What it takes to make a living from my passions

Yesterday was the monthly flea market and our best chance at supplementing our income which helps us pay the bills but also is something we enjoy participating in.

We sold about $150 worth of hats and accessories, half of what we usually sell. It was sooo quiet. At first we thought it was just too hot but then we realized last month was just as hot and it was completely packed.

Turns out, as usual in Japan, everyone is on the same schedule and rhythm…Obon holiday ended yesterday and since it was everyone’s last day before work, they were taking it easy after vacation.

I can’t relate to this, I work 7 days a week, sometimes an hour a day, and sometimes 13 hours a day. My play and my work overlap. I don’t pay attention to what day of the week it is other than to keep all my appointments. I don’t have holidays unless I decide to take one.

I’m completely in control of my own life, except to the extent that I need money to live and a visa every 3 years (finally graduated from one year visas last year). I adhere to the laws of gravity, four seasons, the weather and my body tells me when I’m tired. That’s all I really base my schedule on.

So $150 wasn’t as much as we were hoping but we have plans to do a lot more in the coming months, new projects, getting into more of a habit of doing the things we want to do in ways that will earn us some money.

I will start booking a show every other month. These won’t bring in a ton of money since I’m not promoting myself constantly and I don’t have time or energy to do it full time, but I may pull in enough to pay my phone bill, and maybe if I continue for a year and make it twice a month, I can cover my water and electricity bills as well.

We are talking about renting out a space for a pop up bar/restaruant starting September. We want to do that twice a month as well. That could pull another $300-400 a month.

We want to try another monthly flea market outside out neighborhood too that can definitely pull in more money than the one near our house since it’s a trendier area.

2 shows, 2 flea markets, 2 pop up bars a month. It’s a lot to balance with my “day job” and in the end it will probably pull in about $1000 a month, about a third of an average Tokyo monthly salary, and it’s two of us doing it, so it’s 1/6 of what we hope to make and 1/3 of what we need to survive for the two of us in this city.

But these are all things we WANT to do, so all of them can serve as ways to get our names out there and get people into what we are doing and perhaps work to advertise our “day jobs” as well.

It’s all about resource allocation. How much energy do we have to do all this in a way that is constantly improving or building what we want to build our lives into.

At best, we could open the pop up 6 times a month and earn $300 a night, and do two flea markets earning $300 a month, then just add two shows for a total of $300… then we’ve got $2700 a month which will cover both of our living expenses at a bar minimum without much room for savings or anything extra.

It’s not bad.

I’m not looking to quit my job, but my goal is to stop worrying about trying to promote myself, and turn these activities into the promotion. Trying to find students is by far the biggest drain on my life right now, without it, this kind of schedule doesn’t feel like too much to me.

That’s the missing link. So I think this is actually a very realistic plan. I could find my students through the events we hold.

So add $2700 a month to our current salaries and we are actually living significantly better than we are right now, with half of that money going into savings and investment for future projects and the other half going towards travel and the ability to go to festivals and take more breaks.

From there we can think about quitting our current jobs, though I like mine and won’t quit unless I am able to devote myself 100% to art and community, but my partner wants freedom from her extremely low paying and energy taxing job, so hopefully within a year or two we will be able to start a shop in her name and I can continue to do what I’m doing plus these events, without worry much about self promotion and becoming financial insecure whenever I take a tiny break which is the only thing I dislike about my current lifestyle.

Once we have our own space a bunch of new possibilities open up.

And so I’ve resolved to stop putting energy into “marketing” and focus more on just doing things that help me connect to people

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