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#Budgeting
phoenixyfriend · 8 months
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Do you think "Daphne is the one handling the budget" is at all a popular headcanon for the Mystery Gang?
I like the idea of Daphne pulling out some reading glasses to do the gang's bookkeeping in the shotgun seat on long drives. The bankrolling is definitely Daphne and Shaggy (they're the ones that come from money), but it's probably still a pretty limited amount of money to work with just based on how young they are.
I want to say that Shaggy's money is in some kind of trust until he's 25. Meanwhile, Daphne does have an allowance, which is pretty big since her parents know she's traveling and they may not approve of the company she keeps, but they DO want her to be safe... but it's not enough to just spend willy nilly, considering she's the bulk of the funds for four people and one dog.
Someone has to plan out what they spend on, like... food and hygiene. Trap supplies. Laundromat usage. The occasional motel night if the elements are making 'sleep in the van' a bad idea. Phone plans, depending on the era. Health insurance if their parents don't have them on-plan (depends on the year). Car insurance (legally required). The van is old enough to require maintenance and have a pretty crappy mpg, so the gas budget is pretty high. Yearly inspections and other "let's not get stopped by the cops" stuff. Vet visits (vaccinations, teeth cleaning) for Scooby. Medication for various chronic conditions they may have. Replacing Velma's glasses when they get broken or her prescription changes. Fred's hair gel, which I assume he has. Shaggy's weed stipend. So much sunscreen. Etc.
Like they do have homes to go back to in case they truly run out of money, but it's still a lot to cover, and emergencies on the road do happen.
Modern setting Daphne just does an accounting course online and gets a CPA degree all in service of: 1. Managing the team's money 2. Catching bad guys via audit
(I'd suggest a correspondence course for an older setting but they're always on the move so idk how effective that would be.)
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justalittlesolarpunk · 2 months
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hi! i love your blog :D do you have any advice to implement low waste and solarpunk aspects into everyday life with a tight budget? keep doing what you do!
Hi!
Thanks for asking - I’ve had this question before and it’s definitely a real problem. Organic, plastic free food is expensive. So is handmade durable clothing, and train fares these days. It can feel like only the rich can be solarpunks, which is pretty counterintuitive given its anticapitalist ideology. But! I’m here to tell you there’s lots you can do to bring solarpunk into your life in a cost-effective way.
To start with, lots of solarpunk spaces are free or cheap. Get a library card and you can borrow as many books and DVDs and other resources as you like. Look up to see if there’s a library of things in your neighbourhood, and join a buy nothing or stuff for free group online. Download TooGoodToGo, which lets you access food from local cafes and restaurants which would otherwise go to waste. See if there’s a repair cafe that operates near you - I managed to get a pair of trousers mended at one of these for free, and I had been thinking I would need to pay a tailor (which is fine if you can afford it! Skilled labour deserves fair wages!). In some places plant-based food is cheaper, so when it is, choose it. But in others it will cost more than animal products so you have to decide on a case by case basis whether saving money or a particular diet is more important to you.
There’s lots else you can do for minimal spending or that actually saves you money. Walking to work or school avoids the expenditure in the petrol for a drive or a bus fare. If you’re within walking distance and able to do so, I’d recommend it. Joining your local chapter of Extinction Rebellion, Friends of The Earth, Greenpeace, The A22 network or any other active climate group in your area is almost always free and just involves a small weekly time commitment. This will introduce you to activists and inform you about protests and public meetings you can attend.
If you have the time in your week and the physical ability, which I acknowledge many people don’t, you can also join some sort of volunteer group looking after a nature reserve or tending a community garden (which might also give you access to free or discounted food). Learning to forage is also a good skill as that really is free food!
Depending on where you are, a green electricity tariff *can* also be less expensive. If this is the case and you have control over your provider, it’s worth switching to it. Buying books and clothes secondhand will also be better for the environment and your bank balance. Teaching yourself about the climate and the natural world with podcasts, YouTube, online free articles and other resources is also free and the knowledge will help you keep solarpunk at the front of your mind. Read good news stories online whenever you can, to remind you that good things are happening already.
If you’re employed, you can also try to influence green policy at your workplace or in your trade union. If you’re at school or university, joining (or setting up!) the environmental society and/or lobbying for change at the SU are both good ideas and shouldn’t necessarily cost you anything. If you can - and I know this is inaccessible for a big swathe of the population - put a very small amount of money aside whenever possible, because the more you save the more you can afford to buy better products, donate to causes, help out the needy in your community, travel in a greener way, and other more expensive choices. It’s all about that dual power.
Hope this helps get you started!
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odinsblog · 1 month
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You see, friends? Anyone can become financially set-for-life like Kyle if you just take a few simple tips from him: -make sure your first job Senior Project Manager at your father’s hedge fund.  Put 25% of your $250,000 salary into a savings account.  I know that it’ll be hard getting by on just $187,500 a year, but if Kyle could do it, anyone can! -Why waste money paying for housing?  Just live for free in your grandparents’ vacant vacation home.  In Monterey. For a few years.  -Getting a mortgage to buy a house is a classic mistake. Instead, just get your uncle to give you $500,000! -Be sure to really tighten your belt. That means no vacations to Italy or Japan!  You’ll have to stick to vacationing in your own country instead! “Managing your spending is difficult, but if I can do it, anyone can!” THANKS KYLE!!!
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"it's gonna be a tight month" I say looking over my finances as if every month isn't a tight month
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empirearchives · 4 months
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“Bonaparte se délectait littéralement de la lecture des budgets des administrations.”
(Loose) Translation:
“Bonaparte literally delighted in reading the administration budgets.”
I’m crying I love this stupid nerd
Source: Pierre Branda, Le prix de la gloire: Napoléon et l’argent (p. 237)
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Elizabeth Warren on weaponized budget models
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In yesterday’s essay, I broke down the new series from The American Prospect on the hidden ideology and power of budget models, these being complex statistical systems for weighing legislative proposals to determine if they are “economically sound.” The assumptions baked into these models are intensely political, and, like all dirty political actors, the model-makers claim they are “empirical” while their adversaries are “doing politics”:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/03/all-models-are-wrong/#some-are-useful
If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/04/cbo-says-no/#wealth-tax
Today edition of the Prospect continues the series with an essay by Elizabeth Warren, describing how her proposal for universal child care was defeated by the incoherent, deeply political assumptions of the Congressional Budget Office’s model, blocking an important and popular policy simply because “computer says no”:
https://prospect.org/economy/2023-04-04-policymakers-fight-losing-battle-models/
When the Build Back Better bill was first mooted, it included a promise of universal, federally funded childcare. This was excised from the final language of the bill (renamed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill), because the CBO said it would cost too much: $381.5b over ten years.
This is a completely nonsensical number, and the way that CBO arrived at it is illuminating, throwing the ideology of CBO modeling into stark relief. You see, the price tag for universal childcare did not include the benefits of childcare!
As Warren points out, this is not how investment works. No business leader assesses their capital expenditures without thinking of the dividends from those investments. No firm decides whether to open a new store by estimating the rent and salaries and ignoring the sales it will generate. Any business that operates on that basis would never invest in anything.
Universal childcare produces enormous dividends. Kids who have access to high-quality childcare grow up to do better in school, have less trouble with the law, and earn more as adults. Mothers who can’t afford childcare, meanwhile, absent themselves from the workforce during their prime earning years. Those mothers are less likely to advance professionally, have lower lifetime earnings, and a higher likelihood of retiring without adequate savings.
What’s more, universal childcare is the only way to guarantee a living wage to childcare workers, who are disproportionately likely to rely on public assistance, including SNAP (AKA food stamps) to make ends meet. These stressors affect childcare workers’ job performance, and also generate public expenditures to keep those workers fed and housed.
But the CBO model does not include any of those benefits. As Warren says, in a CBO assessment, giving every kid in America decent early childhood care and every childcare worker a living wage produces the same upside as putting $381.5 in a wheelbarrow and setting it on fire.
This is by design. Congress has decreed that CBO assessments can’t factor in secondary or indirect benefits from public expenditure. This is bonkers. Public investment is all secondary and indirect benefits — from highways to broadband, from parks to training programs, from education to Medicare. Excluding indirect benefits from assessments of public investments is a literal, obvious, unavoidable recipe for ending the most productive and beneficial forms of public spending.
It means that — for example — a CBO score for Meals on Wheels for seniors is not permitted to factor in the Medicare savings from seniors who can age in their homes with dignity, rather than being warehoused at tremendous public expense in nursing homes.
It means that the salaries of additional IRS enforcers can only be counted as an expense — Congress isn’t allowed to budget for the taxes that those enforcers will recover.
And, of course, it’s why we can’t have Medicare For All. Private health insurers treat care as an expense, with no upside. Denying you care and making you sicker isn’t a bug as far as the health insurance industry is concerned — it’s a feature. You bear the expense of the sickness, after all, and they realize the savings from denying you care.
But public health programs can factor in those health benefits and weigh them against health costs — in theory, at least. However, if the budgeting process refuses to factor in “indirect” benefits — like the fact that treating your chronic illness lets you continue to take care of your kids and frees your spouse from having to quit their job to look after you — then public health care costings become indistinguishable from the private sector’s for-profit death panels.
Child care is an absolute bargain. The US ranks 33d out of 37 rich countries in terms of public child care spending, and in so doing, it kneecaps innumerable mothers’ economic prospects. The upside of providing care is enormous, far outweighing the costs — so the CBO just doesn’t weigh them.
Warren is clear that there’s no way to make public child care compatible with CBO scoring. Even when she whittled away at her bill, excluding millions of families who would have benefited from the program, the CBO still flunked it.
The current budget-scoring system was designed for people who want to “shrink government until it fits in a bathtub, and then drown it.” It is designed so that we can’t have nice things. It is designed so that the computer always says no.
Warren calls for revisions to the CBO model, to factor in those indirect benefits that are central to public spending. She also calls for greater diversity in CBO oversight, currently managed by a board of 20 economists and only two non-economists — and the majority of the economists got their PhDs from the same program and all hew to the same orthodoxy.
For all its pretense of objectivity, modeling is a subjective, interpretive discipline. If all your modelers are steeped in a single school, they will incinerate the uncertainty and caveats that should be integrated into every modeler’s conclusions, the humility that comes from working with irreducible uncertainty.
Finally, Warren reminds us that there are values that are worthy of consideration, beyond a dollars-and-cents assessment. Even though programs like child care pay for themselves, that’s not the only reason to favor them — to demand them. Child care creates “an America in which everyone has opportunities — and ‘everyone’ includes mamas.” Child care is “an investment in care workers, treating them with respect for the hard work they do.”
The CBO’s assassination of universal child care is exceptional only because it was a public knifing. As David Dayen and Rakeen Mabud wrote in their piece yesterday, nearly all of the CBO’s dirty work is done in the dark, before a policy is floated to the public:
https://prospect.org/economy/2023-04-03-hidden-in-plain-sight/
The entire constellation of political possibility has been blotted out by the CBO, so that when we gaze up at the sky, we can only see a few sickly stars — weak economic nudges like pricing pollution, and not the glittering possibilities of banning it. We see the faint hope of “bending the cost-curve” on health care, and not the fierce light of simply providing care.
We can do politics. We have done it before. Every park and every highway, our libraries and our schools, our ports and our public universities — these were created by people no smarter than us. They didn’t rely on a lost art to do their work. We know how they did it. We know what’s stopping us from doing it again. And we know what to do about it.
Have you ever wanted to say thank you for these posts? Here’s how you can: I’m kickstarting the audiobook for my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon’s Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they’re DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.
[Image ID: A disembodied hand, floating in space. It holds a Univac mainframe computer. The computer is shooting some kind of glowing red rays that are zapping three US Capitol Buildings, suspended on hovering platforms. In the background, the word NO is emblazoned in a retrocomputing magnetic ink font, limned in red.]
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navybrat817 · 4 months
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Trying to budget and trying to save and trying to get Christmas gifts. 😭
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No? Just me, lovelies?
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peachiesbambi · 5 months
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BUDGETING PLANNER
This ULTIMATE Budget Planner has everything you need to get out of debt, budget your money, track your spending, and skyrocket your savings rate. 👇👇👇
Budget Planner Printable PDF https://bamby-5278.myshopify.com/products/untitled-14sept_02-33?utm_medium=product-links&utm_content=android
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bitchesgetriches · 2 months
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Hi Bitches,
Mint has been merged with Credit Karma, and the result is incredibly disappointing. Do you have any suggestions for a replacement budgeting app?
We were hoping YOU could tell US!
No seriously, we are also devastated at the closure of Mint (merger, whatever... the point is Mint is no more). It was our go-to recommendation for budgeting software.
The best alternative we know of is YNAB: You Need a Budget. But I haven't done a price comparison yet, and we haven't personally tested it.
Anybody have some good alternatives to Mint?
Did we just help you out? Tip us!
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Black mothers ❤️😍
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oddlyhale · 6 months
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Call me a boomer or whatever, but I actually like doing budgeting.
If they're that strapped for cash, and if I had to make budgeting decisions, I would: - Cut Jaune out of the volume. Since his arc ends with him reverting back to his younger self, there's no need for him to be in Ever After. - Weiss killed Penny on the Golden Bridge. She's in terrible grief for what she did and is in constant anxiety to explain herself to Ruby. - Cut Little out of the volume. From what I understand, creating Little was a huge feat because their model is more complex than the usual models we see. Cut them out and save money and time from creating them. - Move the Red Prince battle at the end of the volume. We can keep the marketplace throughout the volume since it helps set some world-building of Ever After through the NPCs and environment. - Neo is fine in the volume, she didn't pop up much. And since she has no VA to be paid, Neo is very expandable, but it was good that they didn't overuse her this volume. - No suicide arc!! It was stupid!! - Keeping Ruby separated from her team for the majority of the time. Would save quite a bit of time and money to only focus on Ruby rather than having to focus on them all at once. Yang, Blake, and Weiss can have their own episodes. - Ruby starts to see glimpses of Weiss running off into different wooded paths, yelling something about being late. Ruby chases Weiss throughout the volume. Weiss doesn't stick around often and vanishes. - Neo is down on her luck. She doesn't feel the need to go after Ruby because she feels like she's trapped in another universe and she can't get back home. However, a new anger towards Cinder festers. - Instead of creating more Ever After characters, utilize the main characters. Weiss can be the White Rabbit and Blake can be the Cheshire Cat. Yang can either fight to stay normal or become a character. All will be cured by the end of the volume. Neo also starts to act like the Mad Hatter. - It appears that Ever After is taking over the minds of whoever has fallen. Ruby and Yang both feel the effects as they both start to feel different from their old selves, but they're able to stay original. - Eating food (A LOT OF FOOD) and drinking a lot of tea was a notable part of Alice in Wonderland 1951. They could say that eating anything from Ever After causes the character change. - Ruby can't find Cresent Rose but she does find Summer Rose's weapon at a blacksmith's shop (but she doesn't know it belongs to Summer Rose). She carries that around because it feels familiar to her, but also she wants a weapon to defend herself. It'd be fun to watch as Ruby tries to work with a new weapon. - Weiss sees the glass sword of Penny's. She doesn't remember Penny, but the sight of the sword throws her into a frenzy and makes her lose time. Her time dilation goes out of control and it causes bouts of chaos wherever she's at, but the Red Prince isn't bothered by it.
i'll come up with more later in a reblog
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sonicenvy · 1 year
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Want to try keeping better track of the money you spend and the money you earn this year? Don't want to pay for some stupid program? Want to do this but don't know how to make good spreadsheets? Never fear! I am here to tell you that I have made a spreadsheet for YOU!
Simply click the link to view the spreadsheet. It is in Google Sheets so you can use it there OR download a copy as an Excel file is that is better for you. If you want to use this sheet in Google Sheets, click File < Make a copy. If you want to use it in Excel, click File < Download < Microsoft Excel.
There are two, long, thorough tabs explaining how to use the In and Out sheets, and what in the world I am talking about in all of the column names. The data should auto populate for the Sum totals for all of the categories.
If you do use this and you have questions or find that something breaks, you can shoot me a DM on tumblr, send me an ask here on tumblr at sonicenvytumblr.com/ask or send me an email at [email protected] or [email protected]
Hope this helps someone out! :)
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lovecraftian-lolita · 3 months
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Where to Start as a Plus Size Lolita (Part 6)
Budgeting and Saving for Lolita Fashion
If you’ve scrolled for a little bit, you’ve probably noticed how expensive some pieces can get, especially brand! That’s because many of these pieces are high quality and will last an extremely long time if taken care of right. From the print to the construction, there’s a lot of love and care put into the pieces. That’s why lolita is considered a slow fashion rather than a fast fashion (pieces pumped out by factory of lower quality). This means pieces, even second hand, will be more on the expensive side. This guide will help you understand the average prices of (new + brand) pieces and give you tips on how to save so you can build your wardrobe smartly!
Note: prices will be in Yen (¥) and USD ($) and tend to fluctuate due to the invisible force called the economy! Prices are subject to change but the general idea will be the same!
(This will be a long one.)
୨୧ Buying Smartly ୨୧
Buy pieces you really really love
- Keep a list of your favorite pieces! Don’t just buy something you only kinda like. This will keep you from buying pieces impulsively. If you don’t know if you absolutely love a piece, sleep on it! When you see it again, will you feel the same?
Buy coherent pieces for a coherent wardrobe
- Like the last point, keeping a coherent list somewhere like Pinterest or a notes app or a wardrobe app to keep track of the pieces you want/need. Neutral colors like white and black are your best friends and go with anything!!! You do not need brand tights/socks and can easily get plain colored ones from Walmart, target, Amazon, or any grocery store/clothing store near you at a very cheap price for good quality.
Capsule Wardrobes save money
- Especially if you are just starting out, make a capsule wardrobe! This will include versatile items in matching colors in pieces like JSKs or skirts, neutral colored blouses and socks/tights, a petticoat (you only really need the one), a head piece or two, and shoes. You will be able to mix and match and get the absolute most out of your wardrobe!
Second hand is ok!
- Second hand can sometimes be a cheaper option! Stains, missing buttons, wrinkles, and other small defects can be an opportunity to find an item for cheap and put in a little elbow grease in exchange for saving some money.
Stick with one style
- If you are just starting out, sticking with one sub genre and even color palette will help save money. Whether it’s pastels, muted colors, or plain black, this will help you have an easier time coordinating and deciding which pieces to spend money on.
A note:
Please pay off any debts or outstanding charges before you start buying lolita. Your necessities will always come first. Lolita is a luxury fashion, you do not need it to survive.
୨୧ Saving money ୨୧
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If you are a Minor (and/or do not have a job):…
You probably do not have a steady source of income, and that’s ok. Understand that it will take a bit longer to acquire pieces until you get a job or a steady source of income. Please do not resort to buying knock offs, it is disrespectful and it’s art theft, and we do not like art thieves. There are cheaper options other than Brand™️ like indie, Taobao, and second hand! (Yes, even if you’re plus sized!) Buying lolita fashion takes time. People have spent YEARS building their wardrobes and waiting patiently for the right pieces, you are doing just fine.
Save up and set aside any money that comes your way. Whether that be birthday money, coins you save in a jar to take to the bank for cash, or maybe the lucky days you find some on the ground or in your pocket. Your savings will start off small but that’s ok!
Keep what money you have in a safe place to avoid spending on something impulsively.
To keep you from spending what little lolita savings you have, try organizing a cash envelope (this applies to anyone obviously) or binder. They’re very helpful for organizing your savings into different categories and keeps you from spending what you’re trying to save. If you are the type to not use cash when spending money, this will be a perfect way to keep you from dipping into your lolita fund.
Putting in 10-30$ of cash in every couple of weeks or whenever you get gift money adds up and adds up A LOT.
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If you are an adult (and/or have a job + steady source of income):…
Then you’ll be able to save quicker and will be able to probably acquire pieces quicker. My previous advice about a cash binder/envelope still 100% applies, but instead take a portion of each paycheck where you know you won’t be in any financial trouble and set that aside. Honestly, even with minimum wage you’ll have enough for a decent coord second hand/indie in a few months!
Also, the bank you use may have a savings account program in place. For example… my bank will take a selected portion of my paycheck and put it in a separate savings account. Then I use that to pay for my pieces.
Now, obviously everyone’s job is different and pay is different too. Please make sure you are setting enough money aside for necessities and emergencies + paying off debts before you indulge in this luxury hobby.
One last thing…
Please please PLEASE set aside money for shipping. If you are buying overseas, shipping is EXTREMELY expensive regardless of the country you’re buying from. Setting aside an extra 40-80$ will save you pain in the long run. Also if you are buying overseas, try to buy in bulk on ONE website to save on shipping all around. (Ex. Taobao/JP auction proxies).
Don’t be like me and spend 45$ shipping on a 30$ worth of Taobao accessories…
୨୧ Average Prices ୨୧
If you want to buy brand, lucky for you, pieces tend to stay around the same price! With some slight increase in recent years due to inflation and yen prices dropping, pieces tend to stay around the same price (when buying new!).
Angelic Pretty and Baby the Stars Shine Bright have similar prices. I’ll be separating and averaging out how much each piece in your coordinate will cost if you buy it brand new. (AS OF 2023)
Note/Advice:
1. Don’t buy petticoats from brand, it’s just not worth it. I will not be including them in the price run down. But please do save ~20-60$ for a petticoat.
2. You do not have to buy only brand. In fact, I encourage you to buy from other places as well. However, the prices vary so much it’ll be hard to give an accurate average, so please go through my previous guides and do research on brands featured.
Angelic Pretty ୨୧ Baby the Stars Shine Bright average Prices
Blouses -> ¥20,000 - $140
Main Pieces
- JSK -> ¥38,800 - $270
- SK -> ¥28,600 - $200
- OP -> ¥47,000 - $330
Legwear
- Socks -> ¥3,300 - $25
- Tights -> ¥3,800 - $27
- Shoes -> ¥17,500 - $125
Outer Wear
- Cardigans -> ¥18,400 - $130
- Coats -> ¥50,000 - $350
Accessories
- Headwear -> ¥5,500 - $40
- Rings -> ¥3,800 - $26
- Necklaces -> ¥6,000 - $40
- Parasol -> ¥ 6,500 - $45
Hopefully this helps you understand how much you will be needing save up and how much time it will take for you to build up your wardrobe. Second hand of course, is always an option but this gives you an idea of the value these dresses hold when brand new.
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Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
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phoenixyfriend · 9 months
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Ko-Fi prompt from KemiKitty:
id enjoy hearing about concerts and ticket money if you want
Referencing my “how does this make money/how does this lose money” in this post.
Whoo! I actually really enjoy talking about money flow like this. Digging into examples like this helps with understanding the interconnectedness of the economic systems we inhabit, and with why things cost What They Do.
Disclaimer: I have not worked in this industry. I just majored in business, watch a lot of documentaries/video essays, and like to break down business and economic topics. When I got to performances, I try to figure these things out as an observer (dinner theater from watching Lindsey Sterling before she got super famous, more Traditional concerts at Staller Performing Arts center, Broadway shows) and asking questions of tour guides when at places like the Vienna Opera House.
Our Example: A moderately popular performer, in an enclosed performance space with a stage, fixed seating, and food service.
Let us consider a performer of middling popularity. They go on tours, but only in the lower 48 states, not yet internationally. They do single nights at an independent venue, which has either dinner tables or rows of audience seating. Let's say... 350 seats, in a middle-sized city, with $30/ticket on average, with wiggle room depending on seating, VIP passes, and discounts (groupons, senior, military, annual passes, etc).
So, who is getting paid, and who is paying?
Money coming into the venue, tied directly to this one event:
Tickets The people who came to this concert are paying for the tickets. 350 seats, at an average of $30/ticket, that's about $10,500. Most of this money does not go to the venue, but may pass through it, or leave a cut with it. (Depends on the ticketing software; we're saying this is an independent venue, not part of the ticketmaster situation, so it's a maybe.)
Food and drink The venue sells snacks, possibly full meals, if it's a dinner-and-show location. It may sell alcohol. It almost definitely sells drinks, maybe has vending machines if nothing else. If attendees cannot bring their own food and drink, and don't want to leave the building so they don't miss the show, then the venue can mark up the food they sell.
Merchandise Dependent on the type of merch and the venue, this may be a flat fee, where the performer puts down a few hundred dollars up front to set up a table for after the concert, or it might be taking a small cut of whatever is sold that night. They might not charge anything, but we'll include it as a likely avenue of income. I can see some kinder venues waiving the fee for newer, up-and-coming artists, but generally you can assume that the venue will take a cut.
Money flowing out of the venue, tied directly to this one event:
The Performer and their team The ticket costs will go primarily to the performer, their backup dancers/singers/band, their manager, and whatever fund they have for things other than wages, like a tour bus rental fee, the label, the driver, the night's post-concert laundry costs, and so on. The chances of all that money going to a single performer is very low; you can generally assume they have backup, management, additional costs, and someone pulling the strings. There are exceptions, like unaffiliated stand-up comedians or other, genuinely solo acts, but for the type of event I'm outlining, these are all contributing factors. Performers may bring their own lighting/sound techs. The venue also might provide their own. For a larger venue, I'd assume both are involved; one who knows the concert's program, and one who knows the venue's setup.
Venue staff The ushers, lighting/sound technicians, the bar staff, the cook, the janitor, security, and anyone else who is working night-of is getting paid. We can equate their pay to the money coming in from specifically the food and drink sales, along with tips for the waitstaff in particular. By this, I mean that the correlation is such that, should sales fall, the corresponding cut in costs is employee labor (the bar staff and cooks), rather than the performers (whose costs are calculated in relation to the money they bring in relating to the ticket sales).
Food and Drink Raw ingredients for the food, wholesale costs for the liquor, napkins, single-use straws, and so on.
Printed Programs Someone has to print the little booklet that tells you who's performing tonight, who's performing for the next few months, and anything else you need to know. If it's a big-name cultural center, they may even include some interviews! But ink is expensive, and that's a lot of paper.
Money coming into the venue, not connected to the specific event:
Advertising Does the venue have posters around for local businesses? For insurance companies? For upcoming events? Someone is paying them for that. Does the venue intersperse the pre-show music over the speakers with the occasional ad spot? Someone is paying them for that. Does the venue have ads in the program booklet? Someone is paying them for that. For a really, really large venue, the kind with dozens or hundreds of employees and massive lighting/sound setups, they are liable to get most of their income from advertising.
Government Grants and Private Donations Depending on the venue, they may donations or grants. This is more likely to apply to a university/community performing arts center than a for-profit dinner theater, but it's a possibility.
Merchandise The venue may have merch that is unrelated to the performance of the night. A historic or novelty location is most likely to have success with this, selling beer glasses with their logo or a t-shirt with 'home of the [band from several decades ago]' printed across the front.
Money flowing out of the venue, not connected to the specific event:
Administrative/Overhead Employees Management, bookkeeping, legal, marketing, and so on.
Utilities Electricity, water, sewage, gas, telecomm, and so on.
Taxes, Licenses, Fees Sales tax, property tax, liquor license, etc.
Mortgage or lease The venue's business owner is not necessarily the one to own the property outright. They may pay rent to a property owner, or mortgage to the bank.
Maintenance - Building Codes Any large building is going to need plumbers, glass techs, electricians, roofers, and so on coming by with regularity. (This part, I actually do know; I used to do repairs dispatching, and you'd be amazed how frequently a big box store needs someone to come by about the toilets.)
Maintenance - Venue Codes There are certain things that an entertainment venue needs to do that other businesses... don't. Namely, fire safety. It's a huge deal. Staying up to code can be expensive, especially if you need to get your backstage/wing curtains chemically treated again, which can be anywhere from one to five years, or the next time someone spills water on it. (That's the main reason open containers of liquids aren't allowed backstage.)
Marketing Just like people pay the venue to advertise, the venue pays for others to advertise it. This could be in the local newspaper or online, but if a given performer isn't someone semi-famous on tour that has a following, then something else needs to draw in a regular paying crowd.
Miscellaneous Overhead There is a lot of overhead for any business of moderate size that has its costs spread out over the year. This includes hiring an accountant for tax season, purchasing uniforms for employees, replacing cutlery and plates and furniture as it wears out or gets lost, repainting the walls every few years, office supplies when the printer for the programs wears out, and so on.
Is this everything? Almost definitely not.
But, hopefully, I've untangled a few things that you may not have considered before.
Those tickets and drinks you bought cover a lot more than just the performer!
...unless it's through ticketmaster, in which case it's probably just the monopoly.
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explorewithriza · 1 year
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Time gone never returns.
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