What if Creativity and Money had a baby?

 It’s not what you think.

You think that I am going to tell you to get creative in ways to make money.
“Earrings for goats!”
“Ride share unicycles!”

Or creative ways to save money.
“Turn COVID19 masks into adult diapers!”
“Eat air for dinner.”

But the creative mind is a money mind in more ways than coming up with that million-dollar idea.

Simply doing something… anything… creatively uses a different part of the brain than the money/worry part.

When you step back and paint or write or sing you are engaging the part of your brain that searches for new and novel solutions.

THAT’S what gets you unstuck.

Your creativity doesn’t have to be related to your problem.

The other day I was worried that all of my husband’s work opportunities were drying up during the pandemic shutdown.

How would we make our money situation work?
How would we pay the bills?
(Imagine wringing of hands here.)

So what did I do?

I made a birthday card for a friend.
And as I cut and pasted, colored and glittered, it suddenly struck me (as happens during creative bursts) that we could rob a liquor store.

Not that we would.

But we have options.

And that got me giggling (another great part of your brain to tickle if you want to get out of a pickle) and it popped into my brain to look for other ways I could make money.

Just because I already have a job doesn’t mean I can’t double down. I would gladly do it.
My husband is a hard worker. And I am too.
We are a team.

If I had remained focused on the problem… he doesn’t have work… I would never even have thought about all of the different options we have.

We could live in our camper and lease our house.
We could dip into our retirement savings.
We could sell things.
We could get our kids to work and contribute. 

We are well equipped to handle time of financial adversity, but it wasn’t always that way.
And it makes me feel freer to think about all my options. 

Creativity, my friends… that’s freedom on a stick.