Money Advice from Kevin Bacon

Kevin Bacon recently wrote a guest essay for WealthSimple, titled Money is Hard for Creative People. Here is an excerpt:

"After high school, I moved to New York City. That’s what I did. I didn’t have anything lined up, and I started working in restaurants, first as a busboy, and then as a waiter. My relationship with money was very loose. I had no budget, no savings, no credit cards, and no bank accounts. I was a cash-only kind of guy. I’d get paid out at the end of the night, spend some of it at the bar, wake up the next day, and check my pockets to see how much money I had left. There was never a budget or any kind of longer-term financial plan. I’d make money, spend it, pay rent, spend more money, and hope that when the end of the month came around, I’d have enough to put up another month’s rent.

...My parents weren’t wealthy, and they didn’t really teach us much about money. We just kind of assumed we’d have enough to get by, and we always had food to eat. My dad was a pretty old guy, and after he retired, I remember him trying to figure out how to make money. He hadn’t planned for retirement. So, without much guidance, it took me a long time to come around to the idea that you have to have a kind of responsibility with money, to keep an eye on it. To a certain extent, I still kind of struggle with it.

My advice is for people to understand the basics—where their money is and how much is there. It’s tempting to hand off your finances and let someone else do all the work, to say to them, “Hey, you take care of it.” But it’s important to be watchful with investments and stay personally involved. You sometimes hear about an actor or musician whose business manager has walked away with millions of dollars that didn’t belong to them. I’ve learned to keep a closer eye. Understanding money may not be everyone’s idea of a good time, but it’s a necessary evil. If you’re a creative person who doesn’t understand money easily, you may not want to admit how essential it is. But ultimately if you stick your head in the sand, you’ll be sorry.


These days, I still like having cash in my hands—I never walk around with less than $200 or $300. In some ways, I’m still a cash-only guy, like I was in my restaurant days. There’s a kind of joy in seeing something in a store and being able to pull the cash out of your pocket and buy it for yourself..."

Read the full essay at WealthSimple.