Jan. 02, 2002

For the most part the reactions I receive from people who read about my journey are positive and extremely supportive.

However there is the odd skeptic out there, the ones that say, “Well, if I had a rich husband I could do it too!” I usually think, “If I had a rich husband, I would have started a lot sooner!”

The fact is I am not, nor have I ever been, “rich.” I don’t have a huge savings account, my husband isn’t a millionaire or even close, and I’ve never gone one day without checking my bank balance – even when I had a steady paying job.

When I made the decision to leave my corporate job, it was with great trepidation because money was an issue. We lived very modestly with our two incomes and I was scared to think how much more modest we could be on one. Things had to become tighter, however, when my income was gone.

That meant we had to really figure out what was important to us and what it really took financially to live each day. How modest do we live? We have only one 7-year-old car, one 800 square foot apartment with very simple furnishings. No DVD player or entertainment unit, just a simple little TV without cable. No stereo, which saves money on CD’s. We don’t buy new clothes unless some thing’s become too shabby and yes, I did wear this shirt two days ago. My obsession with lipstick and bath salts? Cured. We allow ourselves a date once a week, which means a dinner at a local restaurant, budgeted for thirty dollars. This had helped me to learn to cook, cheaply. Microsoft Money is our new best friend. Everything is budgeted and if it’s not, we think twice. No use of credit cards, which keeps us out of debt. If we can’t pay cash, we don’t get it.

Balancing everything on one modest income is not easy, I assure you, but it is possible.

The upside is that I am doing what I love to do and that somehow makes budgeting worth it. I get more satisfaction out of writing something that affects someone than I ever did from a trip to the mall. I’m hoping that by doing what I’m doing I will at some point start to get an income. I am trying to be patient in the meantime as I “pay my dues” and learn the ropes. Just because you live out your dream doesn’t mean you’ll have overnight success and that everything will be easy. It takes a lot of work and time to figure it all out.

I realise that I am in a sense lucky because there is one income coming in at least. A lot of people who want to do what I’m doing don’t have that luxury. I truly believe however, that you can still have a fulltime job to pay the bills and a part time job doing whatever you want to do.

I once wrote about this artist I knew who had critical acclaim for his artwork and had many shows around the world. The interesting thing about this man was that he put in 40-hour weeks on the floor of a manufacturing plant. He worked that job to pay the bills and feed his family. He painted on all his time off to feed his soul. A lot of work, yes, but he did it. He never complained, he never worried about the lack of time, he never felt sorry for himself having to work during the day, never one excuse. He just did what he could do when he could do it.

On a much smaller scale is my husband who is learning the guitar and wants nothing more than to spend all day creating and playing music. Right now it’s not practical for him to do that so he puts in 50-hour workweeks at his current job to support him, his school, my career and myself. But once a week he goes to his 1/2hr guitar lesson and every night for 1/2hr he takes the time to play. Maybe it’s not as much time as he’d like, but it is time he takes. It’s a start rather than a want just stuck in his head.

The one thing I’ve learned is if there is something you want to do, do it. Don’t wait. Figure out how to begin now. If what you want to do isn’t entirely feasible, make a compromise and do what you’re able. Dreams come in all shapes and sizes and forms. Living yours doesn’t have to be a big leap like the one I took. It can be simply starting small by painting in the evening. And one day perhaps the situation will change when painting all day is what you get to do.

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