Between Mrs. FIM and I, we have five degrees in music performance. We spent years in music schools and have hundreds of friends who are professional musicians all over the world. When I think about the careers of the many musician friends I know, I can parse their main source of income into five categories:
Performing with a professional ensemble
Teaching at a college, university, or K-12
Teaching private lessons
Freelancing full-time
Taking a full-time or part-time job outside of music
All of these are legitimate ways to support yourself as a musician, and all can be lucrative. Yet the majority of musicians, no matter which of these paths we fall into, take extra performance gigs on top of their regular workload.
"Why?"
I ask this because the majority of Americans don’t take on extra work outside of their regular jobs. They work 9-5 and clock out for the day. Why do so many musicians add on additional hours to their jobs?
Two reasons:
We want/need the extra income
We enjoy it
Today, I want to focus on the second reason. I believe that many musicians take extra gigs because our main source of income does not fulfill our creative need as musicians.
At the end of the day, it’s just a job.
We form chamber groups, perform solo concerts, or record and post videos of ourselves at home because it gives us a creative outlet to play the music we want to play.
Even for my friends among the elite few who have practiced excerpts endlessly and won a position with a symphony orchestra. Years into their career with the orchestra, they find it unfulfilling to play the same major works on repeat and grow tired of being told how to play their instrument by a conductor. The passion has faded. Playing with the orchestra has just become a source of income to pay the bills. It’s the side gigs outside of the orchestra that really excites them.
Before you rush to the comments section to dispute me, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that I’m lumping musicians into broad categories and making strong statements. I realize every single person is unique and that there are many musicians who are very happy with their careers and love their jobs. I’m not arguing that all musicians are unhappy. My point is that, regardless of how happy we are with our jobs, they are still jobs.
Here’s an easier way to digest this. Ask yourself:
"Would I keep doing what I'm doing if money wasn’t a factor?"
If the answer is ‘yes’, then you’re one of the lucky few who have truly found the perfect job. However, for the majority of people, I would guess the answer is ‘no’.
"Okay, so what’s your point?"
Musicians unquestioningly jump on this career track because our teachers, who are on the same path, pull us in that direction. We assume this is the only way.
No Mando, it isn't.
What if we blew up the standard path of a musician?
Rather than slowly building our careers as musicians, and slowly building wealth at the same time, what if we prioritized putting ourselves in a strong financial position first? By doing this we could be free to perform the music we are most passionate about, without the concern of getting a paycheck.
This is what Mrs. FIM and have been working towards the past two years. We’ve made saving money a priority and temporarily pulled our focus away from our musical careers. We both currently have full-time jobs in arts administration and we both have our own side businesses that we created from scratch.
Our goal is to be financially independent within a few more years. Once we hit that point, we can quit our jobs and be free to perform the music we want to play. We’re discussing the idea of purchasing an RV, booking gigs around the country, and going on a two-year tour across the United States, or possibly in other countries. We won’t have the pressure of requiring each gig to pay a certain amount for it to be worth it. Whatever they can pay us, we’ll take. What’s important is that we’re playing music we love.
Mrs. FIM and I are both in our thirties. Assuming everything goes according to plan, we will have 30-40 years to focus on crafting our performance careers however we see fit. But what would this look like if someone did this right out of undergrad? After all, the earlier you save, the easier and faster you’ll get to financial independence, thanks to compounding interest*. What if you used this tool to secure your future at the beginning of your career. Let’s explore a hypothetical situation with my fictional friend, Ben.
Ben is 18 years old. He loves to write music and wants nothing more than to travel the world performing his compositions. He decides he wants to fund his future up front, so he double majors in music and computer science. He’s fortunate to receive a full scholarship to one of the schools he applied to. It’s not his top choice but he decides it’s better than going $25,000 into student loan debt.
Ben works hard through college and successfully graduates with both degrees. He spends his final semester scouting for jobs and is fortunate to get a full-time job offer in computer science. His salary is around the median starting salary for computer scientists at $70,000.
While Ben enjoys computer science, his passion remains with music. In his spare time, he continues to compose and perform gigs. Ben avoids lifestyle creep. He lives in a house with several friends, drives a used car, and avoids eating out. His monthly expenses are under $1,000. Because of this, Ben is able to save $3,500 each month, which he invests in index funds.
His wealth begins to grow. After 12 months, Ben has invested $42,000, or $3,500 per month. His account says he has $45,360. His first year yielded an 8% return of $3,360.
Another year goes by. Ben is 24 now and sometimes he gets discouraged. While he doesn’t hate his job, he’s losing interest in it. He sees his musician friends moving their careers forward faster than him. He’s stuck at an office job that gives him only two weeks of vacation a year. Because of this, he can’t take many gigs outside of the city he lives in. His friends have more opportunities as musicians.
On the other hand, he sees his wealth growing rapidly. He knows he’s on a unique path that is going to lead to his dream. While it’s difficult, he reminds himself of the bigger picture.
Keep it up, Ben. You're doing great!
Flash forward another three years. Ben used some of his free time to develop a metronome app for smartphones. He makes around $200 a month in passive income from app downloads. Ben puts this money in a high yield savings account to boost his emergency fund.
Ben is feeling great about his financial situation and begins to work on his exit strategy. He plans a year-long tour. He emails venues, schools, friends, and anyone else he can think of to see if they’re interested in having him perform a concert of his music. He negotiates to receive the highest payment possible but doesn’t worry if the gig pays well. He knows that his index fund is waiting for him if he needs to withdraw from it to make up for the remainder of his annual budget.
Ben is now five years and nine months into his job. He enters his boss’ office and tells her he is planning to leave the company in three months. His boss is grateful that he gave her plenty of time to find a replacement for him. She tells Ben that if he ever decides to come back, there’s a place for him at the business.
It’s the last day of work at Ben’s job. After six years of investing $3,500 a month, Ben’s account is at $332,000. His average rate of return is right around 8%, which is standard for the index fund he invested in. Ben is only 28. He knows that even if he never invests another dollar, he will be a millionaire by the age of 43, due to the compounding interest*. Ben will never need to save another cent for the rest of his life.
If necessary, Ben could also live off of his investments, according to the 4% rule**. Ben only needs to withdraw 3.6% of his portfolio to maintain his $1,000 per month lifestyle, and only 2.4% if he continues to earn $200 each month through his app. Ben is financially independent.
Fortunately, Ben doesn’t need to pull from his investments. After a year of setting up gigs, Ben has over 80 performances booked across the US. The income from these gigs totals $20,000. While it’s a huge pay cut, he doesn’t care. Ben isn’t doing this for the money. He already has his financials taken care of. He’s doing it because it’s his dream. While it was six years of hard work and patience, Ben has the next 60+ years of his life to follow his passion wherever it may take him.
Many people would probably scoff at this story or try to find reasons why it could never work. But they only feel this way because it’s a different path from the one they know.
What if this path became the new norm for musicians? What would the world look like if musicians weren’t bound to gigs purely for their monetary compensation? I’m willing to bet creativity would blossom at a level never seen before.
Take Action
It’s easy to read about Ben and feel like you missed your chance, that it’s too late for you. But that mindset is exactly what is keeping you on the same old path everyone else takes. I’m here to tell you: Don’t be discouraged. It’s never too late.
The first step is the hardest, but once you’ve committed to the road less traveled, you’ll quickly realize how much happier you are and how much more you enjoy the journey. So what are you waiting for? Go take your first step towards a better life.
*Compounding interest is when you continue to reinvest the interest you earn on investments. It's interest on interest. For example, you invest $1 with an annual interest rate of 100% and don't touch it for thirty years. The graph below shows how compound interest can be powerful over time. After thirty years, your $1 has grown to over half a million! This is why investing early on is so important.
**The 4% Rule is the concept that you are financially independent when you can live off of 4% of your total investments. You can also look at this as saving 25 times your total annual expenses. For example, your annual expenses are $40,000.
40,000 x 25 = 1,000,000
According to the rule, you would need to save $1,000,000 to be financially independent (4% of $1,000,000 is $40,000). You can remove 4% each year, with the understanding that the compound interest will replenish the amount you withdrew.
This is why it's important to watch your lifestyle creep. For every dollar you add to your annual expenses, you'll need to invest an additional $25 to reach your FI number.
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