You're listening to Life Kit from the NPR.

Paco De Leon is a financial coach and bookkeeper with the Helia group and Helia bookkeeping.

She is the author of Finance for the People.

Me, I'm a full-time journalist, but I do a lot of work on the side,

illustrating, writing, and hosting podcasts.

It can feel hard talking honestly about the money I make and how I handle it,

but Paco, who is also an illustrator and a musician, got it right away.

To be totally honest, a lot of the financial scaffolding in my life has been put together

with a lot of duct tape and chicken wire, and I guess there's like a lot of times where I'm

wondering if I'm doing the right thing.

Yeah, I happen to surround myself with creative professionals, and they have the same exact

feeling. It's like a piece of band-aid and some gum and fingers crossed, toes crossed,

and they're hoping that the IRS doesn't knock on their door and say,

Ruth, you're going to jail, you've been doing it all wrong. It's over for you.

So I am totally comfortable swimming in those waters with you.

This is NPR's Life Kit. I'm Ruth Tam.

On this episode of Life Kit, Finance for Creative Types.

If you're running your own business or creative side hustle,

and never thought you were the business type, our conversation is for you. You write in the

beginning of your book how it's basically our personal experiences that form our perceptions

around money and personal finance, and I was wondering what common experiences

do creatives tend to have that lead them to have common misconceptions about money?

...