Tips for Independent Artists - Negotiation part 1

Over the next 10 weeks we will be looking at Negotiation. This is the stage about changing things and working out what is important and essential and what can be put on hold or cancelled now. Note this can be hard to get through because it feels pretty annoying and stressful. Please talk to other artists about your strategies and work online together even from different homes if needs be.

Banking investigation: • Jump on line and really spend some time looking at your bank accounts. • How many accounts do you have? • What are the charges, and how often do you get charged? • Do you have cards for all of these? Are they current? • What is each account for? – e.g. if it’s a saver type account and you can’t save anything you will be charged fees per month – shut it down • Check what direct debits you have coming out of which accounts? • Do you need one for your business / sole trader income and expenditure? • What do your credit cards look like? • What is the interest being charged on your credit cards? • If you have savings are they getting the highest interest possible? • What else can your bank do for you at this time?

Banking Actions: Make an appointment with your bank and work all this out. It may be exhausting but it is worth it and could save you money each month. Ask the bank person to do a full audit or analysis of you banking situation – they have heaps of tips and tricks and new types of accounts and options they can get you in a much better place. If you want to change banks explore all options. • Which accounts do you want to keep? • Which accounts are wrong for you? • Which accounts can you shut down to reduce monthly and annual charges? • Which credit cards can you get the interest rate reduced for? • With credit cards how much is available on them? Are they at their capacity? Can you think of some ways to pay this back? Can you ask the bank to change the type of credit card to reduce the interest? • Have your businesses expenses all been reimbursed onto your cards? Credit card debt can really stresses you out, so I ask the bank for ideas about solving this and ask friends about their strategies.