Married Composers -- Budgetting for software/gear?

[CallMeZoot]

I'm getting married this summer, and we're trying to figure out how we'll deal with our finances and budget. Thought the forum would be a good place to solicit some wisdom with regards to budgetting for this expensive hobby.

Currently (engaged) we live together and split the bills 50/50. We maintain separate bank accounts and pretty much stay out of each others' financial business. Right now this is works for me, because when I want to update SONAR, pick up a new sample library, or get a new component for my DAW, I can do so guilt-free.

But when we're married we plan to be much more communal with our money, sharing a joint bank account. I think this is a good idea but since our money will be "ours" I feel that making these expensive purchases will be taking more than my fair share. She doesn't spend much money at all, and her career/hobbies don't require her to update technology regularly.

She and I talk about this regularly and I'm sure we'll figure something out, but I thought I could benefit from the wisdom of those of you who have already come up with a solution.

Would anyone care to share how you approach this?

Thanks,
chris.

P.S. Incidentally, I am a professional musician (mainly as a teacher and conductor), but none of my jobs really *requires* all of my music stuff. My software and gear is mostly used for composing, which currently makes up less than 5% of my income. In other words, even though I'm a professional musician, my gear is still arguably a hobby pursuit.

[Karl Garrett]

If your incomes are about the same, it sounds like you are already doing pretty much what you need to do. Perhaps a joint account where each of you contributes half for household expenses might be in order. I have a hard time convincing my wife that new studio monitors are a household expense though. :D

Check the library for a book or two on setting up home budgets. There's a lifetime of reading out there on this subject. If you have a friend who is a marriage counselor, therapist, whatever, ask them what seems to work best for their clients. A financial advisor might be able to help, but they usually have no clue as to the importance of D/A converters. :D

It's good to see that you are flushing these things out now. I really think that money is the biggest problem couples have to deal with, and if they did what you are doing, in getting things in order before your commitment to each other, there would be far fewer divorces after the kids come and things get really tough.

Congratulations, and best of luck for a long and happy marriage.

Karl

[newmewzikboy]

zoot zoot zoot...
cheating on the side already, are we?
*sigh...
what about the house, retirement, kids, xmas, bdays, medical expenses, cars, maintenance?

cant have everything. stock away what you can, buy second hand, start a musician club, but tell her...


Icant talk...I put away 50% of my income to my NMB Rent an Orchestra Fund.

[CallMeZoot]

zoot zoot zoot...
cheating on the side already, are we?
*sigh...
what about the house, retirement, kids, xmas, bdays, medical expenses, cars, maintenance?
Well, I didn't mean to misrepresent myself. Right now I AM putting money aside for savings, retirement, buying a house, etc. and I DO take care of car/medical/etc. expenses. I buy my music stuff *after* all the bills, savings, and other expenses have been taken care of, using what is left over (if any). But this only works because it's MY left-over money. When it's OUR left-over money I can't just use it for my own purposes.

I'm not looking for an excuse to buy every toy I want, I'm just looking for a fair way to keep my studio reasonably up-to-date without hoarding family money. Any thoughts?

thanks,
chris.

[Joseph Burrell]

My wife and I have seperate banking accounts and this works better all around IMO. She complains about it sometimes (as a trust issue), but I think its saved us a lot of heartache. She has her miniscule bills and I have the brunt of the expenses. But my extra money is mine to spend as I please as long as our primary expenses are met.

[conwaylemmon]

start a sole proprietorship, and open a business account, put all of your earnings from your studio into that account, take some out as salary/profit, and leave some in to pay for business improvements. It's justified.

[Rhap2]

Zoot:

I think my marriage is successful for a number of reasons, but an important one is that we SHARE the bills (as you and your fiance do now). We kick in 50% of everything and have SEPARATE BANK ACCOUNTS, although either of us can WRITE checks on each other's account if we have to.

The only time we have to budget extra money is when an emergency arises like a big expense for housing maintenance, etc. No problem as we kind of save with out own bank accounts anyway. Of course, this works when each other's income is fairly moderate.

To reiterate a very important point: Our marriage is successful because we don't have to "AIR" our financial investments since we have our separate savings over and above the necessary household expenses. We are FREE to buy what we want for each other as well as for ourselves.

Having to "ask" if it's OK to buy something for a hobby, etc. is a nice gesture and certainly a fair way to allocate funds, but all hobbies are not equal in expenditures.

Bottom line: If you can AFFORD to take care of necessary household expenditures with both of your incomes (by sharing 50%) and still have a little left over, have separate bank accounts with a common writing privilege and go from there. There will be times when you need to make concessions, but that's what a partnership is for.............good luck on your forthcoming married life, Zoot.

Jack

[Skysaw]

I got married two years ago, and we've kept money seperate, but with very "blurred lines." What has helped us is to just not worry about it too much. I've been paying the mortgage, and she's been paying utilities and most of the groceries.

Things are changing next month when I quit my day job to try creating my music business. Luckily, I already have most of what I'll need for my studio for the next year or so. Even more luckily is that my wife understands how important my music work is to me personally.

Paying the bills is important, but so is your growth as a composer/arranger/artist. Make sure she understands up front how important it is to you. You might want to start by no longer referring to it as your "hobby." You can probably write most of your purchases off to your business as well if you are a professional musician. I would argue that your composition work adds to your value in other areas of your profession.

[jcbryson1]

My wife and I have a joint account and we budget everything from there. We sat down and worked out the details together. We each get a decent monthly allowance for whatever we want. The amount is such that I can reasonably expect to save up for bigger things, but not so big that I will be given to impulse buying. As I have a history of impulse buying (at least when I was single) this has been of particular benefit to me.

By the way, my wife doesn't have an outside job (note that I didn't say "doesn't work") but works at home to raise our 5 children. I certainly am not getting rich off my current job and raising kids is expensive. I have learned to be a big believer in the budget and disciplined spending. You can still save for what you want, even with a wife and 5 kids.

Best wishes for a long and happy marriage!

Jon

[dermod]

Work out the cost of a happy pair going out to a restaurant for a meal, then divide that into the cost of buying new software. You will be surprised how few evenings out you have to skip to buy some pretty sophisticated software or equipment.

[Hermitage59]

I'm getting married this summer, and we're trying to figure out how we'll deal with our finances and budget. Thought the forum would be a good place to solicit some wisdom with regards to budgetting for this expensive hobby.

Currently (engaged) we live together and split the bills 50/50. We maintain separate bank accounts and pretty much stay out of each others' financial business. Right now this is works for me, because when I want to update SONAR, pick up a new sample library, or get a new component for my DAW, I can do so guilt-free.

But when we're married we plan to be much more communal with our money, sharing a joint bank account. I think this is a good idea but since our money will be "ours" I feel that making these expensive purchases will be taking more than my fair share. She doesn't spend much money at all, and her career/hobbies don't require her to update technology regularly.

She and I talk about this regularly and I'm sure we'll figure something out, but I thought I could benefit from the wisdom of those of you who have already come up with a solution.

Would anyone care to share how you approach this?

Thanks,
chris.

P.S. Incidentally, I am a professional musician (mainly as a teacher and conductor), but none of my jobs really *requires* all of my music stuff. My software and gear is mostly used for composing, which currently makes up less than 5% of my income. In other words, even though I'm a professional musician, my gear is still arguably a hobby pursuit.\

Chris, firstly good luck to you and your partner in the future. And i think you're off to a good start by regularly DISCUSSING the issues that may come up.
You've siad you're a pro already. Given the every changing and evolving media and entertainment market, it would be fair to say, that at some point you may wish to present your work on a more professional basis. Again, discussing this gets the truth out first, and there's less room for misunderstanding or resentment.
However, only you know your wife to be, and any approach will be as a result of you knowing each other well. I admire the fact you are considering her in this. Being worried about taking more than your fair share says a lot about your considerate attitude.
You don't need me to tell you family comes first. But the question of 'how much can i afford to spend' on gear that may well be a hobby for some time, is not always clear. Does she enjoy watching and listening to you bring things to life? Does she admire this part of you? Does she realise how consuming this can be? And in terms of buying updates and new 'toys', is she ok with this at the moment? Given you'll be married, planning with even more determination for a shared future, and combining your resources in an agreed partnership, doesn't discussion and objective evaluation really answer your question? And it seems you're doing that now.

I wish you every success in the future, not only in music but family too.


Alex.

[giwro_jon]

aghh...

This can be a bit of a sticky wicket, but as folks above have mentioned, it _can_ work...

I was married, divorced for 7 years, now married again for 6+...

#1 it was not possible to buy gear since we were mostly poor for the duration...

in the 7 intervening bachelor years, I got quite used to buying whatever I pleased, and one of the hardest things was to go back to sharing finances (and I counted the cost before deciding to get married again and decided it was worth it!)

We have not been able to include gear in the budget for the most part, since that takes too much extr~~~~~$.
So, I started publishing my organ and choral works, and created a sample set to sell. Any $$ I get from that business goes to my PayPal debit account, which is my "mad money" to use as I please.... my wife does some extra stuff with caliigraphy and also has her own business, so she has mad money too.

We both use our business income for household stuff or to surprise each other with dinner or a gift when we want to or when it is necessary.

This works for us, because neither one of us is the type to take unfair advantage of a situation (and because our relationship is built on mutual trust)

Good for you that you are discussing this ahead of time!

:)

[jcbryson1]

Work out the cost of a happy pair going out to a restaurant for a meal, then divide that into the cost of buying new software. You will be surprised how few evenings out you have to skip to buy some pretty sophisticated software or equipment.

Yep, I'd say in most instances it comes down to priorities. We choose not to live at the edge of our means and stay out of debt so we can pursue things that ultimately are more important to us.

[dabbler]

Me and my wife have an agreement...

We share a bank account and all my main income goes in there, as does hers. She earns a bit more than I do, but our salaries are pretty close. It pays the bills, feeds us, clothes us and buys each others birthday, Christmas and other gifts and essentially looks after the future and household things. It and gives me a modest allowance every two weeks. She doesn't take an allowance, and really has free reign on the account, although she doesn't have expensive hobbies which is why that works for me. She doesn't spend any money really. I'm expected not to use "House" money for personal toys (including anything musical).

Money I make elsewhere (gigs etc) is entirely mine. I use it to buy musical instruments and equipment, or anything else that I might want that isn't really to our mutual benefit.

I never had money in the bank until we started this arrangement when we got married. Now I have enough money to buy the things I want, never need to feel guilty, and we never go overdrawn. That's enough for me!

R.

[Shazbot]

Check out books by Dave Ramsey for simple money management techniques.

My wife is great about indulging my musical needs, but the emphasis is on "needs". If I can demonstrate the need for something and have researched the best deal for it, she's all for me buying it. But to some extent, it is a "both keys turned" kind of thing. And I've become much better about buying things appropriately, when money is available. (No more credit cards!!) Much as I would love to have the SSV, it hasn't been a need for me yet, and I haven't really had available cash for it anyway, especially with needing to also get Kontakt 2 and an expression pedal to be able to use it. So that will have to wait until a better time.

Of course, make the most of what gear you already have. I made some decent recordings with cheap software and have made some poor recordings with Sonar, so it's not about what you have but what you do with it.

[thesoundsmith]

Do you gig out at all? I held a day gig for a dozen years writing software, that money was communal. The money I made playing music went into updating gear and software - it was mine, I earned it and it's now deductible...

But the other part of it is I hope she understands the part music plays in your life. I went through quite a few girlfriends because it always came down to the magic phrase," OK, @$~~~ole, music or me," (often in those exact words.) I lived with my potential wife for 7 years before I felt secure in the way she would handle being a musician's peripheral. (It took that long before she finally couldn't stand it anymore, that in itself was a record at the time.) And we've been married 26 years beyond that, most of which music has been my only income. It was difficult at times, but she never questioned my commitment to the music, so it's been a good 33 years.

The other side of that is that I give her 100% unconditional support in what she wants to do in life. Financial from the music money if need be, just'being there' and telling her to follow her dreams, mainly.

And of course, the final touch, the magic phrase that kept us together during those years. Those three little words...



"You're right, dear." :D


Congrats and good luck.

[Styxx]

Oh, both of you just buy what you want and if there is any disliking use the front door. :D
Just kidding ... come on now lighten up! :D
My wife and I have joints in our account. That way when the money starts to dwindle (what money!) we always have a back up. :D

[dubaifox]

My wife and I are both composers as well, and I think it makes it easier to make financial decisions about what type of musical gear to buy, because she understands and appreciates the excitment of buying new gear, but also can step in for a reality check and squash my sometimes uncontrollable urge to have the latest greatest.

We share accounts. We roughly keep track of who has spent what on personal itmes and try to balance it out as best we can.

[paulsanwald]

I just got married, we dated for 5 years and always split everything 50/50. after we got married we got a joint bank account, and contribute money to that each month. both of us maintain separate bank accounts in addition to that. we pay the mortgage/utilities out of the joint account, as well as stuff like going on dates. so there is both communal money and then we still have our own savings. this approach might not work for everyone, but it works well for us.

--paul