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Hi again! If you landed on this page and don’t know much about this blog series “Mastering Money for Writers”, I recommend starting from the Introduction or at least Part 1 before continuing.

Because by now you should have the following figures:

1. Your Lowest Monthly Income
2. The amount you need to cover your Critical Monthly Expenses

But let’s get into this next step!

Chapter 3: Work out your discretionary monthly expenses

This section should be easy, yet at the same time eye-opening, maybe disconcerting. Because we will finally understand where all our money is going, see expenses we perhaps didn’t even realise existed or forgot about. So attack this in two stages.

1. Just understand your reality and list the additional monthly expenses you incur such as:

Welcome back for another lesson in Mastering Money for Writers. If you landed on this page and don’t know much about this blog series, I recommend read the introduction and part 1 before continuing.

Otherwise, let’s dive straight in!

Chapter 2: Work out your critical monthly expenses

If you do a search on the internet, this category of expenses is given many names, some quite creative. For example, Dave Ramsey refers to these essential expenses as the “Four Walls”: food, utilities, shelter and transportation.

It’s also been known as the “noodle budget”, describing the times we’ve all been through when we’ve had to survive on instant noodles so we can still cover those critical expenses until our next payday.

Welcome to the first lesson in Mastering Money for Writers where I’ll tackle the dreaded B-word…

As writers, we know words are a powerful thing. A single word can halt a nation, stir a rebellion, move someone to tears, shift a person from a state of hopelessness into enlightenment.

So let’s be honest for a moment. When you hear this word, “Budget”, what are your immediate feelings and thoughts? Is it anxiety because how can you budget when your income as a writer is perhaps small and unpredictable? Is it scepticism because you’ve tried budgeting before and it just didn’t work for you? Is it tiredness, overwhelm, the thought of the work to put this into motion? Is it rebellion when you just don’t like the idea of the restrictiveness associated with it?

What if I were to tell you in the world of Business, completely different emotions are evoked by this word?

Budgeting enables movement and growth. Budgeting is your heartbeat, your oxygen. Budgeting is clarity and power.

It’s been in the back of my mind, an inkling, this idea about starting a blog series for writers to help them master money. I’ve procrastinated primarily because, I have a lot on my plate right now—two jobs, my own writing goals, a few personal and business ventures… But even before the devastating impact of COVID19, I remember hearing about the financial struggle of writer friends of mine, describing their secret distress from payday to payday, the anxiety with every “unexpected” bill—what I personally experienced about a decade ago after my family lost our home to a friend who turned out to be a professional conman. Reflecting on the stress, the shame, the depression I’d felt in my times of hardship, but especially the fact that I can now look back from a place of empowerment and financial confidence, I’m reminded that it’s a responsibility to share the knowledge I’ve gained that’s turned my circumstances around Alhamdulillah.