By Deborah Edler Brown
I have a confession to make: I am in love with my budget. Yes, my budget. Those five letters that usually spell constriction, that have always sounded like a stern math teacher glaring over her glasses growling “No,” have become an exciting almost magical portal to possibility and peace of mind.
As a freelance writer, budgets always scared me. They took the long view: what do you make in a year and what do you spend? Because I didn’t know the answer to the first question, I was afraid to look at the second.
Then a poet friend announced that she had eliminated $10,000 of debt with a program called YNAB (You Need a Budget). Interest piqued, I jumped in. More than a budgeting program, it was a philosophy. It was also an educational system & community. The key questions were how much money I had now and what were my plans for it. Forecasting was discouraged (what if that check never comes?). The goal was to stay current, clear-eyed, and flexible because life happens. My first goal was total awareness…which suddenly felt doable and kind. I started to understand my finances, what they could and could not do. I now only budget money that is actually in my account. I give every dollar a job and only one job (because, unlike me, my money can’t moonlight). The sheer sobriety of this approach washes over my financial fires like spring water. I can’t wait to allocate my paycheck each month, and I breathe easy when I pay bills because I know the money is waiting.
So, inspired by the elegance of clear numbers, I turned the budgeting lens onto my overwhelming schedule. I opened a new file and named it “TimeNab.” Every day, I deposited $24 and, for a few weeks, tracked where I “spent” it. Total awareness struck again. With travel and prep, my four-hour teaching assignment ate up eight full hours of my workday. Sleep took another eight, which left the remaining eight to cook, clean, write, exercise, socialize, watch TV, shop, and attend medical appointments, not to mention driving there. I was not lazy! I was trying to pack three weeks of clothing into an overnight bag; it just didn’t fit.
Sometimes time is money…although what it’s worth will vary by who is paying me. Sometimes money can buy time, like paying someone else to do something I hate or can’t do. The value in both is in the life they allow me.
As writers, we negotiate time to write, to edit, to research, and submit. And while writing is one of the least expensive arts, we still pay for supplies, submission fees, and workshops. Having both as realistic budget categories puts us in the driver’s seat.
This month’s destination is the 8th Annual WWS Submission Drive, so it’s time to check my budget. When will I polish my pieces? When will I research target markets? How much can I spend on submission fees while respecting my other goals? Those questions are like gas in my tank: they tell me how far I can go. But they do more than that. Each decision I make with time and money is a decision about where I want to go, where I plan to go. It’s like casting a spell to make it happen. Who could not love that?
Deborah Edler Brown was born in Brazil and raised in Pittsburgh. Her poem “Cubism” won Kalliope’s Sue Saniel Elkind Poetry Prize, her fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart, and she was 1998 Head-to-Head Haiku Slam Champion. She lives in LA, where she teaches reading to adults and dances daily.