The Creative’s Monday –
When you are a creative selling on the weekend, your Monday is different from other people’s. You probaably didn’t have the weekend off to rest and rejuvenate. You were most likely working. Thus making the creative’s Monday different from everyone else.
Monday morning may see you heading back to your full-time job after working all weekend! Maybe Monday is a travel day for you. Heading home or driving to your next show. Perhaps Monday is the day you get back into your studio to create again.
Or is your Monday more like other people’s Saturday? Running around doing errands, catching up on your laundry, and checking things off your personal to-do list.
Whatever your creative Monday looks like, make sure you take a few minutes to track your expenses from your last show. You know, the ones you may forget in a couple of weeks. The water bottle you needed to purchase because it was so hot, or was it coffee because it was so cold?
Here is an example of the sneaky expenses I had from this past weekend in Florida.
I picked up my rental car, entered the fair address in the GPS, and was on my way. Only to find out I was on a toll road. An unexpected expense and one I would surely forget about at tax time since I live in a state where tolls just don’t exist. And then there was the water at the fair because holy smokes, it was steamy in Central Florida this weekend!
These items were paid in cash, so I can’t rely on my credit card statement to look up old expenses. And I don’t have receipts from either of them. ?
I created a google spreadsheet to track these expenses, and I am sharing it with you.
There is no cost to download or use the document. It will help you track where you are spending money. It includes places for hotel, tolls, mileage, and other expenses you have while attending your fairs over the weekend.
And even better, there is a sheet for each fair, which will pull up to a front-page so you will have your show expenses at your fingertips when it is time to do your taxes!
Just make sure to do it sooner rather than later, so those unexpected cash items don’t get forgotten.
Click here to access your expense tracker. It is free to use and share. If you save it to your own Google drive, you will have it available to you while traveling. Please feel free to share it with other creatives as well. There is no cost to use or share it. (Please make a copy for yourself, so you don’t change the original.)
If you get value from it, please feel free to join The Art Fair Gallery community.
We are building a community for you to give or receive support from other artists. And when you fill in your artist information, you become searchable on the site by potential customers looking for you. Because you may not know it, but your customers from last year are trying to find you again this year.
If you have questions, please feel free to reach out to us at info@theartfairgallery.com.
Now that we have the expenses out of the way, it is time to create.
Getting past your creative Monday and onto the rest of your week. Make it a great one.
