Why do you want to join the Cashflow challenge?

I first learnt about Cashflow from a friend. I had a number of friends in my faculty who were interested in learning about how to generate passive income: although being a musician seems very glamorous and lucrative, the reality is that a lot of us have to spend large sums of money just to get decent sounding instruments, our source of income is extremely unpredictable and the amount of income that we get is often small. If you look at the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the musicians are not paid a great deal. They spend years in training, with instruments that can easily cost $30 000 to $60 000 or more, and are paid about $5000 per month on average, after long rehearsals. In short, we have high costs, and a small and unstable income. This is one of the reasons why orchestra musicians have been ranked as having the 2nd lowest job satisfaction scores - worse than a cleaner!

I was given the best wakeup call when I performed for an upscale hotel over the holidays and was paid $600 for 4 hours work. That is really good pay even by most music standards, and the hotel also offered to engage me to play for them every week at a rate of $120 per hour, 2 hours per session (professionals would probably earn about $140 per hour). Again it seems like a lot and initially I was happy. But then I did the math and it comes up to $960 a month. Music engagements are not very common even for professionals, and yes, I would probably have to live with that kind of income in a month, for most months. That's okay right now because I'm living with my parents. But if I lived alone, I probably couldn't make it a whole month on that alone. I am definitely not financially independent, and neither can I forsee becoming financially independent for a long time to come.

It is for this reason that my parents have advised me to give up music after I finish studying, and instead concentrate on doing a business. But that is not what I want to do. I have an endless passion for music and I really want to have a career in this field, but without financial independence, I can hardly insist that my parents support my dreams of becoming a musician. After all, they are not obliged to pay for me indefinitely, nor do they have the ability to do so.

The best way in which I can sum it up is to say that, I want to gain financial intelligence as much as possible so that I can be financially independent and be free to follow my dreams of becoming a professional musician, and I believe that Cashflow will be a great help on that. Thanks for hearing me out!