Financial planning for a Hollywood strike

investmentnews.com:

For actors and screenwriters affected by the recent strikes against film and television studios, having a spending plan and an advisor could be the difference between survival and financial calamity.

They’ve already had a test run of an industrywide shutdown as a result of Covid, which clearly showed the importance of having several months’ to years’ worth of emergency savings.

“As terrible as Covid was, it was a little bit of a wake-up call for people who are in the performing and writing space,” said Julian Schubach, an advisor specializing in the entertainment industry, who works with about 100 households. Having peaks and valleys in their income is a reality for many writers and actors, just as with gig workers, and that requires different financial planning strategies than for folks with steady paychecks.

“We always work to try to come up with intelligent planning strategies, which are very different from the strategies used by people working in offices,” said Schubach, senior vice president of wealth management at ODI Financial. “Plan for tomorrow, today. We know what your income is today, but we don’t know what it will be in six months.”

The rates of 4.5% to 5% available recently in high-yield savings accounts have been an opportunity for clients to build up emergency funds, he noted.

Household names in Hollywood who are SAG-AFTRA union members, who went on strike starting Friday in support of a longer campaign by the Writers Guild of America, generally have big financial cushions, and less to worry about. But most writers, actors and support workers don’t have high levels of income.

Less than a third of WGA members report income in a given year, as most are usually between jobs, said Nick Jack Pappas, a TV writer