Backyard Sundays
A good month can mean a lot when you work for yourself.
Maybe you landed a big project. A few invoices finally got paid. You had more bookings than usual. For a moment, it feels like you have a little more room to breathe.
Then the usual expenses start adding up.
Rent. Transport. Software. Equipment. Groceries. Maybe even some of the things you put off when work was quieter.
And suddenly, that extra breathing room starts to feel a little smaller.
That’s one of the challenges of earning an inconsistent income. It’s not always about whether you’re making money. Sometimes, it’s about knowing what that money needs to cover now, what needs to wait, and what you can afford to plan for next.
And when the next few months aren’t completely predictable, planning beyond the immediate future can get complicated.
The plans that keep moving
Think about something you’ve wanted to do for a while.
Maybe you want your own place. Your own equipment. A holiday. More savings. The ability to help your family more. Or simply enough breathing room to take some time off.
For someone with a predictable salary, there’s usually at least a rough idea of what will arrive at the end of the month.
Freelance work doesn’t always offer that same certainty.
You might know what you earned this month, but not necessarily what you’ll earn three months from now.
So plans move.
“I’ll do it after this project.”
“I’ll start saving when things pick up.”
“Maybe after the next payment.”
It becomes easy to spend a lot of time waiting for the point when things finally feel stable enough.
Stability isn't necessarily about earning the same amount every month
A creative career probably won’t suddenly become perfectly predictable.
Clients change. Projects end. Busy seasons come and go.
So perhaps financial stability for a freelancer looks slightly different.
It could mean knowing what you need to earn each month.
Having something set aside when work gets quiet.
Being able to plan further ahead than your next invoice.
Or reaching a point where one slow month doesn’t immediately change all your plans.
The goal isn’t necessarily to remove uncertainty from creative work altogether. That might not be realistic.
It’s about creating enough room around that uncertainty that it doesn’t make every decision for you.
More certainty can mean more choice
This is where the conversation becomes bigger than money.
Because what would actually change if your income felt a little more manageable?
Would you take on fewer projects and spend more time on the work you care about?
Could you finally buy the equipment that would help you take on bigger jobs?
Would you feel comfortable turning down a client that isn’t worth your time?
Could you take a week off?
Could you start thinking about next year instead of next month?
The answer will be different for everyone.
But perhaps that’s a useful way to think about financial stability as a creative: not simply as having more money, but having more choice in what happens next.
So, what are you building towards?
This is a conversation HustleNest and Zané have been thinking about: what happens when creatives start looking beyond earning from one project to the next and think about what they want that income to build over time.
There isn’t one answer, and there probably shouldn’t be.
For one person, success might mean growing an agency. For someone else, it could mean remaining independent and having enough financial security to choose the projects they take on.
Sometimes the useful part is simply having the space to think about it.
That conversation will continue at Backyard Sundays on 11 October at Piza e Vino, Melville, where Zané and HustleNest will be spending the afternoon alongside creatives, art lovers and the wider creative community.
There’ll be live performances, food, new work and, hopefully, a chance to have some of the conversations that don’t always happen when everyone is busy working.
Before then, there’s one question worth sitting with:
If things were a little more certain, what would you do differently?
Backyard Sundays
