Money Diaries: A Week of Spending with Poet & Arts Writer Kate Meadows

Happy Thursday, and welcome to Working Artist’s very first Money Diaries! This idea dawned on us shortly after we met, and both of us decided to take a look at our daily finances for a week this past August, to our great horror and/or delight. We recognized the beauty in providing an honest glimpse into a week of earning, spending, and working for folks pursuing a creative discipline, so to kick us off, we have Working Artist co-founder and editor Kate Meadows (a.k.a the recessive thread, author of the Substack “desire lines”) to walk us through what a week looks like living on a part time/freelance income. Stay tuned for founder Elizabeth’s (vastly more responsible) money diary, coming soon.

P.S. If you’re interested in submitting a money diary of your own, our inbox is open: workingartist2000@gmail.com

I abruptly quit my full-time job at a gallery this past May. I had plenty of rational reasons to leave, like knowing that the frequent weeknight overtime would conflict with starting my creative writing MFA this fall. But if I’m being totally honest, I also rewatched the movie Office Space at a particularly weak moment. I was making $45k/year, which was the most I’ve ever made with the exception of a few deranged weeks in 2021 when I was making doubles out of my 3 restaurant jobs.

Quitting was the first time in my financially-independent adulthood that I didn’t feel a massive sense of dread while staring down the barrel of unemployment. I’d been fine before, and I was going to be fine again. The past few years of floundering in the job market have made me scrappy.

After the quitting-your-job drug wore off (like no other high), summer turned into a fever dream. I started sleeping an unprecedented amount and didn’t leave the apartment much, trying to live off the last of what I had from the job and the little bits of money I was pulling in from freelance projects. I’ll admit my mom also gave me some cash because she felt sorry for me that I crashed a rental car immediately after quitting my job. That’s another long story, but it’s also helped me keep my head above water. 

I only recently landed a job as an office assistant at a literary agency. This feels nice and stable, the exact type of thing that I was looking for—but of course, I’m terrified it won’t last. It’s a part-time permanent position: 21 hours and $525 a week in an industry that I’ve been desperately wanting to work in forever. My criteria had whittled down to “not a gallery,” so it’s amazing to actually pivot into something, anything, to do with books. 

I’ve also been working flexible hours as a cater-waiter, and have two regularish freelance writing gigs: one writing articles for a digital arts journal STIRworld, and another writing copy for Co-Star’s Instagram. That’s anywhere between $150-400 extra a month, but that income remains as erratic as my spending habits.

Currently I have $628 in my checking account, $601 in my savings, and just south of $15k in credit card debt. How will I survive with $1800 of monthly expenses in New York? Trust me, it can be done. As the calendar shifts from July to August, I start my new job, work on some freelance projects, and start spending money again like it’s the apocalypse. Welcome to my confessional. 

Monday, July 29

6AM - I wake up and my little dog, Zeke, is barking. I can’t tell if it’s morning because the apartment is perpetually dim. My boyfriend and I live on the ground floor of a single-family brownstone in the southernmost part of Clinton Hill. It’s a beautiful and overpriced apartment—I pay $1000 of our $3150 rent and Carmine pays the rest. He makes six figures as a waiter at a fine dining restaurant, where I met him three years ago as a hostess. That was one of my first jobs after moving to the city. They fired me for not being bubbly enough, and also for being “young and naive.” In truth, I was the definition of wet behind the ears. Textbook green. 

7AM - I consider getting up. I could get a head start on two writing jobs I need to finish today. I could go for a run. I could go out and get toilet paper since we’re actually down to our last square. I fall asleep again until 11AM.

12PM  - After procrastinating work by tidying the apartment and staring blankly at my laptop, it’s -$38.49 at Key Food for an 8-pack of 1 ply, cold brew, microwave popcorn, and a box of pistachios that I plan to use for a cucumber salad later. Of course, the total is just over the $37 in cash that Carmine generously handed me after offering to wait outside the store with the dog. This is why I never shop at Key Food. I hand Carmine back the cash because I’m not sure how the debit card-cash exchange will go over in the money diary. 

2PM - The first project of today is one for an artist I met while volunteering at The Monira Foundation, a studio residency in Jersey City, back in 2022. The New York art world is very small, so inevitably we bumped into each other at my last gallery. Then she emailed me to see if I knew anyone who needed a gig—to which I responded, I do! This artist is also an art critic, so this project involves editing an AI-generated interview transcript and comparing it against the audio. I’ve done this a few times for my own interviews and it usually feels tedious. But the two speakers have lovely-sounding voices and I’m learning a lot about natural paints.

3:45PM - Lunch is the crushed cucumber salad with feta, dill, and pistachios. Carmine jumps in to help make it without me asking, claiming that this recipe was invented by one of the owners of the restaurant group he works for. The salad is amazing by my low standards. I pretty much never cook, I’m more of a preparer. And even then, maybe more of a scrounger.

4:45PM - Back to work. Lunch took an hour, which is why I scrounge. I finish at about 6PM and take out the rest of the salad to eat while I read the transcript over one more time. I draw up an invoice to send to the arts writer for this and some data entry I’ve done for her over the past few weeks (+$180). It’s not much, but I got a good feeling about offering to work with this person. She actually offered to help me pitch to a publication I’ve really been wanting to pitch to. Priceless.  

7:15PM - I still have some more work to do on an exhibition review for STIR I have due on Wednesday, but I decide to take another break and walk the dog who’s been staring at me with a baleful expression for the past half hour. 

It’s a mellow dusk outside, totally gorgeous, even if a little stinky. I saw that it was supposed to rain today—which was my original excuse for not leaving the apartment to work—but it doesn’t look like it has. The walk, like every walk, is simply an exercise in me trying not to get Zeke to piss on anybody’s personal property. I love him though. Half the stuff I own is hand-me-down—things friends didn’t want—and that includes the dog. 

I contemplate trying to stop somewhere for “real food” because I’m getting kind of hungry again, but decide against it when considering this morning’s grocery damage. I don’t know why I hate spending money on food so much more than I do on things that are completely unnecessary for my survival. 

8PM - I will myself to open the draft of the exhibition review. It’s late and I have to get up early tomorrow for my first day at my new job, so I tell myself I won’t work on it past 10PM. But I do need to finish it today because after work I’m meeting up with my friend Maddie who I’m certain I’lll end up drinking with until late into the evening. 

9:15PM - The article is pretty much done, but needs heavy edits. Hopefully I can manage that tomorrow night. I go ahead and prepare the images and photo credits, and an email draft to my editor that’s all ready to go for Wednesday morning. I gotta stop looking at my laptop because I’ve had a little eye twitch for the past week and my vision is starting to blur. I shower, make some toast with jam, and start the third season of Vanderpump Rules, which I watch until Carmine gets home at midnight.

INCOME: +$180

SPENDING: -$38.49

Tuesday, July 30

8:30AM - Train swipe (-$2.90) headed to the literary agency, which is the west 90s. I’m rereading an old copy of The Bell Jar I heavily annotated when I was 15. My highlights and notes are in hot pink, and they feel very high-school-English-class. I get embarrassed whenever I open the book, worried someone is reading these asinine scribblings over my shoulder.

9:20AM - Espresso tonic, ham and cheese spinach puff, 15% tip (-$12.52) at a coffee shop near the office. I always tip at least $1 for coffee and 20% everywhere else it’s an option. It probably keeps me broke. I believe in karma. 

10AM - The office is full of books and ancient electronics, and like my apartment, a dark and dusty ground-floor unit. It dawns on me that this is the first job I’ve ever had that’s not client-facing. I get to just do my thing on the computer. All of the tasks are relatively straightforward—it’s mostly paying authors their percentage of royalties that come in from publishers—and the last assistant printed out guides for everything I need to do. The two agents I work with are extremely gentle-mannered, and they leave me alone. No hovering. It’s a breath of fresh air. 

1:45PM - Orzo salad and a coconut water for lunch from the Trader Joe’s up the street (-$7.26). Thank God. 

3:30PM - One of the agents tells me I can go home early today, and luckily Maddie’s free to meet me in half an hour for a picnic in the park. It’s -$26.40 at Trader Joes for picnic provisions: mango chunks, baby bell peppers, Babybel cheese, a can of knock-off Pringles, something called “Enchanted Jangle” that looks like a melange of candy coated cookies, two Sapporo tallboys, and two beef sticks because I know Maddie likes those. Fuck you, Key Food. 

4PM - I sweat out my entire body weight going downtown to Columbus Circle (-$2.90) and find a grassy spot near the park’s entrance. Maddie arrives, looking stunning in a pale green vintage-style dress. 

We make some good progress on the Sapporos and smoke, by the end of the night, probably like ten cigarettes each. We line the butts up in the empty beef stick wrappers, one of which Maddie actually puts into her purse even after we dispose of our more elevated artwork (Babybel wax sculptures). 

Grant, Maddie’s fiance, is coincidentally in the area and shows up wearing a full suit. We laugh over the fact that the three of us look kind of crazy together. Like a J-crew ad from different departments of the store.

6:30PM - I invited Carmine to come hang out with us, since he and Grant are former coworkers and the four of us haven’t gotten together in over a year. He comes straight from his haircut wearing gym clothes—which really rounds out our group—to meet us at Bad Roman, a restaurant in the nearby mall that Grant suggested we try. It ends up being vibey in a bad way, like TikTok vibey. Maddie and I let the boys order and we share crudo, ricotta, pasta, and a chicken cutlet. It’s fine, but the martini I got tastes like abandoned pool water. 

11PM - I’m having a good time but I can feel myself starting to fade. I know I have to finish my article when I get home. Luckily I’m not that drunk, even after a glass of Prosecco. Not so luckily, Carmine took his Vespa here and doesn’t have my helmet with him. Maddie and Grant are taking an Uber back to their apartment in Little Italy, but first they’re going to get a hot dog. I resolve to just take the train home. My phone is on the verge of dying. This always happens to me—dead phone on a late night commute home. 

Carmine very sweetly hands me his card for one of the yellow taxis at the curb. Then I realize I don’t know his PIN and end up paying once I get home (-$55.80). Ouch. An Uber would have been cheaper. 

When I get in, the dog gives me this show of excitement that he usually reserves for Carmine alone. That’s right. I’m your mom.

12AM - I take a hot shower and scrub off the sweat and cigarette smoke. I immediately hop on my laptop, chop and screw the article, schedule-send it for tomorrow, then crawl into bed. 

INCOME: +$0

SPENDING: -$107.78

Wednesday, July 31

8:30AM - Train swipe (-$2.90). I listen to Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters album in full for the first time. I have the intro to the song “Ladies” stuck in my head all the time, and only recently remembered it was Apple. It’s a masterpiece: Ruminations on the looming effect and the parallax view, and the figure and the form and revolving door…

9:30AM - I decide to skip the coffee shop today and go straight to Trader Joe’s, where I get a bottled cold brew, a greek yogurt cup, and an Italian sandwich (-$8.41). I open the yogurt on a bench outside and it splatters on my hair, my shirt, my jacket, and my face. It’s humbling. 

10AM - Work is becoming even easier. It’s a lot of math—money math, ironically—but it’s relaxing and satisfying. I realize I’m better at using spreadsheets than I thought. I love printing letters on the letterhead.

4:30PM - One of the agents tells me he’s wrapping up now, and mentions that he’ll be going upstate for an errand tomorrow, so that I can take the day off. He also tells me that I can print myself a check for +$525. $525 for 11 hours of work? Wild. For me, at least. I catch the C back to Brooklyn in a state of utter merriment (-$2.90). 

5:30PM - A quick run to Target with Carmine once I get home: dog food, dog bags, and miniature ice cream sandwiches (-$41.41). I insist on paying because I saw him transfer a sub-100 amount from his savings into a sub-100 checking account before we left. Apparently he paid a bunch of bills yesterday and he doesn’t get paid until Friday, but I feel extra guilty about him paying for dinner last night. 

6:15PM - Carmine makes us salmon and star pastina—which I never noticed is actually extremely tiny stars—and we watch TV. I vow to be more productive tomorrow to make up for my eveningtime sloth.  

INCOME: +$525

SPENDING: -$55.62

Thursday, August 1

9:30AM - I wake up feeling chipper. I resist the urge to tidy the apartment and get to work. I make edits on my article, email back my editor, follow up with the director of the Met (scary) to see if she can hook me up with an artist for an interview I’m commissioned for by STIR.

STIR pays $150 per 800-1000 word article, and I usually write two per month. The catch is that they’re based overseas, so it takes 40-60 days after I submit an invoice for the international wire to come through. I tend to batch them together, and I’m still waiting on payment for my last grouping—something like $650. Any day now. 

2:45PM - I leave the apartment and head into Manhattan (-$2.90) because there’s another show I have a review due for in 10 days. Since it’s on the way, I decide to stop by my grad school’s campus and get a physical student ID. 

It’s not until I arrive, sweating, that I remember I’m supposed to have my picture taken. At least I dressed nice-ish today: I’m wearing a black sleeveless chiffon dress that used to belong to my mom, and I’m showing cleavage for probably the first time since it got warm out. I end up looking like a chipmunk in the picture. I text a picture of it to Carmine. Then I text a picture of it to my mom. 

3:30PM - Since I got paid yesterday, I’m gripped by the sudden urge to buy something I don’t need. I remember that Shakespeare & Company across the street has a student discount. I purchase two books, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers and the same collection of Elisa Gabbert essays that Maddie brought to the park yesterday. I also buy a chic gray ballcap with the school’s logo on it because I’m in a fugue state and feeling rich (-$61.20).

4:00PM - I head up to Nahmad Contemporary. The walk up Madison is pretty. I feel like an uptown girl now. 

The show is a crowded group exhibition of self portraits. I’m surprised that they wanted me to review this. I remember I was actually here many moons ago for the Ugly Paintings show that Dean Kissick curated—this is a similar gimmick, but there are some interesting pieces here. I especially like Louis Eisner’s quiet little portrait of himself in profile, which is fixed in a handmade bronze frame. So often exhibitions grow on me after I start to write about them. 

4:30PM - I head back down to the university because I’m hungry and there’s a Bondi sushi nearby. On my way back, I spontaneously stop at the Diptyque Store to see if I can cop a free sample, which is something I used to feel smart about doing all the time. I smelled Eau D’Papier on a friend a few months ago and loved it. The shopgirl sprays it onto one of those fragrance papers and waves it around. No, they don’t do sample vials here, she tells me. Only with a purchase. I feel like she sees me for the criminal I am. I spray some on my wrists and do a fake lap around the store before leaving. 

One tuna and cucumber roll hits the spot (-$17.40). I search on Google Maps for the best way to get home and start feeling some regret about coming all the way up here. I sense that it’s going to be a journey.

6:45PM - It turns out that I’m right (-$2.90). Heavy delays, oppressive heat, whole platforms devoured by walls of people. It takes over an hour for me to get spit out at Hoyt-Schermerhorn. I’m only a few stops away from my apartment when there appear to be no more local trains running. I text Carmine and ask if he could pick me up on the scooter, and he says sure, and then my phone immediately dies. 

I’m reading on a concrete block on Hoyt when I see Carmine coming down Schermerhorn. He stops at the light and I wave at him, delighted. My knight in shining pastel steel. I thank him profusely. Of course I was gonna come, girl, I wouldn’t leave you hanging, he says. I hop on the back and the ride home feels like a movie. 

I spend the rest of the evening washing my hair and doing various chores before falling asleep on the couch. 

INCOME: +$0

SPENDING: -$84.40

Friday, August 2

9:30AM - I wake up with a sore throat and stuffy nose. I figure that it’s a little summer cold and that it’s fine. But I end up doing nothing the rest of the day—canceling my plans to go to an opening and spending the day wasting away on the couch while it storms outside. I cuddle the dog because he’s scared, take a long nap, and look at a few emails without responding. 

11AM - The Met rejects our interview request because the artist is too busy right now doing the thing we wanted to interview her about. I’m honestly a little relieved. 

12PM - I get an email back from the director of the grad school program about whether or not I actually owe the past due $4,000+ tuition charge that’s showing up on my student account. That was a bit of a jumpscare, as the MFA is supposed to be fully-funded for New York state residents. Apparently the award will come in September, the director says. I’m more than a little relieved. 

5PM - There’s actually some new money in my account from a catering gig I did last week (+$125). That one wasn’t as bad as the one before, because the one before was for a multi-millionaire’s 65th birthday out in Jersey, which was exactly how you might imagine. It was carrying heavy trays of hors d’oeuvres up and down stairs and bussing glassware without trying to break any by the pool for 6 hours straight, and then setting up and breaking down this massive tacky structure the company built in the backyard. I spent 14 hours there in total. I can’t remember the last time my body hurt so much, or the last time I felt so morally repulsed the excesses of these types…definitely not worth the $350. But the last one was easier, mostly just polishing silverware and bussing the soggy remains of hundreds of iced matcha lattes for some skincare conference at the James Hotel. Only mild moral repulsion and bodily pain for that one. 

INCOME: +$125

SPENDING: -$0

Saturday, August 3

11AM - Slept in, but feeling better. It just kind of feels like allergies now. Runny and sneezy. Carmine and I walk the dog and then play a bunch of NYT games together before he leaves for work. 

1:45PM - I get a text from someone who I used to be very close to, asking if I want to call in a bit. I was just thinking about her. I was cleaning the sink this morning and wondering about the health of her mother. And the day before yesterday I was thinking about how much I missed her, when things were good, as the first train home pulled in. I was remembering that loving someone means also missing them when things were bad. 

We immediately slip back into our familiar banter, and then have a long philosophical conversation about being stretched between the desire for urbanity and rurality, the fear of both tedium and chaos, and how hard it is to have fun while trying to be an adult. I get a more clear perspective on what happened when she exited my life. I get to clarify and apologize for a lot of stuff, too. There was a void in my life when she left New York, but I’m glad she did, because she sounds so much happier now. On our call, she puts so well into words what it feels like to be lost in this place. 

Two hours go by. It’s insane to suddenly feel perfect closure about something I tortured myself over daily for an entire calendar year. It’s insane to hear the voice of someone I’ve missed so much for so long. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced that before, exactly.

5PM - I decide that it’s too late to go hunker down and write in a coffeeshop like I’d planned, but I need to get out of the house. It’s a good time to go for a contemplative walk. I head into Bedstuy. 

Once I hit Tompkins, I go into a couple different stores to look for a gift for Anna, whose birthday is in less than two weeks. She got me an extremely meaningful birthday gift last year, so this needs to be really good. Nothing I see is quite up to snuff. She deserves so much more than a candle or a bath bomb or socks. 

6PM - -$11.98 for a salmon rice ball, a tuna rice ball, and a bottle of water. As soon as I sit down at a table outside, it starts to rain again. The woman at the window immediately offers me a plastic bag, which I find touching. I’m looking for some scaffolding a few blocks down when I discover an open community garden. Tucked in the back is a wooden shelter with seating. My deus ex machina. Let the mosquitos eat me alive. 

I get an email from a publication that a few of my poems are live on their website. One of them I wrote over a year ago, and it goes like this:

Opalish ring unearthed from the floorboards:

I know instantly what belongs to you. Tarnished

& filthy as my face behind yours in the bathroom mirror,

the yellowing pillow I kept tucked on a shelf

for nights when you did not long for home,

nights when we brushed one another’s teeth,

muscles limp from liquor. I think this place

has retained something small of you

as soil holds on tight to water before

releasing it a little less of itself

and dirtier. You witnessed the neighborhood

for every season but this one, late-June

mulberries mixing wine for whole families of vermin.

Friend, I wanted everything to be yours,

so I pressed my city into your palm

like an unclean charm. I figure the ring

abandoned your finger in slumber, leaving

no word in its wake. I pull it on and off and on

index, middle, ring, pinky, thumb: dumb

trick of retrieval. Somewhere down south,

you are singing your song of the desert to someone

like a precious, false stone.

Ironic that it would be published today of all days. The poetry I’ve been writing recently is so different from this mush, but I still like the way the poem sounds—the lines stick in my head easily. The revised version ended with “in a precious, false tone” but it doesn’t look like they updated from the most recent draft I sent. Probably for the best. 

7:15PM - The dog needs another walk, but it’s raining again, hard now. Zeke hates all forms of water. Instead I take a shower, put on a sheet mask I remembered I have in my fridge, open a beer, and schedule-send a few emails I avoided responding to yesterday.

As usual, I’ve done nothing of note on my Friday or Saturday night. I stay up until Carmine gets home a little before 2AM. I do this often so I can give him a kiss when he gets home. It’s much easier to fall asleep talking side by side in bed. 

Income: +$0

Spending: -$11.98

Sunday, August 4

11AM - I spend (-$9.48) on a cortado and a cardamom bun at a pricey bakery on the way out of my apartment. I have a vendetta against this bakery and don’t know why I do this. 

1PM - Train swipe (-$2.90), headed to Bushwick because I want to see the artist from the interview transcript’s work. He has a solo show right now at Bob’s gallery, which is only open on Sunday afternoons. I’m surprised that the gallery is located on the same street where Carmine and I first lived together in 2021, which is also the street I went to frequently to visit my friend when she lived here in 2022. Still, I never had any idea that this was here. 

I get nostalgic again walking from the Bushwick-Aberdeen stop, like I’m touring my old lives. Life was probably ten times more difficult and pathetic when I used to make this walk every day, and now things are better. For some reason the walk doesn’t make me feel sad. I feel tender, kind of light. 

1:45PM - Bob’s gallery is an apartment gallery. I like apartment galleries. Sometimes there are cats, which is the case for this one. The two people gallery-sitting—one of which is the curator of the show—are incredibly friendly and we spend a lot of time just chatting and talking about the work. 

The work is fantastic in person. The curators ask me if I’m a painter, which is a very flattering assumption that I receive often. Sheepishly I tell them I’m a writer, and like always, they say that it’s a form of art too. 

I think I respect visual artists more than I do writers, honestly. They’re just spending a lot of money on materials, and sacrificing their physical bodies for this stuff, real tangible stuff. I’m just typing on my phone. Even as a poet, I think painters have us beat in terms of Romance. Just by a hair. 

2:10PM - I hike back up to the station (-$2.90) to take the L into Manhattan to meet Elizabeth, the founder of the fine magazine you’re reading, and another potential collaborator, Ant, at Ludlow House. 

I get nervous outside of the entrance. It was Ant who invited us here and I’ve never been. The one time an art-world PR person took me to coffee at another one of these private clubs in Tribeca, they wouldn’t let me in. She had to come down and get me and it was kind of embarrassing. Luckily, I see Elizabeth walking down Ludlow in a perfect summery pin-striped shirt. We do a slow-motion run towards each other. Our names are at the door and we get welcomed in like we belong there. 

4PM - Our conversation over fresh mint tea energizes me. After, Elizabeth and I walk through a sun shower to Forgtmenot, where I get an egg sandwich and a house beer (-$23.41). Really, really good things are happening. 

6PM - After, I sweat at the East Broadway station for over half an hour waiting for the C home (-$2.90). I feel like no other train delays can hurt me for at least the next several weeks. Once I finally make it back and walk the dog, our block is maybe the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen since living here. The world looks like a color-graded movie. Unreal: the sky’s pastel blue split into the windows of buildings, the brick and brownstone oranger than usual, purples and reds and neon greens arranged in complementary perfection. It stuns me. A fitting end to what, in the end, was an abnormally sublime week. 

Income: +$0

Spending: -$41.59

Since it’s the beginning of the month, I should add that I have a few subscriptions come out this week. They include:

A podcast editing app that I need to cancel...I used it once to cut out all of the “ums” and “likes” out of a spontaneous recording I did with my brother last month:- $15.00

A subscription to Eliza McLamb’s divine substack: -$4.90

Rocket money, which I never use except to occasionally cancel other subscriptions I never use: -$3.27

Haley Nahman’s substack: -$5.00

Spotify, which I need to get the student discount version of ASAP: -$11.99

Summary

Spending (with subscriptions): -$380.02

Income: +$830.00

EOW checking: $1,077.98

Kate Meadows is a poet, essayist, and arts writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has recently appeared in Small Orange, Cola Literary Review, ellipsis..., Little Mirror, and Annulet Poetics. She is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at Hunter College and a 2024 Brooklyn Poets mentee. She serves as the co-editor of Working Artist Magazine.