Money Box Live: Chasing a Dream

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Hello. Follow your heart, fake it till you make it, reach for the stars. There's a lot of advice about the importance of chasing your dreams. There's not as much advice for paying the bills while you do so. Athletes are going for gold at the Olympics right now.

We all have a dream and I think being an Olympian is something special and no one can ever take that away from me. You know, I will always be an Olympian. No matter what, you always seem to find a way, whether that be financially or otherwise. And hundreds of performers are bracing themselves for...

Edinburgh Festival, which kicks off this weekend. Plus, of course, there are music festivals like Reading and Leeds over summer. So we wanted to dedicate this Moneybox Live podcast to the finances of following your dreams, especially when success is isn't just not guaranteed it's actually unlikely.

A lot of creative people have a day job, but then they work late into the night on their other goals. In fact, visa research shows that around 45% of Gen Zs, people born between the later 1990s and the early 2010s, have... a side hustle, but it's not just for the cash.

More than a quarter of those are working away at a passion project. Now, before we take a call, let's hear from some performers. The Frog and Bucket is a comedy club in Manchester. Monday nights are mostly for new and aspiring acts. So I went along and asked them. about the finances of life as a comedian.

I've been doing stand-up for a really long time. Oh, God, about eight years now. So do stand-up comedy. I'm also well-known in this scene for doing roast battles. So I'm the current Manchester roast battle champion. Does that mean that comedy pays? Oh, God, no. I do make a little money here and there. But to be honest, the amount of time and energy that goes into admin and booking and all of the things that surround comedy.

means that unless I have the energy and time to do that, which I really don't with my other jobs, it can make it quite difficult to sort of regularly get paid. I'm pretty fresh to stand-up. I've only been doing it maybe six months or something. What's comedy doing for your finances?

So far, it is probably draining them. I'm not getting paid for anything. I'm going to the Edinburgh Fringe, so I'm doing a play there, but I will be doing also some, trying to find some open mics and test some new material out there. And ask a brutal question. You don't have to answer. Do you have any savings? I do. Mostly my parents kind of being smart when I was younger and kind of putting money away for the kind of thing.

I think they like to live vicariously through as I grow up. What is your biggest financial tip for anyone thinking about following your footsteps? Give the best bank accounts to Google, set one up, and then put some money into it and don't spend enough of it. You are a very Moneybox Live comedian. I'm glad, I'm glad.

Just a few of the performers at the Frog and Bucket there. Now listening to that and here to answer your questions are today's experts. I'm joined by the employment lawyer Rupa Muka and by Jack Gamble, director of the Campaign for the Arts. Hello. Hi, Felicity.

Hello, thank you for being with us. Jack, you were also previously the Associate Director of the Arcola Theatre in London. You worked on more than 100 shows. You know the challenges of being a creative from very close up. So let's start with you. Indians I spoke to are mostly spending money on their dreams rather than earning it.

Is that how most creatives have to approach those early years? Yes, that is the norm. Most artists, the vast majority of artists, have other jobs, often multiple other jobs. That is especially the case when people are starting out. that can be the case for a very long time.

And we all love the results, don't we? We all love our favourite TV shows or opera or art. But do you think creative career aspirations are taken seriously enough? I think they absolutely should be. You're right. We love so much the work that artists produce.

If you think about a piece of music or a picture or a film that you really love, it's tempting to think that that happens by magic because it can feel like magic when we engage with artworks that we love. But those are the products of really serious work. by people bringing serious commitment, investing serious time and resources.

Thank you. Rupert, plenty of people's dream jobs can be traditional jobs, can't they? It can be someone's dream to be a nurse, a police officer, even a lawyer. Those do have a clearer path to success. Yes, I mean, I suppose traditionally they do have a clearer path to success, but, you know, the side hustles are very exciting. And I think during the pandemic, people did have that opportunity to maybe expand their passions a little.

bit more into businesses and I think the other thing to remember is the cost of living crisis has sort of led to this rise in inside hustles as well but traditionally yes some careers tend to be a little bit safer but you know we can't play everything safe. And I think that that's what's happening now. People are a little bit more willing to take the risk. So whether it's a safer side hustle or a creative side hustle, do you have to tell your boss about it?

Actually, the law doesn't say that you have to tell your boss if you have another job, but The contract is where you need to go to. So always check what your employment contract says. That is where you're going to find out things such as what are your obligations in respect of firstly telling your employer whether you've got another job, whether you can actually go and get one.

Even if it doesn't say anything about another job, there's maybe going to be other things in there, such as confidentiality restrictions, requirements during your working time, how you can use an employer's property and things called restrictions.

covenants which are essentially post-termination restrictions you know what you can do after you leave the job so you really need to make sure that you always check what your employment contract says because that is what is going to set you right. And what about conflicts of injury? if perhaps your moonlighting is actually in competition with your day job?

Yes, I mean, that's going to be a much bigger issue for an employer. You know, if your side hustle or your passion project is in the same sector as your main employer, then potentially you could be in competition. And that's going to be a risk for an employee who's... then using or disclosing their employer's confidential information for their own benefit.

employees could potentially you know divert orders or business for their own benefit as well now employees should very much not be doing that and that's where i always say make sure you go back to your contract so if it's in the same sector it's a much higher risk if it's something completely

different, the chances are it's going to be much more palatable to an employer. Okay, let's hear from Vic Slayton next. By day, she works in PR. By night, she's a stand-up comedian and the host of the Comedy Arcade podcast. Vic, hello. Hi. It's lovely to be on and lovely to be in front of experts. Have you had to make any sacrifices then to pursue your comedy dream?

I think the biggest one is financial, as sort of covered by the guys at the Frog and Bucket. When I first started doing this, I had a successful career in PR. And my friend said, you might as well just open up a money pit and throw it in because effectively you're kind of... starting again and the expectations work for free.

is pretty prevalent. And even five years in now, there'll still be comedy clubs or comedy promoters that offer you what they call an open spot, which is effectively an audition, but you do it live often to people who've paid for a ticket just to prove that you can do it. So it's a weird one. in that there is absolutely no benefit in time served necessarily. So you're always doing free stuff. Yes, for exposure. But the trouble is, it is...

It is occasionally worth it, but for everyone that's worth it, where you're in front of 100 people that... to maybe follow you on Instagram afterwards, you'll end up in a pub sometimes with three people. One of them's the landlord, one of them's the promoter, and somebody is just annoyed that you're in front of the TV when they're trying to watch football.

It's not glamorous. What about working alongside the day job? How does your employer feel about your moonlighting? Is there a risk that they think that means you don't have the same ambition for your day job? I think that is something I've certainly found over the last few years. I was very career focused up until the point where I wasn't. And I just started as a hobby, really. I found myself, I was too absorbed in my day-to-day job that I was answering emails at 7am.

7pm and I was like you know what I need to break out of this so I started to stand up as a hobby and then it got massively massively carried away and You have to be advertising yourself. That's the thing. The thing with comedy is every social media platform, including LinkedIn, is a shop window where you can get bookings, where people can be aware of things that you're making if it's a podcast. You can't hide it.

like other sort of sneaky creative pursuit and for everybody who thought it was an asset there are people that do see it as less of a dual interest and more well obviously you're going to enjoy doing that more than you'll do your everyday job so why should we hire you you're not going to be as invested for me

It's definitely sort of a dual, I see it sort of a dual career. So I give, I'd like to think I give equal love to both, but obviously there's the late nights as well involved with comedy. I can see why bosses wouldn't like the look of it. on a cv but i've been lucky enough to find an employer that sees it as an asset because i do sort of day to day i'm i'm out i'm presenting at conferences i'm meeting people i'm selling things they see the benefit

Okay. And you took a show to the Fringe last year. You're heading there again this weekend. Definitely, definitely compromise me. So what kind of costs are there for performing at the Fringe briefly? It's unbelievable to be at the Fringe. It's like nothing I've ever done. And I think having three and a half weeks to just totally dedicate to a creative pursuit, there's nothing like it in the world. And again, it's...

It's not even easy to get the time off, particularly if you're somebody who has a career job where they expect you in the office. for that month and it's it's also the worst time of year to book holidays because families need to take the time off as well for summer holidays so if you're just somebody that wants to do 10 minutes of stand-up every day if you're putting your time sheet in and they're putting their time sheet in

it's a bit of a tussle of who's going to get that time off. So again, there's a lot of understanding required to do that. So, yeah, it does require a bit of jiggery-pokery of your scheduling. Well, Vicks, best of luck with the Edinburgh Festival 2024. Thank you for joining us. That's Vicks Leighton.

Rupert, if people have a job and then they want to go on tour or go to the Edinburgh Festival or something else for a few weeks, what kind of impact does that have on their work? And if they leave that job, does it look bad when they apply for future jobs? Firstly, I guess the impact that it has on their current job, it sounds there that the...

The communication between employer and employee there sounds very, very good. So there seems to be a real support there. And I think that's always where you want to start off. Communicate well. And if you can do that, hopefully you will get the time off, as we've just heard there. Can...

So going forward, if you're getting another job, you know, of course they might ask, well, why have you left your other job? And that's really up to an employee to disclose what they want to there, you know. So in terms of how much you're disclosing to a future employer, that can be managed to a certain extent, obviously.

Previous employers do have to give references and references must be truthful and accurate. So again, that will very much depend on how things have been left, how well things have been communicated. But former employers do have to be truthful.

accurate it doesn't necessarily however mean that they need to say what the reason for leaving was they could very much just say an employee was employed from this date to that date and this was their job title and leave it at that so again a lot of it will come around what the communication is and to what extent things have been agreed or not.

Jack, if you can break through and become a professional creative, I know there's lots of different roles, but briefly, what kind of salaries might people get? Well, there is a huge range. I mean, we know of artists that household names that earn millions.

pounds a year on one end of the spectrum at the other end of the spectrum there are hundreds of thousands of people who volunteer in the cultural sector so there's a real range if you look at the cultural sector employment figures that the government publishes also a big range in terms of regions of the UK as to how much people can expect to earn on average. Average salaries are highest in London at £40,000 and lowest in the North East at about £16,000.

all of the cultural subsectors show median earnings, median average earnings below the 2023 UK average. So that does mean that it is harder for people that don't have money or come from money to... careers. It's something that there's been more research into and people talking about. I think that is something we need to think about too. Okay, let's speak to another aspiring creative. Zach Howard is on the line. Zach, good afternoon.

Hi. So you're a DJ by trade and you're a bar worker by necessity. What is the dream? So... At the end of the day, I would love to be a music producer and a DJ. But of course, you can't always get that way when you don't come from that much of me and stuff like that. So I work at a bar on the side. And how many hours a week are you DJing for?

It depends if you get booked at the end of the day. And like the upper line as well, you have to use your social media skills to kind of show yourself off and whatnot. i'm still quite new to it so i'm only a year been djing so i'm still getting not booked heavily but Hopefully by next year and the year after, more and more gigs will come about. Now, what about your bar work? What's your contract like? Do they let you take time off so that you can gig? So it's...

I'm on a zero hour contract so it's not like the best I don't get definite shifts and whatnot but I've got quite a good relationship with the manager so of course they don't want me to take off weekends because normally your gigs are like a Saturday night or something like that. always want me to take weekends off but like if I let them know in advance they'll tell me yes or no basically

Zach, it's good to hear that your employer is so understanding. Thank you very much for being part of the programme. That's DJ Zach Howard. Rupert, Zach's on a zero hours contract, clearly working relatively well for him. The Taylor review into work a few years ago.

pointed at the risk of one-sided flexibility for these kinds of workers, where really, although they should be flexible, it was only the employer dictating the hours worked and the employee couldn't choose what they worked. Has that improved?

Well, it's a big thing. Labour have absolutely set this out in their plans under the New Deal. You know, they are planning to kind of ban these exploitative zero hours contracts, as they're calling them. And what they want to do is give everyone the right to an employment contract.

reflects the number of hours regularly worked based on a 12-week reference period. So if you've got an employee who is engaged on a zero-hours contract, who's been working, for example, I don't know, like an average of 10 hours a week over a 12-week reference period, then under labour... proposals.

they're saying that that person is entitled to an employment contract that provides for that number of hours a week. So it would be giving them that, you know, stability going forward and helping them out so it isn't so one-sided. It's not clear.

There's a whole lot of things that are not clear about that, about how the 12 week reference period might work or where, for example, something like bar work, you know, there's going to be natural seasonal peaks in the number of hours worked, such as pre-Christmas, et cetera. So we'll need to wait and see how that all works.

Yes, zero hour contracts is an area. And the other thing, I suppose, when you're looking at someone like Zach, the hours worked are something that you need to be aware of under the working time regulations. Unless an employee has opted out under...

the working time regulations opt out. You're not meant to be working more than 48 hours a week. And employers have got a duty to monitor that working time. You know, there's requirement for adequate rest breaks, et cetera. So that's another thing just to be aware of if you are working too. You're really meant to be on top of that.

And of course, if you do take on additional work, you'll have to think about your own taxes as well, because that won't be being covered by your daytime employer. Jack, briefly, Zach's made it pretty clear that he's absolutely going for this career.

DJs will know there's a lot of kit you have to buy to start up. Is there any funding available for individuals as they start out? There is. I mean, I'd say in terms of equipment and more generally, firstly, if you're in formal education, speak to your music department, your...

department your visual art department ask them if you can borrow equipment or if they have advice secondly cultural organizations we have amazing cultural organizations across this country art centers in London the roundhouse have this amazing thing called roundhouse work

which are state-of-the-art studios that young people can go and use. Ask them if they have options. And thirdly, there are charities. One I can think of off the top of my head is Music for All that give grants to support the cost of it.

equipment such as musical instruments but also courses for people starting out. So there is help and support out there. Now if you're like me you are spending a lot of the time at the moment on the sofa watching athletes who are at the absolute peak of their game. it cost to become an Olympian? Well I've been asking one. Sophie McKenna is a six-time national champion in shot putt. She reached the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 but also working as a custody officer alongside her training.

recovering from an injury that kept her out of the 2024 games and I spoke to her earlier. As an athlete, it can be really difficult to fund your career. You know, it's not an easy thing to have to do. It is very expensive. So during my time leading up to the Tokyo Olympics, I funded myself as... uh working in custody for the police which you know is a pretty tough physical job so um it wasn't particularly easy and then now i'm working for the for the dogs trust which is again another um

pretty physical role. So yeah, it's hard. Tell me about a regular day. What time does your training start and your working day and the training finish? So I'll get up at six o'clock, half past six, do a 45 minute mobility session, get showered, have breakfast, go to work. So I start work at quarter past eight. I leave at five o'clock and then I go home really quick.

quickly do a quick change, get myself off to the track and do about two and a bit hours of throwing. And then, yeah, come home, eat dinner, shower and get into bed and then repeat, repeat, repeat. Sophie, I'm never going to complain about anything ever. What kind of things do you need to fund? Do you need to pay for your own training?

Yeah, I have to. All of it is self-funded. So all of my travel, all of my equipment, all of my food. I was lucky enough for a couple of years to receive centralised lottery funding. But unfortunately, because of my injury, I was taken off that. I've only competed. sort of a few times this year to try and get back into that competitive environment i've probably spent over two and a half thousand pound accommodation alone um

it is very, very expensive. Considering I'd normally compete up to 20 times a year, you can imagine the cost rises and rises and rises. And yeah, you have to be sort of really frugal elsewhere in your life to be able to continue to afford it.

But I bet you don't have much time to spend much money on anything else in your life either. No, that is actually true. Luckily enough, the training and the work takes up pretty much most of my time and my own dogs. So that's actually who ends up the recipient of most of the spare money. It's quite easy to assume from the outside that athletes at your level make a fortune through sponsorship deals. Are those actually few and far between?

I think you have to be sort of world or Olympic champion to honestly be making a good living off the back of the sport. I think if I was a 100 metre sprinter or something like that, it probably would be different. Now, you mentioned that in a normal year where you weren't injured, you might be competing. competing 20 plus times. If you win competitions, do you get paid for that?

Yeah, so obviously there are different levels of competitions that you can compete in. And if you were to compete in the Diamond League, to take the win is around $10,000. You know, it can be good, but to win a Diamond League is basically like winning an Olympics. The training is hard, funding it is hard.

What is it that motivates you to do this? You know, we all have a dream. And I think, you know, to be able to achieve that dream, you are very lucky to do it. I don't think many people can hand on heart and say they've achieved the dream that they wanted to when they were younger. Being an Olympian is something special and no one can ever take that away from me. You know, I will always be an Olympian.

As a sports person, you have something deep inside, a sort of will and a want to do it. And I think that's what continues to drive you forward. And no matter what, you always seem to find a way, whether that be financially or otherwise. And then all this work, all this sacrifice.

It's all worthwhile. It is all worthwhile in the end. I mean, it's worth another four years of sacrifice to give it a go. And yeah, I've still got some unfinished business in Shotputting. And yeah, I hope I can go and unfinished that business. Wow, I will never complain about a spin class again. And that was Sophie McKenna. Rupert, briefly, is there help or support people can ask their bosses for so that they can focus on something like training?

Absolutely. It all comes down to what I've been saying from the start, which is communicate. Just communicate with your employer. The more you communicate, the more that you're open with them, the more that you can show that actually we can make this work, the more likely they are able to then assist you and help you.

And as we covered off previously, if it's something that's not in competition with an employer, then you're going to have a much easier journey going forward. And of course, many of these days offer things like flexible working, if that helps you balance these things around it.

goals around the Olympics in four years time. What about a career that has been 10 years in the making? Let's hear from John next. He co-created Big Punch Studios which makes and publishes comics and games and he did all that while working as a

school biology technician. After a decade of work, he's now a full-time comic book writer. I was kind of living two lives. I was going to comic conventions, selling the books I was writing and printing, while also working as a... you know in a lab and then finally after you know kind of 10 to 12 years

having a proper job and burning every spare hour I could to grow a comics business on the side, I finally realized that, you know, my time was more valuable than the money I'd earned from my day job. And if I wanted some of these projects to thrive, I had to commit to them fully.

It was a big risk, but yeah, finally took the plunge and started kind of living full time off my art. You are no stranger to hard work, John. It's great in a way because you're very motivated, but it's terrible in a way because you're very... motivated and so you know the early mornings the late nights working weekends you just pack it all in and um you know

you get tired you occasionally it takes a toll on your health and this feels like a cost now in hindsight is it a sensible price to pay maybe not but i'm very proud of what we've achieved in that time Now, of course, some creatives only have to produce themselves. You know, they have to get on a stage or, you know, they have to be athletes, for example. But you're making actual physical product. That means more investment and more money. Absolutely, yes.

I used to say, they say that something like a printer ink is most expensive liquid on the planet by volume. I always feel that like comics are the most expensive substance on the planet by mass. If you think how much... say, I don't know, the average comic might sell in a comic shop, we might be talking a few pounds. But then every page, you know, might have a penciler, an inker, a colorist, a letterer, all of whom should rightfully be paid for their work. So

There's an immense amount of upfront costs, you know, to make these things a reality and to make them look so good. When you were learning these skills, did some people expect you to do work for free for that dreaded word exposure or just to develop talents?

Oh, you wouldn't believe it. Yeah, that is just part and parcel of the comics world. And there's not a tremendous amount of money in comics across the board. And I think there's a lot of passion and I think there's a lot of collaboration where people are willing to maybe...

do work for free because they're more focused on the art but at the same time there are some exploitative techniques. I think artists do particularly need to learn quickly that their time and their talent is very valuable and there will always be people trying to get them to do that for free.

John Locke from Big Punch Studios there. Jack, it's a great story, isn't it? But it almost shows you can't be half-hearted and successful in the creative field. It takes passion to get certain careers to the point where they can provide a living.

amount of passion and commitment, and it can take a long time. I mean, Toni Morrison, Pulitzer Nobel Prize winning writer, she published her first novel when she was 39. She didn't gain significant public attention until she was in her 40s and 50s, and for some people...

It happens later. That is a long time to keep at something. But, you know, we have to be really thankful that artists do keep at it, despite the challenges that there are, because we all benefit from the work of artists in society. every hour of the day and quite a few at night. When you also have a day job, I suppose there is a risk you overdo it and then you're not fit for work and calling in sick presumably because of your passion project won't go down well.

Absolutely. And I think this is where employees really do need to be careful with things like that, because if an employer does think that the reason that your office could be potentially related to a passion project, a side hustle, a second job, that could end up being a potential disciplinary.

matter or a performance matter going forward so you need to be really really careful about managing all of that and of course when it comes to sickness absence there's whole loads of processes that you need to go through in respect of that but it is something to be very very aware of

Thank you. Loads of you getting in touch with your fantastic stories. Ali says, I've decided to jump right in, retire after 38 years of nursing to teach drawing and watercolor painting and pursue my dream of becoming a full-time botanical artist.

And Bethan says, I'm off to the Edinburgh fringe today for four weeks of shows. Lucky to have been given four weeks unpaid leave from my job as a GP receptionist. Also lucky in that my parents live in Edinburgh. Otherwise, this would never have been financial. Thank you to everybody who took part and thank you to our experts. We've been hearing from Rupa Muka, an employment lawyer.

And from Jack Gamble, director and CEO of the Campaign for the Arts. Moneybox and Moneybox Live take a break over August. So that's actually it for a few weeks. And no, it's not so Paul Lewis can take his one man Hamlet to the fringe. We will still be working hard. In today's podcast, the producers were Sarah Rogers and Catherine Lund, the studio manager.

is James West. Our editor is Jess Quayle. I'm Felicity Hanna and this was a BBC News Money and Work production for BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. I'm Carlo Gabler. From BBC Radio 4 and the History Podcast, this is Escape from the Maze, the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history.

It's a major aberration. It's no different from an IRA aberration outside. Told by the people who carried it out and the people who tried to stop them. Staff were terrorised, obviously having difficulty breathing. It's an escape planned in forensic detail. It's a need-to-know basis, and if you don't need to know, you don't know.

that create shockwaves at the heart of government. It is a very grave incident indeed, the most serious in our prison history. Find Escape from the Maze on the History Podcast. Listen. on BBC Sounds Make money predicting football. Now you can. Now in Texas with Calci. Calci is the only platform that lets you legally trade on real world events in all 50 states from football to Bitcoin, the Oscars, and even politics. If it matters, you can trade on.

Trade on who wins each game, props, spread, and more. Legally, now in Texas. Don't miss your shot. Download the Kalshi app or go to K-A-L-S-H-I dot com. Use code PODCAST and get $10 when you trade a home. This is an investment that carries risk.