Angela Bryant: 0:08

Welcome, I'm Angela Bryant and you're listening to The Angel Rated Show, where we have inspiring conversations with the people behind the products and services most often used by online business owners. On the show, you'll hear how their personal beliefs and values have influenced their businesses. If you're an online entrepreneur who wants to know about the integrity and impact of the businesses you're buying from, then this is the show for you. Welcome to this episode of The Angel Rated Show. I'm Angela Bryant and with me today, I have Eowyn Levene. Eowyn helps self employed creatives, artists and healers, make friends with money, so it can be a solid foundation for their life instead of a big energy drain. So welcome, Eowyn.

Eowyn Levene: 0:54

Thank you.

Angela Bryant: 0:55

You're very welcome. Do you want to start by telling us a bit about yourself and your business?

Eowyn Levene: 1:01

Yes, I'm coming to you from Manhattan, New York City despite being a country bumpkin at heart. I am settled in here with my spouse who's a classical musician, a couple of cats, and I run a solo massage practice, which I've been doing for nine plus years. And I am about a year into a new business that's parallel to that business, which is, as you said, helping creative folks, especially those who work for themselves get better with money. I also have a podcast called Creatives Do Money I'm all about on the nose like my business is Plum Tree Money, the podcast is Creatives Do Money, no circumspection here. So yeah, in that podcast, I have some solo episodes, which so far have really just been introducing folks to the kind of grounding practices of what does it look like to just handle your money on a day to day basis, especially when your income varies. And things can be a bit chaotic, just as a result of owning your own business. And then I've also been having a series of really wonderful, honest conversations with self employed creatives about what money looks like in their life, some about their money, story, and so on, and just introducing some quote unquote experts and sharing some of that as well. And it's been a lot of fun.

Angela Bryant: 2:19

Fantastic. Sounds like you're Yeah, this is a real journey that you're going to be going on with these creatives as well.

Eowyn Levene: 2:25

Yeah, that's my interest. You know, money work. Working on your finances is one of those core parts of life, like caring for your physical health or for your mental health is just an integral part of life. So there is no like, take a three month course about money and then be done with it. I mean, yes, sure. Take a three month course about money if you want to do that. And that feels right for you. But then the work continues for the rest of our life. So it really is a lifelong journey together. Absolutely.

Angela Bryant: 2:54

Do you want to tell us a bit more about the sort of why behind your business and why you started it?

Eowyn Levene: 2:59

Yeah, I have a few elements of the why. The moment that is most poignant for me is a moment when I was looking through my mother's things after she died of cancer about seven years ago. I found that this little folded up $100 bill in her wallets, and realized I had seen it years before she had asked me to grab something for her. And it gave me pause specifically because that $100 bill was the sum total of her financial legacy. I have no judgment around financial legacy. I don't think people should die handing off a bunch of money to their children and that is better than dying with$100 bill in your wallet. It was poignant because I knew she wanted something different for herself. That wasn't enough for what she wanted for her life. She wanted the freedom that would have come with having more money in her life. And that really stayed with me this feeling that getting good with money in my life, making money tending to money and giving money and doing what I want to do according to my values, is it feels like living out what my female ancestors in particular weren't able to do. So that's something I carry with me daily, I literally still have that $100 bill in my wallet it sits with me. I also have personally experienced kind of hitting my rock bottom moment in finances I've always been a good saver but for years was trying to get out of credit card debt and just never managed there was it always just crept up again. I would save money a big expense would come along and then suddenly I was in debt again. And I had kind of alright that's it never again moment that's several years ago and really dove into personal finance and handling my money. And within eight months of taking it really seriously and being very intentional about it. Everything had changed my net worth had increased by 32% while my income stayed the same. And I it just I had like that like mind explosion emoji moment. I was like, Huh, this makes a real difference. I'm making the same amount of money. The income is just as variable as it was before. But this, this is awesome, honestly. And I started to really enjoy handling my money and just feel really confident around it. And when a pandemic hit, and I saw how many folks who are in the arts or creative industries, of course those, you know, revolving around in person gathering, just how deeply impacted they were, and unready for catastrophe. And of course, nobody hopes a catastrophe, but part of getting good with money as preparing for catastrophe and kind of having a comprehensive sense of how to handle things. So you can do that. And it was just a wake up moment. For me, I feel like there's an area that I could really be helpful. creatives and healers and artists are my people like my parents, my spouse, all of my dearest loved ones, like everybody lives in this world. And yeah, my dearest wish is that those who create beautiful things in the world can have this foundation of confidence around money.

Angela Bryant: 6:02

I love that story about the $100 bill, and your mom just really resonated completely I can imagine it.

Eowyn Levene: 6:10

And there's such a there's such a you know, of course, like the core tenet, that money isn't everything. Of course, money isn't everything. Money isn't anything on a certain level. My mother lived an adventurous well loved incredible life. But there was this this Yeah, this area. Yeah.

Angela Bryant: 6:33

And as you say, it's so true for so many creatives and artists that they have that mentality that either they shouldn't be making money, or there's something wrong with making money or, yeah, and if you're living in that, something that doesn't have a steady paycheck, then obviously that makes it all that much harder when something like a pandemic hits. I mean, that's

Eowyn Levene: 6:53

Yeah, it's like a match made in hell, you know, if you have progressive carrying values, often you're just kind of ignoring the money side of things, because it's too related to the damage that we see in the world done by capitalism. and combine that with variable income, and it's a match made in hell.

Angela Bryant: 7:12

Yeah, great. Yeah. That's a great phrase. Yeah. Really, I can imagine why so many people get into that mindset and how difficult it is to shift some of, and they say, some of those thoughts and feelings. So what sort of legacy Do you want to create with this business? What are you aiming to do with it over the coming years? Yeah,

Eowyn Levene: 7:31

The dream that I have nurtured and carried with me now for a really long time. I don't even know how long it is maybe 1617 years. I am very passionate about regenerative agriculture and sustainability. And I've always dreamed of stewarding not necessarily owning, but stewarding a piece of property and really seeing what can be done through working on that land to increase its resilience increase its diversity and give back in a way that a lot of humans activity on the earth is very extractive. So to try and do my part to balance that out. But it's a big dream, and it involves a lot of money. And being a massage therapist in New York City does not equal a lot of money. And so yeah, I my body is feeling ready to end massage therapy. But my big dreams are also feeling ready for more money flowing through my life.

Angela Bryant: 8:31

It sounds like that's a Yeah, that's a big why that real pull forwards to help you think about where you want to take this business in the future.

Eowyn Levene: 8:38

Yeah, and there's a lot of adjunct kind of elements that want to play in, I think 10 years ago, my vision was quite ignorant of, I guess, accessibility to experiences such as owning land and living on property. And as I've educated myself about privilege, and just the challenges of being a human being in the States, if you're not one of the lucky, privileged few, I've kind of Yeah, I've adjusted my understanding of what it would look like to do the work that I envision, but that core tenet of regenerating land remains.

Angela Bryant: 9:12

So how does your current business and working you know with the creatives move you towards that? Is it do you want to do something with the land that links to the creatives or is it are they to sort of is one the big vision and one's just your way of getting there?

Eowyn Levene: 9:28

It's both Yeah, it's both. I mentioned very briefly that my spouse is a musician and so he has a little bit of a co dream which is to host artist and musician residences and have recording a recording studio on land and yeah, a while I value my personal time and my quiet time. I love having people around me I have lived in intentional communities and the image of opening up property to people to come and visit and spend time and do their work and benefit from the environment is definitely an exciting piece of doing it. Yeah.

Angela Bryant: 10:07

Amazing. So tell me a bit more about what your your I mean, there's quite a fledgling business, but what have you been doing in terms of responding to some of the issues that we have going on in the world at the moment?

Eowyn Levene: 10:18

Yeah, in all honesty, I've been doing some poking around, and some testing and trying to, you know, I know what made an impact in my life. And I know what's made an impact and those close to me. So I've been going through a process of noticing that there is a lot of information online about how to handle your business finances, if you're a creative, and if you're self employed, but much less so how to handle your personal finances, most personal finance information out there is a lot of like old white men telling you to like put your savings on autopilot, and, you know, retire with a boat, in your lake house, or whatever the cliche might be. So I've been spending some time just observing where those gaps are, and realizing that focusing on handling your personal finances, when you have variable income is a big part of it. And also just getting clear, like what what are those kind of ideological blocks that exist for folks? And, yeah, just identifying that, you know, anti capitalist leanings, and, you know, social justice, commitment, those things, noticing how those things get bundled together with a rejection of spreadsheets, and using a budget and all kinds of like conventional finance speak, which can be super offputting let to let alone just make people want to run and scream.

Angela Bryant: 11:45

So obviously, there's sort of you can have that combination of being committed to social justice, and still loving a spreadsheet and being all over finances and money, and they can go together.

Eowyn Levene: 11:58

So yes, not only are they not mutually exclusive, when you get better with money, you have more money available to you to do whatever the heck you want to do in the world. And the world does not benefit when you suffer and you can't pay your rent, and you can't have adequate health care. Nobody benefits like nobody's life gets better, because you can't pay your rent on time. And I think getting to the point where you understand that the more money you make, and the better you are with your money, because Lord knows how much you make does not equal how much you have to give to others and do what you want to do in the world. So the better you get with all of that, the more impact you can have.

Angela Bryant: 12:40

Absolutely the bit yeah, you you don't have to read that. Subscribe to the suffering artist and think about those things. You can change that mindset to really see money not as being evil or something awful, but something that you can actually really do good with.

Eowyn Levene: 12:55

Someone who I really look to around that question is the author Elizabeth Gilbert. So she of course wrote Eat Pray Love that many know, for but she's also just an exquisite novelist. Her fiction is really beautiful. And she also has the book I'm now named, I'm like blanking on the name about creativity, Big Magic. There we go. So and in Big Magic, she really makes a point to outline the fact that she has always had day jobs. She was like raking in the dough from Eat, Pray, Love, before she considered finally giving up the businesses that she had that gave her the income and it wasn't necessarily out of scarcity mindset, it was simply that she she had built strong financial foundations for her life, even like in her teens and 20s of just realizing that handling her money and being good with money and making money was completely independent from her work. And clearly she is prolific. She's highly active in social justice and queer rights and you know, just doing all the things and being an artist and being really good with money.

Angela Bryant: 14:09

Yeah, I love it and I love that book. Yeah, the main I know, right really good work. So is there is your Do you or do your business support any charities? Do you How have other impacts that your business have on, you know, some of these issues that are happening?

Eowyn Levene: 14:23

Yeah, so I'm not doing at the moment, actually, literally, because of the pandemic. I've been unable to list or register a DBA or register an LLC in New York State. So I'm just a sole proprietorship. And so all of the giving that I do regularly happens personally, through my personal money. And I have three categories of regular donating that I do every month, so I donate to some Patreon accounts of artists and writers who work whose work means a lot to me. I have a monthly donation that to something called savory global, which is dedicated to educating farmers around pasture management and regeneration of land through using grazing animals, which to the vegans listening to this or watching this is going to raise a ton of red flags, in which case, I just encourage a deep breath and maybe looking into some of the work, but it's powerful and impactful. And not all land is arable in the sense that you can grow soybeans or grains or vegetables on, there's a ton of the world's land that isn't available for that kind of growing. And it's very meaningful to look at the impact of grazing animals on regenerating soil as the health of the topsoil is actually what allows us to grow food and clothing and anything else we want to grow on the land. So that's a long side note. And there's a lot more to be said there. But I donate to savory global. And then I also donate to an organization dedicated to ending for profit prisons here in the States. I don't know if you have for profit prisons in the UK, but they are god awful. I mean, there's so many things one can point to you. But for profit prisons, or like advertising medications on television, like some of these insanity is just unique to the United States. And they just, they just need to end nobody should be making a profit through putting brown people in shackles. And so I donate to them as well. Yeah, those are the three main categories of my regular donations. And then other things come in here and there if there's a political campaign or something else comes up.

Angela Bryant: 16:41

So for people that aren't aware of Patreon, do you want to just explain a bit about what other people could do if they're interested in how to support artists that are out there that they love?

Eowyn Levene: 16:50

Yeah, yeah. So I, I really love Patreon. It's a tech platform that allows artists and creators to charge some monthly fee. Usually, there's a bunch of different tiers that people engage could be YouTubers, writers, visual artists, musicians, a lot of people use it. And it's a way for individuals to directly support the artist without going through other avenues where various large corporations are siphoning out much, siphoning off much of their work. I mean, a perfect example is Spotify, which is a way so many people consume music content, or podcast content as well. And I know musician who posted on Twitter one time 36,000 plays on Spotify $17 in my bank account, or something along those lines, it could have been even less than $17, they get paid almost nothing for Spotify to get rich from their incredible creations. So what you can do is you can look at the name of the person whose music you love, you go to their Patreon, you sign up for$5 a month, you might get an extra video, or maybe a reflection on their part, like they can offer a wide variety of different quote unquote, perks for being there. As far as I'm concerned, my main interest is just to be like, Hey, I love what you do. I'm giving you a little bit of money every month, it means a lot to me. Yeah, it's been, I think, revolutionary for a lot of creatives who live now when so many people expect all this incredible content to just appear for free for them, which it often does.

Angela Bryant: 18:22

Yeah, it's a great solution. And I think there's quite a few other things out there now, like, buy me a coffee or similar things. Yeah, people are having on their various social media profiles. So you can just Yeah, buy them a coffee just do something nice and support people who are creating all this wonderful art that we consume.

Eowyn Levene: 18:40

Yeah. And I feel like it's also it's a very concrete way of kind of waking people up to the meaning of the arts and creative people. Like we just take it for granted. We see it in architecture, we see it in advertising, like we see in all these ways where it's just presented to us without us having to consciously engage and realize there's a human being behind there with a huge amount of training and all of this work and all of this, like just cool stuff going on. And it kind of wakes you up. It's like oh, yeah, there's a human being that they also deserve to make a living the way someone who has a quote unquote job does.

Angela Bryant: 19:15

Absolutely. And I think the other thing that the pandemic has shown is just how much we miss those sort of creative outlets when they suddenly all get shut down and taken away from us. And we have no theatres, and we have no live concert. Yeah, anything else going on?

Eowyn Levene: 19:29

I one of the amazing things about living in New York City is the sheer mass of talent that resides here. And during the pandemic, a lot of musicians have just played on the streets and more than once I've just stopped with tears streaming down my face, just missing it so much. You know, there's a jazz musician who plays at the farmers market where my massage office is and yeah, whenever I can I stop and listen and give him some money. And I'm just like, Yeah, when are we going to be able to just gather together again, and have these common experiences that are just transformative and moving?

Angela Bryant: 20:05

Yes, I love that. Or funny and irreverent. Like, whatever the thing is, you know, but yeah, any Yeah, the whole any any thought and culture and so is there anything else that you've not mentioned that would that is sort of part of your worldview or your personal values that you've that you'd be willing to share?

Eowyn Levene: 20:26

Well, I feel like I haven't really talked very much about the money stuff. And I'd like to just share that I've, I've slowly over the years, realize that handling your finances, and being intentional with managing your money is really a personal practice. It is something that you can do to attend to yourself every day, like stretching or drinking enough water or eating food that feels good in your body. Like that act of checking your bank balances recording the things you want to record looking ahead for next week or two and saying, alright, what's coming up? What do I want? What do I need to do? How much money do I need to reserve to make sure I'm taking care of things, not putting things on a credit card, like that process, while it can sound really prosaic, it is profound. And it's a way of deeply caring for your future self in just the same way as caring for your body or your mental health. So I just really like to underline that because the work itself can I mean, I suppose it's equivalent to going to the gym and just sweating and doing your reps and like just being over it. But you don't necessarily have like the neurotransmitter rewards that you get when you go to the gym. So once you've made yourself go to the gym, like nobody regrets a workout, once they've done it, you don't get that same like visceral hit, when you do like when you tend to your finances. But nonetheless, it's the same kind of practice, like you just you do the work, once you learn it, and you get good at it and you create those habits. Doesn't take a ton of time. But the impact on your future self is pretty rad. people even say rod anymore, I don't know, probably like the 80s in the 90s. So

Angela Bryant: 22:12

yeah, absolutely me too. And I think I mean, just thinking about some of those things. Some there's so many new, sort of, especially in the UK, we're getting so many new bank accounts now or sort of banking institutions, which have really modernizing what you can do and what you can track and how easily you can categorize everything that you're spending. And I'm sure if they're not already doing it, it will become more gamified it will become it will use a lot of this, you know, positive reward psychology going forwards? Because Yeah, you can just see how that's going to start happening with some of the new tech. Yes,

Eowyn Levene: 22:46

yeah, more and more. So although I will just provide a word of caution, which That in itself can be something that the folks that I work with become resistant to as well, this idea that there's always another app and always another tech solution for something in our day to day life. And then your phone suddenly has 58 different apps on it, and you can't find anything. And then how do you use that program anyway. And now I have to take it whole course so they can learn QuickBooks. And so I will say that if using apps and software fits for you and your personality and your natural strengths, awesome, like use it all. But you also can just use a pen and paper and have a highly functional system or just a simple spreadsheet. So I will just say that folks need to find what fits them best. Although one note just on what you're pointing to is online banking, and the ability to have multiple different accounts within one institution without paying extra fees like that is huge. Like just to be able to like categorize your pots of money. It can be one of the ways that you motivate yourself over time as you build up your savings or whatever you're doing. Yeah.

Angela Bryant: 23:56

Yeah, juicy really is because it's I yeah, I am one of those people that has always you know, love money and I you know, quite enjoy counting money or looking understanding how and I love spreadsheets. So you know, yeah, all good with that. But yeah, we've all got these buried mindset issues or concerns or worries or things that don't work quite right or the parts of it that we're scared of, or definitely we haven't done before. So it's all good. Yeah. and unpack

Eowyn Levene: 24:26

Well, and the world that we live on the world that we live in points towards never feeling like you have enough or you are enough, especially if you're socialized as a woman. And that just gets mixed in with financial stuff, this feeling of like needing more more more or feeling like you lack capacity or it's just too much of a mess. You're never going to be good about and good enough and if someone sees your mess, then they're going to hate you or judge you whatever there's Yeah, there's just a lot of around it. previous podcast guest of mine. kJ Natural, she said that Money is charged and tender. And I take that with me. I think she summarized it so well.

Angela Bryant: 25:06

So much judgment on ourselves. And

Eowyn Levene: 25:10

yes, yeah. Well, we tend to judge others in equal proportion to how much we judge ourselves. So yeah.

Angela Bryant: 25:17

So before we wrap up, do you want to just tell us something more about you personally, your you know, what, what are things that you enjoy doing? Apart from obviously, going out to theater and art and music? Yeah, where's your hobbies and pastimes heading?

Eowyn Levene: 25:35

Yeah, so my dear loves at the moment, I will say that I am someone with a lot of interests and a lot of kind of simmering kind of areas that I might tend to in a given year and others not. But persistent loves gardening, I have a 10 foot by 12 foot garden bed in State Park, that's a few blocks from me. And so I'm carefully growing some flowers for the second year in a row. And that gives me a lot of joy, and sort of nurtures that long term dream of living and working on land. And I'm also a slow runner and really love moving my body. And there's actually for anyone else who's like, in middle age and living in a fat body and wants to be a runner, there are so many cool resources out there not least there's a Facebook group called fat girl running and there is a podcast, not your average runner. And so there's all these amazing resources. So like, I don't know, six or seven years ago, I decided I wanted to learn how to run so I love being a slow runner. And yeah, spending time with friends, people who I love, and giving them hugs.

Angela Bryant: 26:44

Oh, one day, one day soon, I'm sure we'll get to that point. Yeah, that's such a fantastic conversation. I'm really, yeah, I really love what you're doing. And it sounds like it's incredibly needed. And we, our whole entire culture, and society is so much poorer as a society, both financially and emotionally and everything else if we don't have those artists, and creatives and makers and doers in it, and we need to do everything we can to lift them up and get them thinking about these things and doing everything they can to not be struggling to make ends meet. Yeah. Do you want to just finish by telling us a bit more about where people can find you your services?

Eowyn Levene: 27:29

Yeah, best place to find me as my website plum tree money.com. I have a PDF download if people are interested. It's called three simple steps to improve your finances even when your money is a mess. And of course the podcast Creatives Do Money if folks like listening to podcasts I am on Instagram, although a little ambivalently so but I'm there for all of the genuine like genuine relationship building. I'm there for it all of the distraction and the comparison. It is not so much. So I'm there sometimes. And other times I'm not there, I will say but yeah.

Angela Bryant: 28:05

Amazing. Well, thank you ever so much for joining us. So Eowyn. And so for everyone else if you you can read the show notes from this episode. To do that you go to Angel rated.com/podcast. And if you enjoyed this podcast, I'd love you to subscribe to the show. And leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. And don't forget to share this episode with your online business friends especially all those creatives and artists and makers out there. The Angel Rated Show is brought to you by Angel Rated the independent directory and review site for all the products courses and services used by online business owners. It's the best place to find the perfect product for the next stage of your business or personal growth. Learn more and list your business free of charge at Angel rated.com