Creative tips: Budgeting

Budgeting is probably one of the least glamorous aspects of creative work, but also one of the most important. Thankfully, we asked a range of fantastic people to give their tips on budgeting and effective ways to budget for your creative project.

If you want you can just watch the budgeting video below but if you need to pause the info is here.

“If you sell at vendor markets, pay close attention to who/where your vendor fee is going. Is the money going towards a school, a charity, your town etc or are you just paying an event planner’s salary? In my experience, the latter tends to be overpriced.” Adventures of Lollipop (adventuresoflollipop.com )

“Underestimate your profits by a third and overestimate your costs by a third.” Helena Dixon (Author, nelldixon.com)

“Join in with communities like FB pages, Instagrammers, tiktokers and Twitter people. It’s so good to build your community because you can exchange things you need so I get beta readers for free and they read my books and I read theirs” (Jodie Homer (https://t.co/IOEensPobZ )

“When setting a budget it is important to be clear about what you need done and the timeline. A short timeline will inflate the price. Research what you need done and its average price. The most important thing to do when setting a budget is to be realistic. Do not put yourself in debt and sometimes you can do an exchange of services to help have your needs met within your budget. “ (Fangirl Review, bit.ly/3BKvZgm )

“If your being creative on a budget, then I would recommend the digital drawing program Krita. It’s really good for being completely free. It’s not only available for Windows. Krita also suports Linux, Mac and android. “ (Jolor, https://twitter.com/Jolor14419872 )

“ If I made money off my content, I’d calculate how much I make a month then use a percentage of that for any new equipment or assets I need for the month ahead. “ Zack Attack (twitch.tv/zackatk77 )

“A. Fixed pcm
B. Non-fixed costs (though predictable)
C. Any annual divide by 12 into pcm
D. Reasonable extras (fair social life)
E. Luxuries

Make a point of measuring it on a place where you see it clearly and regularly.

You also of course have to record your costs! One might be surprised where the money actually goes!” Benjamin Turner, TEC (https://turnereuropeanconsulting.com/ )

So there you have it- some great folks passing on their budgeting wisdom. Do you have any budgeting tips for creative projects? Please comment below!

We have plenty of fantastic creative tips videos in our playlist below, ideal if you want to start a new creative project or you are looking for a new angle for a current one.

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