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Hey listeners, this week we're

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with you. It's from another show

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we think you'll like, the Smart

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Money Podcast from NerdWallet. This

0:17

particular episode is all about

0:19

how creative professionals can better

0:21

deal with the unpredictable financial

0:23

landscape of the arts. Whether

0:26

you're a musician, writer or any other

0:28

kind of creative soul, this

0:30

episode is for you. Now, to

0:33

share a little more about the Smart Money

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Podcast, the show features

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NerdWallet's objective finance journalists answering

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real-world questions to help you

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make smarter decisions about your

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money. This episode we're

0:47

sharing today features an enlightening

0:49

conversation with a jazz saxophonist

0:51

in Pittsburgh who transitioned from

0:53

an engineering path to a

0:55

fulfilling career in music. He

0:57

opens up about his journey,

0:59

the financial ups and downs

1:01

he faced and the

1:03

strategies he employed to overcome

1:06

challenges like student debt and

1:08

seasonal income fluctuations. In

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a world where financial misinformation is

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We hope you enjoy this episode as much

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as we did. Trying

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to make money in a creative pursuit

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is not easy. Just ask any actor,

1:39

writer, painter or musician and they'll likely

1:41

tell you a story of starting out

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with little money and ending up with,

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well, probably still not a lot of

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money. Today we're going to talk about

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some of the financial challenges that are

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unique to creatives and a few ideas

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for meeting those challenges. Welcome

1:58

to NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast. artist

4:00

type career, we would love to hear about it

4:02

or anything else you'd like to share about your

4:04

money lives. Leave us a voicemail or text the

4:06

Nerd Hotline at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730-N-E-R-D. Or

4:13

email a voice memo to podcast at

4:16

nerdwallet.com. So Abby, who are we hearing

4:18

from today? Today, I'm talking

4:20

with Roger Romero, who also goes by

4:22

the stage name, Feral Cat. He's a

4:25

musician, artist, composer, and educator based in

4:27

Pittsburgh. Roger plays jazz saxophone and he

4:29

calls himself a DIY emo musician. We're

4:32

gonna hear the story of his early

4:34

beginnings in music and how he created

4:36

a career for himself. And all of

4:38

the music you'll hear in this interview

4:41

is composed and played by Roger. That's

4:43

coming up in just a moment. Stay

4:45

with us. Roger,

4:49

welcome to Smart Money. Thanks for joining us.

4:52

Hey, yeah, thanks for having me. How

4:58

was your day? And what have you been up to? I

5:01

spent the majority of my morning doing

5:03

like video editing for Music

5:05

Really Still Happy. And is that a typical day

5:07

for you or does every day kind of look

5:09

a little bit different? Every day does look a

5:12

little bit different. I have a rehearsal later this

5:14

evening, but there's plenty of time during the daytime

5:16

for me to just kind of get other work

5:18

done and chill sometimes. Chilling is

5:20

important. So

5:25

tell us a little bit about where and

5:27

how you grew up. What originally sparked your

5:30

interest in music? First off,

5:32

I grew up in a relatively musical

5:34

family. I feel like relatively is definitely

5:36

downplaying it. My grandfather was a composer

5:38

and both of my parents met in

5:41

their like college band in the Dominican

5:43

Republic. So I've always had it around.

5:45

Music has been a deep

5:48

part of just like the culture of

5:50

what's happening in the house. My parents

5:52

saw that I was

5:54

doing well in music pretty early on. And

5:57

eventually we even moved schools to a

5:59

space where the music program was stronger,

6:01

played clarinet to start in fourth grade,

6:04

went on to play saxophone in sixth

6:06

grade. It was handed to me by

6:08

my band director. I then moved schools

6:10

and changed from playing a soprano saxophone

6:12

to a tenor saxophone. I grew up

6:14

enough to be able to hold the

6:16

instrument, which is kind of important when

6:19

you're small. Some of these instruments are

6:21

too big. And even

6:23

like in middle school, I had a saxophone

6:25

trio called Fluid Jazz. It's corny and dorky

6:27

to look back, but I just love that

6:29

little piece of myself. Developed a sax trio.

6:31

It was me on tenor and then a

6:33

friend of mine on alto and another friend

6:35

of mine on bari. And we had gigs

6:37

like seventh or eighth grade. I don't know

6:39

how much they paid. I don't remember that

6:41

at all. So it took a little while

6:43

to start getting the paid gigs. I mean,

6:45

it took a little while even as an

6:47

adult. There was like a dip in the

6:49

middle of it where it was like, no,

6:51

nothing's paying me. And then suddenly

6:53

things pay me again. So

6:58

coming from

7:01

a family

7:04

of musicians,

7:10

were they supportive of your decision to pursue

7:12

music professionally or did it take a little

7:14

bit of work for them to understand?

7:17

My parents specifically wanted to support what

7:19

I was doing. I was fortunate that

7:21

they gave me reigns to basically

7:23

decide what I wanted to do with my life.

7:26

I went to college for engineering at

7:29

Carnegie Mellon. And in doing

7:31

that, I was creating a safety

7:33

net for myself that was encouraged

7:36

for sure by my parents and

7:38

by outside forces, the economy.

7:41

Yeah, and all those thoughts were spinning through my head when I was 17,

7:43

like, how do I actually sustain this? How do I create

7:45

this career? And so at first I

7:48

decided that I would go for engineering,

7:50

get a real job and work through

7:52

music, either on the side or

7:54

in whatever capacity I was afforded. And then

7:57

after college, I got a real

7:59

job. And I got laid

8:01

off from that real job after about a year

8:03

and some change. And within that,

8:06

there was kind of like a deciding

8:08

point whether or not I choose

8:11

to pursue grad school in my major

8:13

or in whatever I was studying in

8:15

school. Or do I decided to just

8:17

go for it? And at that point

8:20

in time, I decided I was going

8:22

to go for it. And I took

8:24

odd jobs. I was a server. I

8:26

was like a blog writer, whatever could

8:28

fill out and pad out the rest

8:31

of it. And I started working. Do

8:33

you have student loans still from your

8:35

undergrad degree? I do. How does that

8:37

fit into the mix for you? Well,

8:40

when it comes to my student loans,

8:42

I spent a lot of time deferring them.

8:46

And at some points, there

8:49

was like a national deferment, which was good.

8:51

You know, like I didn't actually have to

8:53

pay attention to my student loans for about

8:55

a couple of years. But the interest continues

8:57

to accrue. And this

8:59

may be called the Smart Money Podcast. But

9:02

I do not personally think that when it

9:04

comes to my student loans, I am doing

9:06

an intelligent job. So

9:13

thinking about your first day job

9:15

and that layoff experience and you

9:18

were thinking about that being a

9:20

jumping off point to pursue music

9:22

full time, did you consider finances

9:24

and that decision, what was that

9:27

decision making experience like? Yeah, finances

9:29

were probably the major concern. I

9:32

was unemployed for six months directly after being

9:34

laid off for the job. Or I collected

9:36

unemployment. I didn't get like a severance or

9:38

anything like that. But I was

9:41

flat broke. I was losing

9:43

money consistently because unemployment wasn't quite covering

9:45

all of the bills. And

9:47

I couldn't work at the time. But then once

9:49

I found work, it still wasn't quite enough, at

9:52

least to start, because I was

9:54

largely just server or working this

9:57

odd job. And then once

10:00

And some music gigs, some professional

10:02

paid hired gun gigs started to

10:04

come through. I remember I

10:06

was working at a speakeasy that had

10:08

live music. I met musicians and I

10:10

met someone that introduced me to this

10:12

like wedding band cycle. And so I

10:14

started to get kind of gigging work

10:16

through that. But really it started

10:19

to be that me both playing with

10:21

my friends and playing in a couple

10:23

of these professional networks started to build

10:25

out my actual career. And actually,

10:28

it really was just it just

10:30

sucked for a good year, at least. I'm

10:33

not really sure how I even managed

10:35

it. I took on credit debt

10:37

that I still have. Well, not the same

10:39

debt. It's I feel

10:41

like debt just kind of like rolls around for

10:43

me. It's there. It

10:46

is an active part of my life and

10:48

is usually a part of my decision making

10:50

when it comes to whether or not I

10:52

can take these risks, whether or not I

10:54

can create a jumping off point. I

10:57

don't have my way towards making an amount

10:59

of income through music, but it

11:01

never quite filled all the financial

11:03

gaps and still doesn't. This is

11:05

a long game and it's a

11:07

lot of investing in yourself. And

11:10

for the most part, talking yourself

11:12

out of are you continuously stupid

11:14

for trying? You're battling a

11:16

lot of different sides of this. There's finance,

11:18

but there's also like mental health and there's

11:20

also just anything else that you can think

11:22

of in life that might feed into you

11:24

whether or not you decide to take a

11:26

risk. So can you walk us through

11:29

the nuts and bolts of your sources of income right

11:31

now and what kind of gigs you're swinging together? So

11:34

especially since I started taking a

11:36

lot more professional music work, the

11:38

seasons determine a lot of when

11:40

I'm busy. So between

11:42

December and February, for example, I

11:44

don't do a lot of performances.

11:47

But when March through October

11:49

rolls around and especially during

11:51

the summer, I'm usually are

11:54

typically booked out sometimes depends

11:57

on the month, but I could be working five to

12:00

15 gigs a month during the summer.

12:03

And so that provides an amount of income.

12:05

My W2 work is

12:07

teaching. So I make up some

12:09

of the income working at an

12:11

afterschool program, teaching production,

12:13

and also doing private lessons.

12:16

How do you balance the seasonal

12:18

income that might be a little

12:20

bit unpredictable? How does that flow

12:22

into your, you know, household day-to-day

12:25

expenses? How do you learn

12:27

how to save in a

12:30

certain way? And I don't always follow

12:32

through in the way

12:34

that I expect to year to year. But

12:37

being busy during the summer means I

12:39

am net positive. And whereas

12:42

in December, January, February, I will

12:44

be net negative. So the three

12:46

months typically balance themselves out to

12:48

where I'm usually

12:51

in the same financial space every year. I think

12:53

I'm going to die somewhere between December

12:56

and February. And in June, I'm

12:58

like, I don't know if I need to, I don't

13:00

want to work this much, but I do. I love

13:03

it every time I get on the stage. But just

13:05

looking at the schedule sometimes freaks you out. And I

13:07

know musicians who are 10 times busier

13:09

than I am. I

13:21

know there's a way to make

13:23

music the end-all be-all financially. But I've

13:26

also found some amount of solace in

13:28

teaching. I enjoy it. I enjoy the

13:30

work of it. And I enjoy connecting

13:32

with students. And so some

13:35

piece of me likes the balance. And

13:37

the balance is what has allowed me

13:39

to get through, because I still have

13:41

income during those winter months because

13:43

of teaching. But I use and dip

13:45

into some of the savings I've created during the summer.

13:47

Yeah. So with most of

13:50

your income coming from these

13:52

unpredictable gigs, how do you

13:54

tap your network to find work, whether it's

13:57

a new place to play or someone who's

13:59

looking for lessons? that kind of stuff.

14:01

Social media, typically. Let's say

14:03

if I look ahead a couple of

14:05

months and see fewer gigs than I

14:07

actually would have hoped for, then first

14:09

of all, in working for a number

14:12

of years, at least at this point,

14:14

I have relationships with certain spaces where

14:16

I can reach out and say, hey,

14:19

are you interested in me coming in a

14:21

couple of times this summer to play? And

14:24

I feel like a number of the folks

14:26

that I've met for my work are either

14:28

through social media or through word of mouth.

14:30

A lot of the groups that I create

14:32

or a lot of the bands that I've

14:34

made are through meeting people at a jam

14:36

session or meeting people at an open mic.

14:39

So a lot of these spaces are

14:41

like school almost. You go

14:44

there and you learn from the elders

14:46

that are performing, but you're

14:49

also sitting there with your classmates like

14:51

taking notes. But the

14:53

act of sitting there with your classmates and

14:55

talking about these things is what develops you

14:57

and you start to build your own network

15:00

through these folks and through the folks that

15:02

they're connected to. So when

15:04

you took that leap to pursuing music

15:06

full time, did you have any big

15:08

startup costs like a home studio or

15:10

investing in additional gear, that kind of

15:12

thing? To start, there were a

15:14

couple of gear investments. For example,

15:17

I wanted to

15:19

have a microphone to clip on, but

15:21

that wasn't as necessary as it was

15:23

just something that I felt was a

15:26

good investment for myself. But no, when I started

15:28

as a saxophone player, I had already had

15:30

this instrument since I was like 15 years

15:32

old. But at some point during my career, I

15:35

decided I did a lot more music

15:38

production. So at that point in time,

15:40

the kind of gear costs started to

15:42

go up. I had to buy computers,

15:44

monitors, audio equipment, microphones,

15:47

cables. Over

15:49

the last four or five years, I've built

15:52

up my studio space. I didn't have to

15:54

do any crazy investments at the beginning. But

15:57

as my career moved forward, I wanted to

15:59

do it. more professional equipment. I

16:02

wanted a better case for myself because I

16:04

was moving around a lot. In

16:06

general, I spaced out a

16:08

lot of these purchases because I

16:11

felt like that was the only way I could really do

16:13

it. And it wasn't necessarily intentionally that way. It was just,

16:15

this is the time I'm going to get a case. This

16:17

is the time I'm going to get a new computer. And

16:20

that was over a few years. I definitely

16:22

spend somewhere between $3,000 and

16:24

$5,000 a year on musical equipment.

16:27

I also have repair costs for my saxophone. I

16:30

get it tuned up

16:32

every six months. And now I have

16:34

multiple saxophones. So that's multiple tuneups. And

16:36

in terms of your day-to-day expenses, what

16:39

are the biggest day-to-day expenses that you

16:41

incur as a musician? One

16:43

thing that definitely I

16:45

feel like noting is the cost

16:48

of being out, the

16:50

cost of actually going to network.

16:52

And there is often

16:54

like a $20 to $30 ticket price here in Pittsburgh. It's

16:59

more expensive than in most other cities

17:01

for like a bar low ticket

17:04

price. And also buying a drink,

17:06

being social. So there's often

17:08

those day-to-day expenses depending on where you

17:10

are at the gig. I

17:12

will also have to eat. If you're

17:15

fortunate enough, the venue or

17:17

the promoter or someone will

17:19

have some means of you to eat during

17:21

the performance or before the performance or

17:24

after the performance. But just as often

17:26

as not, you have to figure out

17:28

your own way, which, you know, I

17:30

guess for most people that

17:32

doesn't really seem that bad. But sometimes you're

17:34

just not making that much during the gig.

17:37

And it's helpful to

17:39

have just different means of

17:41

people, different means

17:43

of hospitality. It really does help more

17:46

times than not for there to just

17:49

be like a pizza there. But outside

17:51

of that, like they're the bigger costs,

17:53

but really it's the cost of being

17:55

out. And, you know,

17:57

my office becomes the bar. or

18:00

wherever else I'm working. And I have

18:03

office expenses, the bar. So

18:07

with all of these assorted business expenses, what

18:09

does tax season look like for you? I

18:12

do keep a couple

18:14

of different Excel spreadsheets of my

18:17

expenses. So there is usually

18:19

like just a separate spreadsheet for

18:21

hospitality expenses. So I drink some

18:23

stuff like that. As a

18:25

composer though, I

18:27

take a lot of liberty with

18:30

being a composer here because I

18:32

write and I

18:34

seek inspiration for writing. So a

18:37

lot of the time I treat

18:39

things like video games, television

18:42

as expenses because I'm actively

18:44

learning from them. Sometimes

18:46

I'm passively learning from them. I mean,

18:49

everyone else is mostly passively learning from

18:51

them. But I will often take

18:53

something from a video game and it

18:55

is deeply inspirational to me. That's where

18:58

a lot of my musical prowess

19:00

comes from and a lot of the things that I

19:02

learned from. And so that's there.

19:04

My car having a vehicle

19:06

is like entirely necessary as a musician.

19:09

Depending on what instrument you play and what city

19:11

you are in, you might get away with like

19:13

a backpack with your instrument. Like

19:16

I've seen in New York at least

19:18

like a keyboardist will have this giant

19:20

keyboard backpack just like hanging behind them.

19:22

But no, most of the time

19:24

you should have a car and that's always

19:26

going to be several expenses. Insurance,

19:30

the car payment if you still haven't finished

19:32

it off and maintenance repairs

19:34

which are more expensive than the saxophone.

19:37

So those are just a few I can think of off the

19:39

top of my head. But yeah, I

19:41

keep expense reports for everything and I keep

19:43

my receipts. And generally speaking, when it comes

19:46

to tax time, I

19:48

gather all these 1099s, I

19:50

gather my W2, I spend

19:53

probably a full day's worth like

19:56

8 to 12 hours just looking through

19:58

everything and... making sure that

20:00

I inputted all the information that I

20:03

have, if there's receipts still left in

20:05

my car or anything like that. And

20:07

yeah, tax season's pretty brutal. I get

20:10

super jealous because my partner has

20:12

one job. And

20:14

so tax season is 15 minutes.

20:17

And for me, I'm like,

20:19

nah, this is a whole

20:21

event. What

20:26

was the best advice that someone gave you

20:28

about pursuing a career in music?

20:31

Don't do it.

20:36

I feel like a lot of the best

20:38

advice I've gotten in reality has nothing to

20:40

do with how well you play and everything

20:42

to do with how you come off and

20:45

how you present yourself within a space. I

20:47

have been guilty of being

20:50

just like insular, especially the last

20:52

couple of years since COVID. But

20:54

the idea that you're just nice,

20:56

you learn your parts and you

20:58

do well enough at like

21:00

on stage, either if the art or

21:03

if the music is looking for performance.

21:05

Like when I say performance,

21:07

I mean someone really like

21:09

being showy or showing off on stage.

21:11

It's about how you present yourself. But

21:14

the best advice is just be nice

21:16

and learn your stuff. Like know

21:19

what you're doing before and after you get

21:21

on stage. Are you ever tempted to just

21:23

have a normal job that you don't have

21:25

to stress about the financial aspect so much

21:28

or are the trade offs worth it? I've

21:30

been tempted constantly. That's not off

21:32

the table yet for me to

21:35

have a completely normal job. But

21:38

what is kind of off the table

21:40

is me not making music or me

21:42

not playing music. It's I'm

21:44

addicted to this drug. I love performing.

21:47

I love being on stage. I love

21:49

telling a crowd what to do in

21:52

a fun way. I love

21:55

expressing myself with a crowd and

21:57

having that feedback. And there was

21:59

a point.