The Money Fit Show · Season 2, Episode 15
Looking Beyond the Difficult Moment
Creative careers can involve unstable income, rejection, contract work, and long stretches when the next opportunity is uncertain. Jon DiSavino joins Todd Christensen to discuss his years as a young actor, changing priorities after becoming a father, building a more stable financial foundation, and eventually returning to creative work after retirement.
Seeing beyond the financial problem in front of you
Play Season 2, Episode 15 directly through Spotify without leaving Money Fit.
A difficult financial season does not have to define the rest of your life
Jon DiSavino describes pursuing acting as a young adult, when income could be irregular and the next job was never guaranteed. Like many performers, he had to navigate the financial reality of moving between paid work, auditions, unemployment, and other jobs.
His priorities shifted after becoming a father. Jon chose to place greater emphasis on stability and providing for his family, even though his interest in acting and creative work never disappeared.
After retiring from his day job, he returned more fully to acting, narration, directing, and podcasting. His story illustrates how a career can change shape over decades without requiring someone to abandon the interests that mattered earlier in life.
Topics covered in this episode
- The origins of Jon's interest in acting, theater, and performing.
- Why actors can function as a combination of freelancers, independent contractors, employees, and small business operators depending on the work.
- Managing the instability of income while pursuing acting as a young adult.
- The role unemployment benefits sometimes played between acting jobs and other periods of paid work.
- Changing attitudes about whether personal finance should be treated as a private subject or taught more openly in schools.
- How becoming a father changed Jon's financial priorities and increased his focus on providing stability for his family.
- Dealing with repeated rejection as part of an acting career without allowing each unsuccessful audition to become a verdict on the future.
- How union acting work, contracts, and intermittent paychecks shaped the financial experience of working as a performer.
- What Jon would tell his 18-year-old self about money, work, and the financial choices he would face later.
- Jon's memory of walking around Manhattan at age 24 looking for work during a particularly difficult period.
- Looking beyond the immediate moment when unemployment, rejection, isolation, or financial uncertainty makes the future difficult to imagine.
- Maintaining the determination to continue building a life even when the next opportunity is not obvious.
- Building a personal and creative identity after retiring from a more traditional day job.
- Using Short Story Today to connect with emerging writers and create a platform that helps other creative people share their work.
- The practical role that maintaining strong credit played at different points in Jon's financial life.
Build financial flexibility when your income is unpredictable
Irregular income makes cash reserves especially valuable. When earnings vary from month to month, separate regular household expenses from occasional expenses, know the minimum amount needed to operate the household, and use stronger income months to prepare for weaker ones instead of assuming every month will look the same.
Jon's creative work and Money Fit education
Jon continues to host Short Story Today, where emerging writers are interviewed and their work is professionally performed. Money Fit's financial education resources can also help households build stronger everyday money habits when income or employment changes.
Jon DiSavino
Jon DiSavino joined Todd Christensen to discuss the financial realities that accompanied his pursuit of acting, the career changes he made after becoming a father, and his eventual return to creative work after retirement.
Jon continues to work as an actor, stage director, voice artist, audiobook narrator, and host of Short Story Today, a podcast featuring interviews and performances of work by emerging short-story writers.
