Why We Need to Prioritize a Debt Free Lifestyle in the Arts

I’ve spent months expressing my unhappiness with my current job and the time has come to do something about it. I pretty much blitzkrieged the entertainment world with resumes over the last week and I learned a pretty exciting fact - I’ve finally seem to have enough experience that people actually read them. My boss managed to push me a little over the edge with a lengthy, condescending email on my day off last week over .15 cents and in response I added cruise lines to my list of applications too, except I spent a few hours researching them and only applied to a handful of high end, supposedly extremely well paying lines. I didn’t expect to hear from any (because anyone who has worked for cruise lines before knows they are usually not know for planning ahead… or really having anything remotely like a hiring plan). So to my pleasant surprise, in the first week of the blitzkrieg I’ve already had three interviews, including one of those high end cruise line. Actually… I’ve already had 4 interviews for one of those jobs alone (a touring gig) and I’m pretty excited about it. Here’s the thing though - it’s a major pay cut. I knew going back to Stage Managing WOULD be a major pay cut, since Production Management is one of the few theater jobs that generally pays pretty well. I made sure to keep that fact in the front of my mind, the whole time I was discontent with my current job. I made sure my lifestyle inflation stayed super low. There wasn’t much I could do about having to find a place to live after years of free housing, but that was pretty much the only major expense I took on. The main thing I’m excited about though is that I am free to take a job that is a 40% pay cut because I prioritized paying off all of my debt as soon as I amassed it. I really feel that if you’re going to make a living in the arts, you should plan to set aside 2-4 years after school (assuming that’s where your debt is from) to either pay off your debts or stockpile a nest egg that will let you supplement lower paying jobs. This isn’t to say there aren’t jobs in the arts that will allow you to do that. By now you all know I’m a pretty big advocate of cruise ship life for a few years right out of school, but touring in general will often cover a lot of your living expenses and let you stockpile too. Salaries in the arts are not a linear progression like most other occupations. They’re a rabid oscillation of diverse paying gigs - you might spent two years making $8/hr with a tiny touring company (and it’s really only $8/hr if you don’t watch exactly how many hours your working too carefully) and then you might go make $5,000 in a weekend working on a corporate gig.

For the first time in my career, assuming I get this gig, I’m about to experience a pretty extreme downward oscillation and I actually find I’m excited that I have the personal finance skills to be able to make a plan and work within that salary range to still achieve all my long term goals too.

Have any of you ever taken a pay cut to chase your dreams?