry. And I perform a lot of Jewish music, and have even taught on the subject of Jewish music. So being able to learn Hebrew in a way that is cost effective is making a huge difference in terms of my creative life. It also goes back to the notion of having something "free" to do. Now that the subscription is already paid for, for the next year I can log on whenever I'm looking for something to do that's enriching and doesn't cost me any additional money. So if I find myself bored one night but have already overspent my going out budget for the month, I can log on and learn some Hebrew and be very, very content.
One final note on subscription "boxes."
I'm still figuring out how I feel about these things, and haven't used many myself. I did try out a Globein subscription for a few months and didn't renew. I love the concept of Globein, which sends you a small package of fair trade artisan-made products from around the world, helping to support makers in developing countries. The items I received were nice and high quality, and it was lovely receiving a little gift in the mail every month. But I ultimately found that I was getting a lot of things I didn't really need, and for me in particular it wasn't helpful because it kind of assumed that box recipients had their own nice households and weren't urban millenials living in an apartment with multiple roommates. The batik table runner and olive wood cheese spreaders I received were lovely, but when am I ever going to use them when the constraints of my lifestyle mean I don't have family dinners and rarely ever entertain? Plus it was a significant monthly charge each month, for an amount I couldn't justify for things that were pretty but probably wouldn't get much use, rather than a single year-long subscription. This might be the right box subscription for somebody else, but not for me.
In a similar vein, I've been curious about clothing boxes like M.M. LaFleur and StitchFix. These subscriptions charge you a monthly fee for the box, and then you decide what you do and do not keep. What you keep you pay for. M.M. Lafleur is absolutely cost prohibitive, without question, for boring stuff that isn't anything special. I have one friend who uses it and likes it because she hates shopping for work clothes, and has the kind of job where she's constantly traveling and just doesn't have time to worry about it. She's also tall and thin and well paid and could care less about looking fashionable as long as she looks appropriate. It's basically a service for highly paid and very busy professional women and that's all it's for, and I'm also kind of offended by some of the snooty sounding interviews and pull quotes I've seen from its founder about how women shouldn't be using their clothing to make a statement, as someone who loves colorful statement clothing. I've received mixed reviews from friends on StitchFix. One friend, a very very busy and overworked and highly paid attorney loves it because she literally doesn't have time to go shopping. The other, a graduate student looking for help growing a work appropriate wardrobe, canceled her subscription after one box because she asked for work clothing and found that they had sent her sheer blouses and leather leggings, kept nothing, and resented paying for the privilege of having a bunch of stuff sent to her that she didn't want.
There are additional subscription boxes that I'm curious about and may try one day. There are several witchy themed boxes available from Cratejoy that intrigue me. And when I eventually have the type of lifestyle that allows me to have a dog I will be spoiling it with a Barkbox (and I do have friends who rave about this one). But I'm not in any rush. To me these don't necessarily feel like life-simplifying measures the way that some of the previous products have been. They just feel like accumulating stuff, which I'm perfectly good at doing all on my own, and actually enjoy doing on my own - perhaps a little too much. That said, getting a little treat in the mail every once and a while is really nice.
So what about you, readers? Have you found any life-simplifying products or services not mentioned here? What do you do that keeps you from having to think about dealing with mundane problems or chores and gives you the ability to expend more of your time and energy on things like your career and on creativity? Share in the comments.
