DOLLARS AND SENSE

SUMMERTIME — AND
it’s time to take a break
from tax planning, roller-
coaster stock markets and
an uncertain dollar,

Let’s tune in as four musicians
tell how they've found rewarding
lives, with or without money.

Tami Greer is a 34-year-old sin-
gle mother whose belief of “magic
happens if you believe in yourself”
was rewarded when a $10 million
lottery winner gave her $30,000 to
help produce her first record
album.

Danny Dill, 69, cowrote the
song, Derroit City, which has
appeared on more than 100 albums
worldwide. “It may sound comy,
but I’ve never done anything for
money in my life,” Dill said. “E
still don’t ask how much I'm get-
ting paid when I get a job.”

Nurses Barb Glenn, 38, and
Susan Nivert, 46, earn more than
US$100,000 a year between them.
They live so prudently they can
afford to spend their savings on
their money-losing side career as
the Derivative Duo, putting their
own lyrics to well-known operatic
melodies.

for love, not money

Musicians find that the rewards of life don’t necessarily cost money

Michael
Grenby

{ talked to the four between per-
formances at the $7th annual
Vancouver Folk Music Festival.
Their approaches to life and money
can teach all of us something.

“When my mother died of cun-
cer at the age of 58 — } was 24 —
it changed my whole perspective,”
Greer said. “I realized how short
life is.”

A friend gave her a guitar “as
part of the therapy of grieving.”
She started writing songs, support-
ing her daughter, Bree-ana, now
12, with a variety of odd jobs —
including playing for four years
with a band she formed — and
with social assistance when there
was no work.

“A woman who, with her hus-
band, had won $10 million in the
lottery a couple of years ago and
had heaid me sing, was looking for
a project,” Greer said. “She gave
me $30,000 and with the help of

66 They live so
prudently they can
afford to spend their
savings on their
money-losing side
career... 99

my friends I was able to produce
Shadow, my first album, earlier
this year —- a project that normally
would cost about $100,000."
Greer shares a house, paying
$425 a month rent, “I don’t own a
car,” she said. “I don’t own stuff.”
I love to go to thrift stores and
garage sales. It’s amazing how
imaginative you can become ona

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limited amount of money.”

Greer doesn't use credit cards
and hopes one day she'll make
enough money sv she can pay off
her $3,000 student Joan in one
lump sum.

“Pbelieve it will get casier for
me financially,” she said. “The
main thing is never to let go of
your aspirations,”

Dill, who lives with his daugh-
ter and her three children in
Nashville, travelled to Vancouver
to give six performances over two
days for $500. “If I did it for the
money,” he said, “I wouldn't do

Dill said he has never saved any
of what he earned. “I learned to
adjust my outgo to my income,” he
said. “I never missed a meal,
although I put off some.”

Dill also avoided debt: “I never
spent what I didn't have. I used to
drink a lot but I never bought a sin-
gle beer on credit.” His credo?
“I’ve always had a remarkable
faith that if I use my God-given
talents properly I'll get by.”

Glenn, a psychiatric nurse, and
Nivert, a psychotherapist in private
practice, admit to being tightwads.

“We simply don’t cultivate
expensive tastes,” he said. “Why
go to an expensive restaurant when
you can eat just as well in an inex-
pensive one?

“We don’t use credit cards and
avoid borrowing — except perhaps
using an interest-free loan when
we buy a car or other major pur-
chase. We don’t buy anything until
we have the money. We’re now
fixing up our house but we do one
part at a time as we can afford it.

The couple, who live in Seattle,
produced their first record album
last year, but, Glenn said, “our
singing career is expensive because
we often pay our own way to per-
form at festivals. That's our luxu-
ry, instead of something like ski-
ing.”

Nivert said while it’s important
to enjay saving money and buying
things that don’t cost much, “dumb

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luck” also helps. "We bought a
house in 1985 just before the
prices took off. We were then able
to borrow against the equity and
since then have invested the money
in three rentals.”

Nivert, who looks after all the
bookkeeping, said it helps if both
partners feel the same way about
money.

Mike Grenby is a North Shore-
based columnist and independent
financial adviser who works with
individuals; he will answer your
questions in this column as space
allows — write to him clo 2444
Haywood Avenue, West
Vancouver, B.C. V7V 1Y1,

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