Our species has rather arbitrarily chosen various dates throughout the year to take a day off work and celebrate stuff, largely to give a little excitement to an otherwise routine existence. The Christmas holiday is particularly out of control, thanks to capitalism. Opportunities to make a buck supersede any real meaning in the holiday, and do more to reverse the whole point than anything.
No matter how many sappy, well-meaning t.v. specials pop up to remind us that Christmas isn't about selfishness and presents, the retail machine grinds on unabated. Even the Pope is having to remind his cardinals and the church bank that the money is supposed to be helping the poor, not used for buying luxurious robes and fancy digs.
Coming from a working-class poor family, I used to resent the fact that I almost never got the cool presents that I wanted. All I ever heard was, "we can't afford it". As a kid, that didn't mean anything when we got the big Sears Wish Book in the mail. I would spend time every day looking through the pages of toys and neat clothes, circling the stuff that I really liked and hoping that some of it would show up under the tree.
All of the kids we went to church with seemed to have everything, and I couldn't understand why I didn't. My folks never sat us kids down to teach us about money, how to manage it or where it comes from. All I can figure is, since we were all girls, they thought we'd be taken care of by whoever we ended up marrying.
There have been 13 husbands amongst the five of us, and so far only one sibling even knows what a 401K is............
I am having to learn about finances very late in life by doing things the hard way. Making a lot of mistakes and paying a pretty penny for them. The businesses I've been trying to run for the last couple of decades are unfortunately in classical music and art. The market for such things isn't profitable for any but the superstars. Perhaps I haven't worked as hard as I should to get somewhere, but when it seems that the public appreciates electronics manufactured cheaply by third-world labor more than the hours of hand work you put into your original creations, or the years of music lessons spent honing those fine motor skills, often making the effort seems pointless.
I finally started charging my music students a month's worth of lessons in advance (to recoup losses from unannounced cancellations), but in doing so, have lost some students. One step forward, two backwards.
To save on a number of expenses (gross receipts tax, self-employment taxes, etc) I am debating an effort to have employment status in one of my orchestras changed from independent contractor to employee, but have to take the rest of my colleagues into consideration before doing so. Nothing is ever simple.
My car has over 350,000 miles on it, so the question of driving anywhere for music gigs for much longer may be pointless as well.
In short (well, maybe not so short), I am feeling sorry for myself at the moment. I am not one for making New Years resolutions, but if I did it would be to quit everything I am currently involved in and start completely from scratch. I am looking into starting a part-time baking business, and if it happens and manages to do well enough, maybe I can eventually keep that resolution. We shall see.........................
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