SKILLS TO PAY THE BILLS PT. II

A close friend and fellow producer/engineer came to me recently confessing he wasn’t sure he could keep it up any more. The bands he’d been working with were not enjoyable, and he had the age-old problem of never having enough money when he needed it. I knew that feeling because I’ve experienced it so many times, and you probably will too — if you haven’t already. I asked him, “How much have you made so far in this financial year?” He had no idea. I asked him, “If I gave you half an hour to work it out, could you tell me?” He could not. He was similarly in the dark about how much he’d spent in this financial year.

If a producer or engineer doesn’t know how much money is coming in, how would they know how much they can spend on equipment, rent and their personal lives? The answer for a lot of people is that they don’t; they live from invoice to invoice, spend it as they make it, and scramble to get money in before the bills are due. That system doesn’t work, and it makes