Crying over rent

Just make more money, she said.

(Happy at work with my side hustle buds)

I cried when the money hit my bank account.

They weren’t tears of gratitude or relief, though I was certainly feeling that too.

They were tears of frustration.

Tears of disappointment that at 34 years old my mum was having to pay my rent for me.

I had been fighting so hard to make the finances of a freelance bass player work in my new hometown of Nashville.

Later on, when questioned about how she felt about bailing out her fully grown child again, my mum cited my obvious efforts as part of the reason she’d been willing to help.

I had been only gigging since arriving in Nashville a few years before, touring nationally, playing locally for pennies or beer depending on the night, without any teaching work or side hustle.

It had been a fun musical time, but I was also living right on the financial knife edge.

My skin was awful because of stress-induced acne, I felt anxious all the time, every purchase came with some guilt and fear, and now here I was - needing my mum to bail me out.

Sitting in my apartment in Madison, crying over my rent check that month, something changed in me.

I’d always been willing to do whatever it took to pursue my music career. It was the very reason I was living in a new place - again - having walked away from a very comfortable life teaching and gigging in my home country with dreams of full-time touring shining like Nashville rhinestones in my eyes.

I’d run out of money before, and it wasn’t the first time my family had helped me bridge a gap between teaching jobs or bouts of gigs.

I’d felt anxious and depressed about my finances before, but this time it felt like rock bottom. I decided that day I would do whatever it took to never need her help with money again.

It sounds overly simplistic to say that I just decided to earn more. But hitting that level of despair shifted something at my core.

I finally booked an appointment with the financial advisor that friends had been recommending and, with her help, sat down for the first time to figure out how much money I actually needed to make each week to cover my bills. I wrote a budget and - probably most importantly - stopped burying my head in the sand when it came to the profit and loss statement of my music work and life.

I mentioned to the financial advisor that I wanted to eventually buy property in Nashville and set up a retirement plan and she said, well you’ll need to earn more money then.

“Lol”, I thought.

“As if it was that easy”.

But actually, it started to be.

It wasn’t some kind of “ask the universe and the universe will provide” moment. Making the decision to take control of my finances fundamentally changed my priorities and the way I approached my career.

I decided I would work as much as I needed to ensure I met my weekly budget, and I picked up a non-music side hustle in town that allowed me to earn while I was home, scheduling my shifts around touring.

I was busy as hell, working every single day I wasn’t on the road, learning songs in the car, and staying up late to practice, but I was financially stable for the first time since arriving in Tennessee.

Having a side hustle allowed me to make music-based decisions about the gigs I did, rather than just accepting everything that came my way out of a desperate need to make money.

I’d previously thought having a side hustle indicated some kind of failure in my music career, but the irony is, that having a side hustle actually helped my music career.

When wonderful musical opportunities started to pop up last minute (as they often do when you’re new to town) I was finally able to take them because I wasn’t already out on tour playing music I didn’t really enjoy just for the money.

I could simply get someone to cover my shift and say HELL YES.

Sometimes hitting rock bottom is exactly what it takes to kick-start the upward climb toward the life you really want. And - so far at least - I haven’t needed mum to cover my rent again.