Every time I ever go up for a SAG ad, I mentally spend the money I would make doing it. Fortunately, it's only mental - and technically spending is the wrong word, as I mentally assign the money to my various savings accounts.
Hey, what's a SAG ad? I hear some of you say. SAG is the Screen Actors Guild, and it's one of the unions that controls television advertisements. Like any union, it sets certain minimum payments a company has to give you for certain kinds of work. So if I were to book a SAG ad, I might not be a member of the union yet (it's complicated), but the company would pay me based on a certain scale.
I confess, I find that scale wildly confusing to follow in written form, so I really have no idea how much money I would make for any of these ads. But I know a friend made $20,000 for a SAG ad once. I don't know how often it ran and in what markets and for how long (all of these effect what you get out of it), but she had enough to make a down payment on a condo. So secretly, ignorantly (and presumably incorrectly), in my mind every time I go audition for one of these ads, I think of myself making $10,000, and mentally change my entire life.
Because I would go on exactly as I do now if I made an extra $10,000, but a lot of the stress in my life would be magically lifted. Firstly, just the very fact of making that kind of money doing the thing I love to do would be a personal victory. I would have justified a LOT of the time I have devoted to this profession. Second, I would immediately fund my entire Health Savings Account (and my husband's). Hey - for someone who basically pays for all medical expenses that would be an exciting event. (Yes, we have health insurance, but since we have it as individuals, the plan we can afford forces us to pay for nearly everything. In my world, there is no such thing as a co-pay. But if something catastrophic happened, we'd be covered.)
Third, and this may sound funny, but I'd pump up my savings accounts. I have been making ends meet in a time of economic disaster, but my savings have suffered. I want them beefy, not lean. I haven't cannibalized them, but I'm tired of having them erode a tiny bit every year.
I'd pay off some debt. Duh. (But honestly, I'd still fund the HSA before anything else.)
I'd throw some money in my car account so that I could pay next year's insurance without even wondering how.
Finally, if I could spread some money around all those places and feel like there was any left over, I would do as many of these things as I could afford:
1. Go to Macy's, give a personal shopper a chunk of money, and have her bring me scads and scads of beautiful clothes. I would then buy: three beautiful skirts, two tailored shirts, three tops of some lovely description, two sweaters or jackets that I adored, three pairs of really amazing trousers (one black, one pinstripe, one whatever I like best), three pairs of shoes and one pair of boots, and a dress that I felt drop dead fantastic wearing. Maybe some belts and necklaces. If there was enough money.
2. Buy a plane ticket to somewhere I have a friend I haven't seen in years. Spend some time there.
3. Get my engagement ring fixed.
4. Buy something terrific for my husband and my best friend. (That's two separate people, sorry, all you romantics.)
5. Get back to eeking out the rent a couple of paychecks at a time, but with a great deal of satisfaction.
If you've read this far, you can probably see this coming. I was up for a SAG ad this week - and I even got called back for said ad, which means there was an actual possibility I would get it. The callback was a blast - I had so much fun, and the woman I was auditioning alongside was phenomenal (I really really hope she got cast in at least one of these spots).
But I didn't get this one.
*sigh*
No comments:
Post a Comment