aka: how to build financial resistance in 2026 that will still allow you to create and develop projects.
In 2020, I decided to change my approach to consumption, which incidentally had a very positive effect on my creative art practice.
At first, my desire to reduce spending was driven by financial goals and the insecurities brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. To progress with my financial goals, I started leaning towards long-lasting, vegan (when possible) products I wouldn’t have to replace for years to come.
Most of those products had a higher price tag than their disposable equivalents. But in the long run, the low-impact options ended up costing me much less. That was an eye-opener, as for years I had been consuming without thinking about what I was consuming and spending, including investments in my creative art practice and my projects. I’ve been running my creative art practice since 2005. So naturally over the years, I’ve had a variety of expenses, often depending on the projects I developed, how many film festivals I attended, and the basic costs of maintaining the practice. Since 2005, just like the rest of the world, I’ve experienced quite a few financial shocks so figuring out how to crisis-proof my creative art practice became part of my financial literacy learning.
Financial Decisions I Made in 2026 (Jan-May ’26) That Will Pay Dividend (Creative, Artistic & Financial) in the Years to Come
In 2026, I made a few major decisions that have allowed me to move money to projects that needed an extra financial boost:
• I stopped paying forpremium Grammarly subscription. That wasn’t easy, as I’m dyslexic and spelling is my Achilles’ heel.
• I switched my server provider from SiteGround to Hostinger. For two years with Hostinger, I paid 30% of what SiteGround wanted to charge me a year, despite being a long-term customer (around 10 years).
• I stopped paying for two of my project domains as it wasn’t necessary to keep them.
These three actions saved me about £450 after paying for the Hostinger server for two years in advance.
Shopping around does pay off. And if a company doesn’t care about its existing clients, what’s the point of staying, right?
Reinvesting into my Creative Art Practice
Having that extra £450 allowed me to:
· Pay a designer to redesign my children’s books and book covers, as I needed to update the books. So far, I’ve spent £195.45 on redesign and £17 on printing (just a copy of each book to see how they look and feel).
· Instead of paying for Grammarly, I paid £34.74 for a yearly Ginger Software subscription (don’t buy it not worth the money, but I’ll write about that another time).
• I got new business cards (£15.50).
• Paid for a monthly subscription to Descript (£18.56).
• Paid for Canva for a month (£13).
• I also have a yearly Wondershare Filmora subscription (£47.99) coming up for renewal.
• Regarding music for my videos, at the time of writing, I have two months left on my current subscription. After that, I’ll either shop around for a better price or maybe not use music in my videos for a while.
All of the above comes to £294.25 (without Wondershare Filmora).
I saved £450 on Grammarly and hosting, that leaves £155.75 that I can still potentially invest in my creative art practice this year just from the savings I made at the start of the year.
Why It Matters?
The prices of everyday goods are being highjacked by corporations, ongoing wars, and the impact of climate change on food production and the global supply chain. For years climate scientists and environmentalists have warned about the unsustainable way food is produced and moves around the world. But as with a lot of the environmental issues their concerns have been dismissed for years.
If you want to run creative art practices in a more sustainable way, without constant financial stress, you need to think differently and prepare. Constantly choosing between creativity, working on an art project, and paying the bills is not sustainable in the long run.
Making smart financial decisions when the times are good and relatively quiet, shopping around for services and softwares, comparing prices, and not being afraid to change providers will help you get back your time to focus on your creative art projects.
Ultimately not having to chase money to cover ongoing costs to keep your creative art practice running will give you the brain space to focus your energy on creativity.
Neurodiverse POV
For many years, I struggled to understand finances because I mixed my personal finances with my creative art practice expenses. When I had extra money, I would invest that money in projects, hoping that one of the projects would become “the project”.
After spending time learning how finances work, and after a lot of rejection of my projects and ideas, I can now say with certainty that if you are an artist or creative, you need to:
• learn how money works as early in life as possible,
• learn what money is for and what it can buy for you (in my case it is freedom of time and choice),
• learn about investments and savings early on,
• always save a percentage of your income every time you get paid,
• pay off your consumer debts (or avoid them if possible),
• keep your creative spending budget tight even in good times,
• think about retirement in your 20s and explore options that align with your values (you don’t need a massive investment portfolio if that doesn’t fit your personality; there are many amazing people out there who promote alternatives),
• don’t be afraid to charge the right amount for your services and artwork.
How do you make your creative art practice more sustainable and more crisis-proof in the long run? Would love to hear from you.
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